Angelville News January 30- February 3, 2012

BON DIA

WEEK 20

THANK YOU to all of the parents who helped make our Open House a success! It was wonderful to see so many faces on a Sunday!

*This week Genevieve is our ROCK STAR!!

This week is Catholic Schools Week! Each day will be a special dress-up day as most of you already know.

Monday - Cozy Day - making Valentines Cards for the seniors in our Church community.

Tuesday - uniform for mass - 9:30 "Day of Service" in the Family Center. Please come out and watch our performances that K-4 will be presenting to the Seniors in our church community. All parents are welcome. The 3/4 classes will be doing Readers Theatre, some of the younger grades will be singing.

Wednesday - Mix Match day

Thursday - Sports Day

Friday - Blue and White day - Teacher/8th grade basketball game at 2pm. It will be worth a watch.

READING - This week in reading we are working on Readers Theatre. Each student has a part in one of our plays. They will preform two of these plays to the senior community tomorrow in the Family Center. All are welcome to attend, aprox, 9:30am.

WRITING - In WW this week we will work on becoming Essayists.

RELIGION - Service toward others.

MATH - The triangles will take their Fractions test on Wednesday. It kept getting pushed back due to interruptions in our schedule. Hoping it will finally take place this week.

SPELLING/GRAMMAR - we will continue with our adjective practice and have a mini quiz on Friday. Spelling this week are occupations.

Have a Super Week!!!

GUM WALL-----BIG HIT

Our Tour of the GUM WALL must have been the hot topic of the day! Some chewed to add to the wall, while others wanted to touch the wall, and still others sat back in AWWH at how sick it was. Might not be my taste for ART, but Art none the less.

I think my favorite picture of the day was Maya putting her gum up with her brightly colored rain coat to boot. She could have been part of that wall. FUN TIMES!!!

Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market was a big hit yesterday! I have not been in some time and had a ball. Wish I could have done some kind of walking/eating tour! Great Day! A huge THANKS to all of the parents who came out for such a special day:)

One hit of the day I think was when the Fish Monger was flying squid to the students. He eased my mind knowing he was not going to sell that squid to any patrons. PHEW!!

Religious Leader Collage

What the students need for their collage in art on Wednesday, January 25.

Religion Assignment

A Follow up to studying about Martin Luther King Jr and his peaceful fight for justice and equality for all humans is an assignment we will be working on this week. We will display this assignment on our board outside in the hall for our Open House this Sunday from 11:30-1:00pm. Open House is designed for all new perspective parents looking at sending their student(s) to St. Alphonsus.

Each student is researching a Religious individual who spent his or her life in peaceful pursuit for justice and equality for all humans. I handed out a guide of questions for each student to be looking for as they research their Religious individual. After the research is complete and all information has been gathered each student will create a collogue of their Religious person or Icon. Students may work on this at home as well, especially if they are having difficulty finding the information. I will help as best I can with 19 students on computers in the classroom at one time.

Angelville News January 23-27

BON DIA

Week 18

*WOW! What a week! I don't think any of us thought we would be out of school that long. Hope everyone enjoyed the snow, sledding, walking to and fro, and best of all staying up late. Here are a few pictures from my neck of the woods.

*This week we have a very exciting Field Trip to Pike Place Market. This Thursday the 26. We will be taking the metro bus to the market so if you have not already brought in your permission form and money of $1.25 please do so. *The students need to bring a sack lunch and drink. *We need to make sure that all of our students are dressed warm, as it looks now it will be raining. *I ask that the students not bring money to the market, this will only take away from the tour and the real meaning of being in the market, and can cause headaches for the chaperone's. If you plan on chaperoning please be in my room by 9am on Thursday.

The Academic schedule will pick up where we left off last week. You can review my blog from last week we to see what we will be doing this week.

Today, I hope you all enjoy the SUN!!

Angelville Newsletter January 17-20

BON DIA

Week 18

*LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!!! Yes that is what we are saying here in 3/4 West. When the snow started coming down today we all got so excited. Something about snow that is so magical, sledding, slurping soup, drinking cocoa, and much much more. Enjoy hanging at home if we do get the storm that they are predicting.

Last week we had many wonderful lessons from our Korean teacher about their culture and dress and what it is like to be a student there. I will post some of the picture of their traditional dress called Han-bok! We laughed ourselves silly last Friday!

This weeks schedule and materials covered all depends on having school. It was tough to begin anything new today with so many students our of school.

Planned :

SS- Pike Place Market Lessons

Religion - Steps to Respect

Math (4) - Fractions/Decimals - probably fraction test for the triangles early next week.

WW- Growing our personal narrative seed stories in to becoming ESSAYISTS!

RW- Re-testing reading levels. I sent home where each of your students are at in their reading level and some book ideas, with ways in which they can move on to the next reading level.

Science - Volume

Enjoy your week!!

Math/Social Studies for 1/11/12

After giving my 4th graders their weekly 'check points' (I give these weekly on Wednesday to check to see if the students have retained math strategies we have already studied, checking for mastery in certain areas of math within the unit of study that we are currently working in, which is fractions/decimals) I have learned that most of them have not mastered problem solving strategies where they need to create a pie graph to solve these problems. I am sending home an extra practice sheet tonight for most of them to work on.

*Today their Studies Weekly #

12 Worksheet will also go home as homework since we are getting out of school an hour early and will not have time in class to complete this assignment.

Angelville News January 9-16

BON DIA

Week 17

Happy Week everyone! I apologize for the late post, my Monday was a bit hectic. I want to introduce an exchange teacher who will be with us for the next few weeks. Ms. Choi Young Ok is from Korea. She is also a 4th grade teacher there. She will be observing in our classroom and teaching a few lessons on Korean culture and traditions. If you happen to see her around campus please introduce yourself to her.

ROCK STAR! Leo was our rock star last week. I had the opportunity over break to listen to the Northwest Boys Chior preform their Christmas concert, and best part of all was that our very own Leo is a member of this Chior. Look closely to find Leo in the picture. Leo you were GREAT!

Friday we will have our monthly prayer service. This week the 3/4 East students are conducting the srevice on the life of MLK Jr. In Religion this week we will focus on his life as well. We will read a series of childrens literature stories and do some writing based on his dreams and all of the wonderful things he did to protest peacefully for rights and justice for all man kind.

Today I am sending home a Field Trip form to go to Pike Place Market on January 26th. In SS we are reading about Washington's Economics and how Washington uses is resources to make money. We enjoyed a neat presentation from an administrator from Pike Place market who presented the students with the history of the market and how it all came to be. For the next few weeks we will use Pike Place curriculum to study about our Seattle community. Should be very fun!

In writiers workshop we will do some writing and research based on the life of MLK. Later in the week we will begin to have minilessons on "Breathing life into Essay's". Which is our Writers Workshop Theme this month.

In Readers Workshop we are focusing on walking beside our characters and understanding EMPATHY for our characters. We feel empathy when we read because often in our lives we can relate to one thing or another that a character is going through since we may have had that same experience or know someone who has. As we read we play mental movies in our minds. As we read further in our texts, those mental movies may change as we gather new information about our characters. I will also be working with the students as to how they can challenge themselves to move up in reading levels.

In science we continue with the FOSS kit, metric unit. As soon as we get a nice day we will head out into the garden to clean it up and prepare it for Spring planting.

*Thursday the Spelling students will take a test on NOUNS/PRONOUNS>

Have a great week!!

Angelville News, January 3-6th 2012

Bon Dia,

Week 16

WOW! SO hard to believe that we are now writing 2012! HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a wonderful vacation and I look forward to a Year full of heath and happiness for each and everyone of you. I enjoyed some time with my family on the Washington Coast!

*Thursday, Jan. 5 we will have a visitor from Pike Place Market coming in to speak to all of the 3/4 students. We begin our unit on Economics is Social Studies. Towards the end of the month we will enjoy a Field Trip to Pike Place Market.

*Friday, Jan 6 is a non-uniform dress day, it is also the school 4-8th grade Geography Bee. Our 4th grade representative from our room is Arjun Thoman (WAY TO GO ARJUN!). This will begin at 2pm in the auditorium for those who would like to come and support Arjun.

*FYI- there was some mis-communication or lack of communication, and any parent that may want to have their student tested in the MSL program the testing fee is now $300 dollars, it is no longer covered by the school. I apologize if this information was not send to any parents who have recently had their child tested.

In our Writers Workshop this month we will begin a unit on Essay writing. In Readers Workshop we will continue to re-test students with new Just Right Books. I will also be meeting with all of the students one on one to discuss their books with them in mini-conferences.

In Science we will continue to work on our metric unit, and hopes to spend some time in the garden, cleaning up and getting ready for early Spring. This next week we will be getting some salmon eggs which will go into the the science room into the fish tank. We will watch the salmon hatch into alvin, and when they become "fry" we will return them to Carkeek park into Pipers Creek. This will be another field trip down the road.

In math we continue in 4th grade to work in our Fractions/Decimal unit. On Thursday the hexagons will be taking a fractions test. The triangles will take this test the following week.

We will have a spelling test this Friday. In spelling we are also working on pronouns. There will be a noun/pronoun test next week for all of the students who stay with me for spelling.

Have a great short week!