4th Grade December Newsletter

“Hot Cup of Cocoa"

This is the title of the song that the fourth graders will sing on Friday at 9:00 in the gym for the annual Holiday Sing-a-long.   The fourth graders have had fun singing this song, and it would be great to see you there!

We will be celebrating the holiday with a small party on Friday afternoon.   If you would like to send in some cookies or a box of Capri Sun drinks, that would be great!  Thank you!

Gift Ideas

Many of the fourth graders would benefit from the gift of new pencils, scissors, and colored pencils.  Please consider these items as gifts for our students.   Thanks!

Special Holiday Greetings From Mrs. Golay, Mrs. Harrington, Mrs. Haskell, and Mrs. Dow!

We sincerely wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Holiday.   We hope that your holiday is filled with special times and happiness.

                                      Holidays Stories

Our fourth graders are doing a great job writing holiday stories.  They are busy writing their ideas to help Santa or the snowman solve their untimely problems!  We’re seeing some very creative solutions!  We will be sharing them in class this week.  

Canned Food Drive!

The fourth graders did an amazing job showing their generosity and holiday spirit bringing in hundreds of cans and food items to share with those less fortunate.  Our students were so happy to give, and they experienced the wonderful feeling that we get by helping others share the spirit of the season.

Thank you for your help!

See you in January!!

State Representative Joe Gallegos Visits Free Orchard's 4th Graders

Last week we had an Oregon State Representative Gallegos visit our 4th grade.  He read the book Tomas and the Library Lady to the whole class. Representative Gallegos had a similar story to the Tomas in the book.  They both grew up in families that were migrant workers.  Tomas became a teacher.  Joe become a college professors and then a state representative.

We have just started learning how write a paragraph to compare and contrast topics.  Mr Gallegos' visit gave us a perfect lesson on how to compare two people looking at what these two men have in common.  We also explored what their differences are. We will be working on comparing and contrasting throughout the rest of this school year. Representative Gallegos visit was a perfect launch for this key skill that 4th graders need to learn.

Rep. Gallegos reads to all of the 4th grader

Students Start on Shoebox Speaches

Today we started a speech project.  Each student will be creating a speech that highlights who they are and what makes them unique.  They are to choose 4 facts about themselves and put those ideas together to create a 2-3 minutes speech.  The students have been asked to bring in 4 small items to share that go along with their speech.

For example, if a student is a dancer, they might bring in a dance shoe.  If they played soccer they could bring in a small trophy or soccer team shirt to show during their speech.   They could also bring in a photo or two or draw a picture of something that they like or someone they are close to.  Their items should fit into a shoebox or a small bag.

Below Mrs. Harrington has modeled a speech to give students an idea of what they could include in their own speech.  The next few days, when the kids have no school, would be a good time for the students create and practice their speeches.

The students started today putting their ideas in a graphic organizer and then worked on putting their introduction on an index card.  They will continue working on their cards and will be asked to take them home for homework over the holiday and conference break.

Students will practice their speeches at school as well.  They will partner up with a peer who will video them so they have an opportunity to self reflect and receive peer mentoring on how they can improve their presentation.

Superhero Day at Free Orchards

  Mrs. Harrington as "Bat Woman", Student Teacher Mr. J as Batman, and Mrs. Haskell as "Spider Lady".  Superheroes spiced up our day last Thursday.  Once a month we have a themed day at school. We had all sorts of heroes at school.

Learning to Write a Great Paragraph

Students use their right brain to reinforce left brain work on writing a great paragraph.

Writing Amazing Paragraphs…

Today we discussed how writers construct a paragraph. All of us contributed to our interactive notebooks. When the students get stuck in writing a paragraph they will be able to go back to their interactive notebook for a reference. We will continue to add more details on how to be great paragraph writers. 

This past week we have been working on learning how to find evidence from the text to support inferences we have found.  This REALLY puts all our brains to work.  The poster below is a tool that the students can use to help them articulate the evidence they have found in the text to support their ideas.  You too could use these sentence starters at home as your read together and interact over a book, article or magazine you may be reading.

                          

                                                                                                            

September 14, 2014

Dear Parents,

        

         Welcome back to school fourth graders! This year Mrs. Harrington, Mrs. Haskell, Mrs. Golay, and Mrs. Dow will be your child’s fourth grade teachers.  Mrs. Golay and Mrs. Dow will be job sharing and taking turns working two/three days a week teaching your child.  Mrs. Harrington will be teaching full time and co-teaching with Mrs. Haskell during Language Arts.  Together we have over 100 years of teaching experience. WOW!  Time sure flies when you are having fun! J  We love teaching at this beautiful school, and are looking forward to a great year. The Hillsboro School District provides many opportunities for learning, and we are anxious to get started. We know the fourth graders will share their knowledge and experience with each other as we share ours with them.  It will be very exciting to have all the fourth graders and their teachers work as a team. It is going to be a very productive year!

        

Parent Communication

         As you know, communication between the parents and teacher is very important.  We would like to relay some important information that we feel you should know.  Today your 4^th grade child will be bringing home an assignment organizer that includes a reading log form on the back.  This organizer will be filled out daily in school and will indicate your child’s homework tasks for the evening.  Parents will be asked to sign the reading log every evening, as well as the assignment organizer which we collect every Friday.  We would like students to read for 30 minutes every day.  It is our hope that this paper helps your child organize their homework and keeps you well informed regarding your child’s assignments.    More information will be coming.   Hopefully your child will hand this reading log to you today to be signed!

Every Monday we will send home a “Fox Report” (located directly below the reading log) in your child’s homework folder.  This report will detail any late or missing assignments from the previous week.  We will also include corrected assignments for you to keep at home.  Please return the signed “Fox Report” in the homework folder every Tuesday (beginning next week).  Students will keep a “Homework Folder” in their backpack where they will place their work.   We appreciate all of your efforts to help keep your child organized and on track.

 

Homework Policy

         The expectation is that students will spend about 40-60 minutes doing homework Monday through Thursday evenings.  An important part of the homework will be to read at home for at least 30 minutes every night.  Students should also expect a daily math assignment, daily spelling homework, and weekly writing homework.  Specifically, a writing assignment (called DSL:  Daily Student Language) is given out every Monday and due on Friday. 

 Spelling words are assigned on Monday and a test is given on Friday.  Students will be asked to write their words three times at home during the week.  We also recommend, but do not require, that parents give their child a practice test sometime during the week. Math assignments are given out each night and are due the following school day.  Please note that this is quite different from the third grade weekly packet; we are working hard to prepare your child for the intermediate grades with homework responsibility. 

Any other special assignments out of the normal routine (speeches, book reports, science projects) will be noted on the assignment organizer as well.

Supply Information

         A basic supply list was sent home so that students could prepare for school.  Please make sure that your child has all of the supplies that they need.  As the year progresses, they will need occasional replenishments.  We have especially found students definitely need more pencils.  Also, any extra Kleenex boxes are greatly appreciated as we are typically out of our classroom stash by January!   In addition, a small pencil sharpener may come in very handy.  Please note that we are asking students NOT to bring  3-ring binders, gel pens, or mechanical pencils to school.  These are difficult to fit in their desks with all the other items, and the pens/pencils become a distraction.   Thank you for your help with this!

  Please feel free to call or e-mail us with any questions or concerns that you might have.  We are looking forward to a great year!

                                                     
Sincerely,

                                                                                                  
 Kim Harrington, Holly Haskell, Diane Dow, and Jill Golay

P.S. We love having parent helpers in school!  Please fill out the attached to indicate if you are able to help during the year. (Some parents received this at the Meet the Teachers time.)   Thanks!

Email:       dowd@hsd.k12.or.us                         golayj@hsd.k12.or.us    

                  harringk@hsd.k12.or.us                    haskellh@hsd.k12.or.us

Free Orchards phone:  503-844-1140

Mrs. Harrington's class participated in the "sharing circle" the first week of school to facilitate getting to know each other.  As the "talking stick" was passed to each student they had the opportunity to share the highlight of their summer.  Highlights included trips to museums, lots of camping, trips to the Oregon Coast, getting up at 4:30 AM each morning, and much more.

Our school website is getting updated this year with the generous help of a parent volunteer.  At present it is "under construction" but it will soon have important information regarding Free Orchards.  Check it out... Here is the link Free Orchards Elementary Website

               Mrs. Golay, Mrs. Dow, Mrs. Haskell, Mrs. Harrington


Welcome to the 2015-16 school year.  As a team of teachers we are excited and ready to be a part of the learning and growing of all the 4th graders attending Free Orchards.  We have a great year planned.  We will be using this blog to communicate what's coming up and report on what we have been doing to promote life long learning for our students.  Be checking for regular updates.
You can find us at The 4th Grade Buzz.