December 10th Parent News

4^th Grade News

The 4^th graders have been working hard to finish up work before the holiday break arrives. We are finishing books, starting new books, and gaining more knowledge along the way! Students have been exploring sound in science, gathering information by using PVC pipes to play musical tunes. They are doing algebra in math by finding the missing number or variable in multiplication and division problems. With all these great skills the students are learning in the core subjects, students are also having fun too! They performed an amazing concert for us on Thursday evening for music, creating a “surprise” for you, as parents, in art, and also developing teamwork skills in PE! However, the Winter Break is fast approaching so please make sure that your son/daughter is keeping up on work for class.

The 4^th grade Holiday party will be on Wednesday, December 22^nd. We get out of school at 2:15 that day and will be having our party that afternoon. Austin, Mason, Stacia, Billy, and Kailer are signed up for the holiday party. I will provide the drink, plates, and napkins as this holiday did not match up with the original sign up sheet.

Many times students give me a gift for the holidays, which is great! However, I would like a gift not for me but for our classroom. Classroom gifts that everyone can enjoy! Board games, books, gift cards, or other classroom supplies are much appreciated! Know that you don’t need to give anything for the holidays but if you choose to, make it for the class.

Now, I know that you have seen the following several times, but I would like to show you again, as the school gets ½ of the funds raised! So please take time to read the following and tell your friends and family about this amazing deal!

THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!!

No need for you to look any further for that perfect gift. The North Winn Student Council has what you need. For $20 you can get 12 flower bouquets from The Country Garden. That’s right, one bouquet a month for an entire year! To order yours, fill out the order form attached with check or cash and send back to school. Your flower cards will come home with your son/daughter. Don’t wait or hesitate, now is the time to get your flower cards for you, grandma, auntie, babysitters, and all those other special people in your life! Remember, $20 for 12 flower bouquets, you can’t go wrong. For more information contact, Melissa Wicklund at mwicklund@n-winn.k12.ia.us .

Stay warm over the weekend as it is supposed to be cold! Send your student with all the gear needed to keep them warm on our COLD playground!

Warm Winter Wishes,

Melissa Wicklund

Parent Letter 11~19~2010

Friday, November 19, 2010

Dear Parents,

The students have had another busy week. We have been working hard in all subjects, starting new topics, ending others, and continuing to work hard yet on others. The students are ready for the break next week and it is well deserved. A few notes before I am not at school for a while.

Reading: New books, new KWL charts, and continued progress on ReadAbout. Students started new non-fiction books this week. They are topics of pets, westward travel, hockey, and talking birds. Not only do the students learn about these topics, they also learn skills to help them read other non-fiction texts. I have noticed that their learning on ReadAbout is transferring over into the classroom. They are talking about their learning and then using it to read their non-fiction books in their small groups.

Writing: Wow! Tall tale characters are coming along great! Students have been using their creative juices to create a character for their future tall tale stories. It may seem that we are doing the process backwards, however, I want the students to gain inspiration from their characters to create their final writing on tall tales. Be looking for their tall tale characters and stories.

Math: We have started chapter 4 in math about multiplication and division. Please be working with your students on their basic facts whenever possible. Students can even be working on them in the car.

Science: Sounds…. what is sound? Students have asked this question and in the next few weeks will be doing research and experiments to answer this question. They will be keeping a journal on their findings and be looking deep into sound.

Social Studies: Business planning and government branches are what have been on the horizon in social studies. Students have been looking at all the vocabulary and facts that go along with learning about the United States. They will continue to learn about these ideas during the next few weeks and then start in on their first region. We will move quickly through these regions as the Vesterheim Immigrant Immersion program is quickly approaching.

Again, a reminder that I will be out of the classroom until December 3^rd. I will have my e-mail but will not be checking it throughout the day. If you need to contact the teacher about after school plans for your son or daughter please contact Wendy or Lynn. Thanks for your understanding.

Keep encouraging your son or daughter as we progress through the month of December. They should be reading an adventure book right now and be working on their rough draft for their sandwich project. I also need them to work extra hard if they are in a group of Mrs. Evelsizer’s because they are leaving my room throughout the day and still need to be doing the work they are missing. If you have questions or concerns about this issue please contact me as the practices will continue and be more frequent as the concert draws near.

Have a great weekend and Thanksgiving! I look forward to being back in the classroom after my surgery.

Thanks,

Melissa A. Wicklund

Parent Letter 10-29-2010

SKELETON BOOK PROJECT:

Please make sure that your son/daughter is reading a book to use for this month’s book project. These book project explanations came home at the beginning of October and are due on November 8th. I have sent home the skeleton body parts to trace in hopes of the students starting their projects soon. If you have questions let me know. There are only 2 weekends to work on these projects and they are part of each student’s reading grade.


RINGS OF RESPECT:

The students have been working really hard this past quarter on earning their “Rings of Respect”! Well, this past week they earned all their rings. When they accomplished this task they were to get something for what they did. The students have decided that they wanted pajama day with a movie, popcorn, and hot chocolate. We will be having this fun and exciting day on Thursday, November 4th. I am so proud of these students for wanting to work hard to earn these rings and not have them taken away! WAY TO GO 4TH GRADERS, I AM PROUD OF YOU!!


It has been a busy week in our class with finishing up last quarter and getting started with the 2nd quarter of their 4th grade year. I have spoken with ½ of the parents and look forward to talking with the rest of you next week. Our second quarter is off to great start with some modifications and changes in our room. I look forward to having each child grow and learn in my classroom. I hope to learn more about each student and what they have to offer to the classroom. Thanks for all that you have done so far this year with your 4th grader. There is so much more to come this school year!

Thanks!

Parent Letter 10-22-2010

REPORT CARDS:

My grades are due on Monday so if your son/daughter has homework this weekend it is likely homework that needed to be finished Friday and was not. So, if you could make sure that those things get finished up that would be great. Report cards will then come home on Wednesday of next week in their homework folders or assignment notebooks. This allows you as parents to have the report cards before conferences. I look forward to seeing all of you at conferences next Thursday or November 4^th.

SKELETON BOOK PROJECT:

Please make sure that your son/daughter is reading a book to use for this month’s book project. These book project explanations came home at the beginning of October and are due on November 8^th. I have the skeleton body parts to trace here at school. If you have questions let me know.

HALLOWEEN PARTY:

We will be having our Halloween party on Friday, October 29^th in the afternoon. After the reorganization of the holidays, due to my misplacement of the original, the following students have the Halloween treats. Michael, Zach, and Ashton are to bring treats. Brendan is to bring drinks and Jake is signed up for cups/plates/napkins. We have 21 students in our classroom. Also, remember that the state implemented the Healthy Kids Act, saying that treats served in school should be healthy snacks. Meaning cheese sticks, fruit, veggies, trail mixes, etc. There are some fun snacks that you can make or buy that are healthy to serve in class. Thanks for your help on the party. I know that students will look forward to dressing up, decorating pumpkins for the Pumpkin contest, and having a party!

October 15th Parent Letter

Miss Terhune: Luther Student Teacher

Miss Katie Terhune has been with us from Luther for the past two weeks. She was out in Boston, MA for her first placement and came back to start in Allamakee Schools. However, she needed a placement for two weeks before heading to Allamakee schools. So, she came to our classroom for a short time. She was a great asset to our room. She taught spelling, math, social studies, and really helped out on Tuesday while I was sick. Thanks for coming to our room to spend some time with us, we had fun!

Mr. Woodin: Luther Music

Mr. Woodin is our Luther Music student that will be with us on Thursday mornings for the next 5 weeks. He was teaching the students new notes on their recorders this week, along with learning the song, Ode to Joy.

Bryan and Rachel: Luther Nursing

Yet another Luther group that is coming to our classroom. Rachel and Bryan are nursing students that have been coming to our room to teach us about hand washing, sugar in different cereals, and the fat content in various foods. They bring lots of energy to our room and the students look forward to having them here every Friday morning. They will be with us for another 3 weeks.

Charlotte’s Web Fair

Thank you to those students who participated in the Charlotte’s Web fair on Tuesday. The fair was a success! I feel bad that I had to miss it, but Miss Terhune took lots of pictures and said that Mrs. Goetsch did a wonderful job of playing games and judging projects for students. Mrs. Heier was also a helpful asset during this busy day! I hope your son or daughter shared with you the award that they won during the day!

Skeleton Book Project

Your student should have brought home a book project outline for this next month. The parts are ready to be sent home when your son/daughter is finished with his/her book. The projects are due on November 8^th! Please ask if you have not seen the projects.

Scholastic Book Orders

I have sent home another book order. These will be due on Wednesday, October 20^th! You can either send a check or money back to me or order online. For every order online, the classroom gets one free book!

Character Counts Week

October 18^th-22^nd! Dress up and join the fun!

OCTOBER 1ST PARENT LETTER

4TH GRADE NEWS AND NOTES

READING
Wow! We have finished Charlotte’s Web and now are on our way to the 4th grade fair. I am sure that your child came home this week and shared a letter about our upcoming 4th grade fair. If he/she did not please ask for a copy of the letter as each student will need some assistance from his or her parents. We will be studying for the test together next week with the test next Friday, October 8th and then the fair on Tuesday, October 12th.

SCIENCE
Students are almost complete with their research and will now start on their short report and spider model. Students were given a handout this week about what the expectations were for their model and habitat. If you have or your child has questions about the expectations, please let me know. These are due on October 12th so that we can have these spiders in our room for the 4th Grade Fair.

MATH
Estimation, rounding, and different strategies for addition and subtraction are the various things that we have been working on during this week. Students have been completing the tasks and working hard to understand the concepts given to them.




STUDENT TEACHER
Over the next two weeks we will have a student teacher from Luther in our room. Her name is Katie Terhune. We are excited to have her in our classroom. We will be learning from her and she from us. If you have questions or concerns about the placement please contact me.

STUDENT COUNCIL
Congrats to Brendan, Zach, Maddy M., and Kailer for winning a spot on our Elementary Student Council! They will be doing many fun and exciting things for all students do in grades Pre-K through 5th grade. I will also be working closely with the Middle School representatives.

DATES TO REMEMBER
• Tuesday, October 5th –NICC Dairy Field Trip
• Monday, October 11th --No School-Teacher In-Service
• Tuesday, October 12th –4th Grade Fair


**End of the first quarter is coming soon please contact me if you are having concerns or have questions about your son or daughter so that I help you with those before the end of the quarter

Parent Letter 9~24~2010

The 4th graders have had a busy couple of weeks! During the past couple of weeks the students have gained many new skills, have experienced new and exciting things and grew in leaps and bounds.

We have gained new skills in math by taking our first math test. You will not find these in the Friday folders, as I tend to keep the first tests to go over with you at conferences. I felt that students did their best and succeeded well. Then we started chapter 2 and will continue working hard on that during the next few weeks.

Experiencing new things comes from going to Cannons and Redcoats. Students were excited about many of the stations that we attended. They learned about making wooden paddles, wooden bows, shearing sheep, French dancing, a new game Graces, and also hearing 4 real cannons shoot off. We talked about the field trip and that they will attend again next year and do more activities related to this field trip.

We are finishing our spider research and will write a paragraph about it. To finish our spider research students will be asked to create a spider model including putting the spider model into its habitat. More expectations and due dates will be given to the students next week.

Charlotte’s Web is coming to an end. We are on chapter 16 of 22 chapters. Soon Wilbur will be going to the fair. This means that the 4th grade fair is fast approaching. On Monday, the students and I will be talking about the different activities that they will be able to participate in during our 4th grade fair. I look forward to finishing the book and celebrating with our 4th grade fair!

Finally, the students had quite the spelling list this week! Homophones are difficult for students. However, we also tackled homophones in language this week. Students created pictures and sentences that went with homophones. We used the Smart board to sort homophones and play a matching game with homophones. It is amazing how many homophones are a part of our English language. It is important that students continue to use these words so we will continue throughout the year to look at homophones when they come up in our reading or writing.

Congrats to Brendan, Zach, Kailer, and Maddy M. who are our new Student Council representatives. I have some exciting things for them to get involved with here at school and for them to share with students 3-5.

Dates to Remember:
• Tuesday, September 28th: School Pictures
• Wednesday, September 29th: Out at 1:15 Teacher Inservice
• Tuesday, October 5th: Field Trip to NICC’s Dairy Center
• Monday, October 11th: No School Teacher Inservice

Parent Letter 9~10~2010

Welcome to the third week of school! The students have already done so much in these first three weeks. It will be fun to see how much more than can do the rest of the school year. I am having lots of fun with them with their learning and look forward to even more exciting times with them.

In reading, students continue to expand their knowledge in story elements (setting, plot, characters, etc), and learn more about the Zuckerman’s and Arable’s. We are half way through the book and a quiz will be happening late next week. More info about the quiz will come home early next week.

Science goes hand in hand with reading right now as the students are studying about spiders. We have covered general spider information and now students will be researching their own spiders. The research that they will be collecting includes description of their spider, habitat, food/diet, and young. This information will help them build a spider model in the near future.

Math is coming right along. Students are almost at the end of the chapter 1, learning about large numbers, their place value, and how to order them. We have been working on story problems here at school. They are difficult for the students, but slowing down and reading sentence by sentence helps to understand what the book is asking them to find.

Writing continues to be about adjectives. We will one final lesson on adjectives and then will introduce verbs. Students wrote short paragraphs about a picture this week. They couldn’t use the objects name in their paragraph so it challenged them to describe the object using wonderful adjectives. The students enjoyed this activity and it got them up in front of the class.

Next Week:

*Monday I will have sub in the room as I am attending training in Elkader.

*Tuesday students will take their final MAPS test in the morning and I will gone again in the afternoon for another training in Calmar.

*Wednesday students will be dismissed at 1:15pm as we have an in-service.

*Thursday is a NORMAL school day.

*Friday we will be going to Prairie Du Chien for our first field trip. We will be going to the Cannons & Redcoats reenactment and learning stations. See field trip note for details.

Please make sure your child gets a good night sleep on Monday evening for the MAPS test on Tuesday. If you have questions about next week please feel free to call or e-mail me here at school.

Welcome Back to School!

School is only 1 week away! I hope all the students are getting ready to come back and see the changes that have occurred throughout the summer. Be ready for a splash of color in the 4th grade classroom, as well as, some updated technology. It is really exciting! I look forward to getting to know my new class and all they have to offer to the classroom. See you on the 19th!

Parent Letter

Good Friday! Well, we made it through an entire week of school! And the students are almost completed with their ITBS tests. They will take 2 more on Monday and then be finished with them for the year. I have been impressed by their hard work on the tests and hope it continues for one more day of testing. Please make sure that your son/daughter gets plenty of sleep on Sunday evening with a good breakfast on Monday morning. They can also bring snacks on Monday for the testing. Thanks for all the help you’ve given your student so far during the ITBS tests.

Report cards are in the your son/daughter’s Friday folder. I look forward to talking with each of you at Parent/Teacher Conferences in a couple of weeks. If you feel you need to speak with me before then please e-mail or call me at school.

Over the next couple of weeks your son/daughter may come home and tell you about subs being in the classroom. I wanted to give you some insight to my absences in the next couple of weeks. Today, I was actually not in the classroom because I had a sick child at my house. Next Tuesday afternoon I will be gone due to a doctor’s appointment. Then next Thursday and Friday I will also be gone to a Professional Development conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with Kris Bigler. I am very excited about the conference and look forward to bringing back several good teaching strategies to implement into the classroom. Finally, on Tuesday, February 9th, I will be absent for the Keystone Advisory Committee meeting in Elkader. I feel confident with the subs that are coming into the classroom and I put lots of time into the lesson plans that are there when I am gone.

Look for another letter next week that will update you on what we are doing in our subject areas. Enjoy the cold winter weather….I know that I am ready for spring and warmer weather!

Upcoming Events

February 2nd—Cereal Box Rough Drafts Due
February 5th—Cereal Box Final Copy Due
February 9th and 11th—Parent Teacher Conferences
February 12th and 15th—No School
February 19th—Swimming at the Cresco Fitness Center

Parent Letter

WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL!! Wow! What a January it has been for our students. I am hoping to be in school FULL TIME this week to accomplish some much-needed learning! We will continue working hard to start this third quarter off right for our 4th grade year!

One major event that is going to be happening is the ITBS TESTING! It is happening this week. We will start on Tuesday and continue through next Monday. Please make sure that your students are going to bed early and then getting up to have a healthy breakfast. The students are welcome to bring water bottles, (with only regular, no flavored waters please), to school to keep next to their desks. Also, HEALTHY snacks are also encouraged. It can be such things as fruit, un-buttered popcorn, crackers with cheese or peanut butter, granola bars, etc. If you have questions about the testing please e-mail or call me at school.

Reading book projects rough drafts are scheduled to be due on Tuesday, February 2nd. I hope all students are able to get their projects in by then, especially since the long break gave them some time to read. If they are having difficulty getting their book finished please have them come talk with me about their situation. The FINAL projects will not be due now until Friday, February 5th. Let me know via e-mail, phone, or assignment notebooks if you have questions.

Parent homework—I realize that it may seem a long time away until my maternity leave; however, we can never plan when babies arrive. I need to be prepared now so that if something happens, my sub will be prepared. Please turn in the parent homework sheets that I have sent home. Dual households need to make sure that they BOTH fill out the sheet. If you have questions, please let me know.


UPCOMING EVENTS
• ITBS Testing—Week of January 25, 2010-February 1st, 2010
• Teacher In-Service—Wednesday, February 3rd
• Immigration Unit Starting—February 9th
• Parent/Teacher Conferences—Tuesday, February 9th and Thursday, February 11th.
• No School—February 12th and February 15th

Parent News 1-15-2010

Dear Parents,

A FULL WEEK OF SCHOOL! It was a long week for the students getting back into things, but I feel they did an overall great job of being on task. I look forward to more great weeks like we had this week! Thanks 4th graders!

Reading is going really well. The students and I have been talking about, modeling, and practicing important comprehension strategies. The strategies that we have talked about this week include: Do I remember what I just read? Make a picture in your head. Predict what will happen next. Back up and reread. Summarize the text. The students took the “Make a picture in your head” and did just that. They took a picture from their head (after they had done Read to Self) and drew it on paper. Then on the back they wrote about their picture. The strategy helps all readers better understand what they are reading by being able to see those pictures.

States, states, and more states. The students are becoming teachers. Each pod of students in our classroom is in charge of a different region. We are learning 5 different regions. I teach one to the class, and then they take what I have taught them and do the same for their region. Finally, they will teach the class what they have learned. It is a great way for the students to be involved with hands on activities in social studies.

Research has been the talk in science. Students have gotten information off the computer and also from books about an invertebrate animal. They are in the process of gathering all the information they can about their specific invertebrate. Then we will write a report and create a model of our invertebrate. Finally, we will move on to vertebrates and do the same process.

There is plenty going on in the 4th grade classroom! The students are keeping mighty busy here at school. The business will continue into 3rd and 4th quarter. I look forward to the time I have with the students to watch them grow and develop as students and individuals.


**Please return BLUE Student Information Surveys to Mrs. Wicklund as soon as you can.

**If your son/daughter doesn’t have an address to bring to school, write me a note so I can get them one.

Important Dates:
*Monday, January 18th—No School
*ITBS TESTING-January 25th-29th
*Friday, January 29th—Rough drafts due for Cereal Box Madness
*Tuesday, February 2nd—Cereal Box Madness projects due
*Wednesday, February 3rd—1:15 Dismissal Teacher In-Service
*Tuesday, February 9th and Thursday, February 11th—Parent Teacher Conferences
*Friday, February 12th—No School


Let me know if you have questions or concerns before conferences.