Exploring California
A journey through 4th grade
Dear Room 12 Families,
It is with mixed feelings that I write this final newsletter for the 2017-2018 school year. I am incredibly proud of my class and all that they have accomplished this year. We’ve had our share of challenges, but I feel that most of us have navigated them well, and come out stronger on the other side. I am hopeful that this group of scholars has what they need to move on to great success as 5th graders! Most of you are probably aware by this point that I will not be teaching at Manchester GATE next year. It has been such a privilege to work with such engaging and eager learners. I’ve been challenged and inspired by these students to become a better teacher, and rediscovered my own love of learning. Thank you for sharing your beautiful children with me, it has been experience that I will not forget. My choice to leave Manchester GATE was not easy to make, but I have an opportunity that I just couldn’t resist! My family and I will be taking a year to travel around the U.S. and even abroad during the next school year. My husband will be working a location-independent job and I’ll be “roadschooling” our kids, as we visit national parks and historical sites, pulling our trailer behind us. We are very excited to explore more of our country and the world, and I know I will be a better educator for my own children because I taught at Manchester this past year and a half. While I will be taking a break from teaching in Fresno Unified, I hope to continue the relationships I’ve built with my Room 12 students and families. Like I told our students, they are my special class, the only “fully mine” group of students at Manchester, and I will always be very curious to hear about their future endeavors. Please keep in touch with me and encourage your students to reach out as they hold a dear place in my heart. I will be maintaining our classroom website: room12gaters.weebly.com, as well as our Google Classroom & email address ([email protected]) into the next school year. Our family hopes to have a travel blog up and running this summer, and I will post information about that on our class website in case you want to follow along with us and our adventures. My Fresno Unified email will likely be discontinued, so look to the website for how to contact me. I want to thank each one of you from the bottom of my heart for trusting me with your students and supporting me throughout the school year. Your participation truly makes it all possible, and is the most important factor in your student’s school success. I feel so blessed to have worked with all of you. This week’s activities: Monday: Students take home all projects from class, get permission slips for picnic signed! Tuesday: Play Day/School Relay-wear appropriate shoes/sunscreen/hats and bring water bottles Wednesday: 4th grade picnic at Oso de Oro Park- I still need 2-3 more drivers. Students may bring sports activities, and their own lunch to enjoy at the park. Thursday: Dismissal at 12:00. Bus schedule will be 3 hours earlier. We’ll be doing class awards, memory books, cleaning up and report cards go home! Wishing you & your families a fun and restful summer, Mrs. Co
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Thank you parents for all your support during SBAC testing. I am proud of our students’ effort and am hopeful that each one did their best. As usual, you should receive these results sometime during the summer. They will be mailed to the address on record with Fresno Unified.
Baby pictures wanted!! For Open House, I want to display some poems alongside each student’s baby photo. Please choose a 4x6 size print, of your child only, to send to school. These will be returned. If you can have them here by next Wed. May 16, that would be SO helpful. Thank you! CA Adventure Projects: Now that testing is over, this project is definitely a priority during class time and should be at home as well. It is due on Tuesday, May 22nd. Rough drafts of their informative essays should have been completed already. All student work can be found on Google Classroom, and I encourage parents to check in and help students proofread and edit their work. They should be working on this at home as well as at school. I made a suggested timeline of tasks so that students can work ahead of time and not leave all their features until the last minute. We will have extra time in computer lab this week as well, to help with printing maps, flow charts, diagrams and photos. Please make sure your student is ready to print these at school. Project boards can go home anytime, but I would appreciate a note from you letting me know that you are ready for it! You may come in before school to pick it up if that is easier than your student taking it home on the bus. I am available at 8am every morning, if your student needs extra time to do research, type, or put his or her board together, they may come to the classroom early to get work done. Spelling: We will have a spelling list this week, on suffixes and prefixes. Word list will go home on Monday, and activities are available on spellingcity.com to practice at home. Language Arts: We are still finishing up our comic strips on By the Great Horn Spoon, and have started Esperanza Rising as our final literature unit for the year. Gold Rush Play: We continue to have rehearsals and practice for our gold rush play in the afternoons. We look forward to showing our dramatic presentation to all the families on Wed. May 23. 4th Grade End-of-the-Year Picnic: Mark your calendars for June 6! We will be having a picnic at Oso de Oro Park to celebrate all our accomplishments this year. I will need help transporting students to & from the park that day, so please let me know if you are able to help drive. Upcoming dates to remember: May 23 Gold Rush Play at 6:30pm May 24 Open House June 6 4th grade Picnic Thank you parents for your help in getting students to school on time and prepared for testing last week. We have only 2 more days of testing left this week! On Thursday and Friday we will take our math SBAC tests.
Spelling: Due to SBAC testing, we will not have a spelling list this week. Math: If you have time this week, please look at the review pages I am sending home with students for homework. We will be reviewing long division and word problems this week in class on Mon-Wed. to prepare us for Math SBAC on Thursday and Friday. CA Adventure Projects: This week I am giving students time to draft their informative essay in class. Some students have not yet taken enough notes to start their essay draft. Please check in with your student and check that they have taken notes on their subject and are ready to start drafting his/her essay. We spent more than 2 hours in class last week for research and note-taking, but not all students used their time wisely. Research is now an at-home assignment, as we will be spending our time in class drafting the essay and collecting other features for their project boards. If you would like your student to bring their project board home, please send me a note or text message requesting this. I don’t want to send boards home before parents are ready for them! Language Arts: We are finishing up our comic strips on By the Great Horn Spoon, and will be starting our last piece of California literature for the year. The novel, Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan is a tale of a Mexican family who immigrates to California in the 1920’s to become farm workers. Gold Rush Play: We continue to have rehearsals and practice for our gold rush play in the afternoons. We look forward to showing our dramatic presentation to all the families on Wed. May 23. If you or your student has photos or video from the Sacramento field trip that you are willing to share, please have your student send them to me through our Google Classroom. I would love to see them, and with your permission, add them to our class website. (www.room12gaters.weebly.com). No students’ names will be attached. The students like to visit our class website and those photos will make a great memory. Upcoming dates to remember: May 10-11 SBAC Math Test May 23 Gold Rush Play, evening performance May 24 Open House June 6 4th grade picnic @ Oso de Oro Park-drivers needed! I'm thankful for all you do!! Thank you parents for all of your support for a successful trip to Sacramento last Tuesday! I appreciated everyone getting their students to the station on-time and was very proud of the way our students behaved. It was a long day, and they represented Manchester well. A special thanks to all of my parent volunteers who helped. I couldn’t have done the trip without you!
Speaking of volunteers, Manchester is having their annual Parent Volunteer Tea on Thursday, May 3rd from 3:15-4:00. If you have helped make crafts, stuff parent folders, chaperoned a field trip, volunteered at our school carnival, etc., you are invited to attend this event. We are SO thankful to our supportive families and want to honor you. SBAC Testing: We will have our Language Arts SBAC test this Thursday and Friday (May 3rd & 4th). Please be sure your student is well-rested and has had a good breakfast those mornings. We appreciate 100% attendance so students don’t have to make-up the test at another time. Each student needs to have their own earbuds or earphones for testing this week. Spelling: Due to SBAC testing, we will not have a spelling list this week. Math: We are reviewing math concepts this week to prepare us for Math SBAC testing, which is next week. Please take time to study with your child. Multi-digit multiplication and long division are two areas that the students need practice. Word problems can also be tricky! I will be sending home nightly math homework to help students review. CA Adventure Projects: We are completing all our research and note-taking this week. Please check in with your student and make sure they are staying on top of their research. They should be spending 30 minutes each night reading anyway, so they could spend this 30 minutes reading on their topic at home!!! I do have the projects boards in class, but will not send them home yet. If you want your child to bring their board home so that you can help them put it together, please come in and pick it up. If you are unable to pick it up in person, please send a note with your child so I will know that you want it at home. There is only one board per student, so please take good care of them. Gold Rush Play: We have assigned speaking parts and the kids have already memorized many of the songs. We will perform our play for our families on the evening of Wed. May 23. Mark your calendars for an evening in the wild west! Upcoming dates to remember: May 3 Parent Volunteer Tea @ 3:15 May 4 Book Orders Due! May 3-4 SBAC Language Arts Test May 10-11 SBAC Math Test May 23 Gold Rush Play, evening performance May 24 Open House Mrs. Co Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed your spring break and are ready for the last couple of months of our 4th grade California adventure. Time certainly is flying quickly by, and we will be busy in room 12!
Expo Night was rescheduled for this Thursday!!! Thank you to my students who have already signed up to help run our class booth, making maracas. I can still use 1-2 more helpers at the 6-6:30 time slot. Please let me know if your child can help during this time. Language Arts: All students were given papers to take home during spring break to create their final draft of their gold rush persona journals. These journals are due next Thursday, April 12. I can’t wait to read them! Please contact me with any questions. Word Master cards for list #3 are also due on April 12. We will continue our literature study of By the Great Horn Spoon in our mining groups. Spelling: There will be no spelling list this week, in order to give more time for students to finish up persona journals and word master cards. We will start back up again with a spelling list next week. Math: We are going to be doing a quick overview & review on geometry this week from Ch. 10. I will most likely do a small quiz at the end of this week instead the regular unit test to assess the skills from this chapter. Social Studies: While we continue to study the gold rush of California, we are gearing up for our last big social studies project of the year: our California Adventure Project! This is a research project which will culminate in each student creating a tri-fold project board (which I will provide) of a topic/issue/person that is important in California history. More directions will follow, but this week, I am sending home a topic list. The list is meant to provide suggestions, but you may have other ideas of topics your student would enjoy researching even more. I am open to other topics, as long as they connect to the fascinating history of our state. This will be social studies grade AND a writing grade, as each student will be writing an informative research essay to go along with their topic. Take time this week to sit down with your student and help them choose their topic wisely. Students will be much more motivated to research a topic they are personally interested in, so please help them determine this. I am trying to prevent multiple students presenting on the same topic, so please have your student indicate their top three choices, and I will try to honor one of them. Sacramento Field Trip: Permission slips are going home this week. The cost for transportation will be $20/student. I will need to submit an exact name list to Amtrak of each student and adult chaperone traveling in our group, so please turn that in as soon as possible. We will be visiting Sutter’s Fort and the California Railroad Museum on this trip. Upcoming dates to remember: Thurs. Apr. 5 Expo Night Fri. Apr. 6 Submit topic choices for CA Adventure Projects April 12 Persona Journals and Word Master #3 cards due April 24 Class field trip to Sacramento Thanks for all you do to support our learning in room 12! This Friday, March 9 is our class field trip to Mariposa. The bus will pick us up at school at 7:30am, so please arrange for your child to arrive early, at the Thesta gate. We will return at 4:00pm, when you are expected to pick your child up. Each child needs to pack their own lunch and water bottle for the trip. I will send a more detailed letter home with students later this week.
Other Happenings in Room 12: Language Arts: We finished reading A Wrinkle in Time, and will be starting a new read-aloud titled, Seeds of Hope. It’s a historical fiction novel told in journal style by a girl who ends up in the gold fields of CA. We will also soon begin a new literature study on the book, By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman. This is a fun fictional story set in the mid-1840’s in California. Each student will keep their own copy of the book at their desks and be expected to keep up with chapters that are assigned each day. We will be writing, drawing, creating and discussing in response to the different uses of language and character development throughout this humorous tale. We will be enjoying this novel for several weeks. Math: Chapter 8 in GOMath was a quick chapter on multiplying whole numbers and fractions. We will be testing on this chapter this Thursday. Please help your student review on Wed. night. Social studies: “Eureka!! Gold has been found at Sutter’s Mill!” This week we will go back in time and see what it was like to rush to California in the mid-1800’s as we start our Gold Rush unit. We will be reading informational text and as well fictional accounts of the wild west days of California. Science: A big THANK YOU to Mr. Masutsubo for his geology presentation last Friday. We learned more about what a geologist does and got “hands-on” with many different geology tools and rock samples. We are really looking forward to our visit to Mariposa this Friday, where we will visit a gem and mineral museum as well as see a historical Stamp Mill used during the Gold Rush. As the 3rd quarter draws to a close, be sure to check ATLAS with your student and make sure any missing assignments are turned in. Any make-up work also needs to be submitted this week, so that I have time to correct and score work before the quarter’s end. Thank you for your cooperation!! Important Upcoming Dates: Fri. Mar. 9 Mariposa Field Trip (7:30am-4pm) Friday Mar. 16 Last Day of the 3rd Quarter Thurs. Mar. 22 Expo Night Mar. 24-Apr. 2 Spring Break We had such a great time at our folk dancing lessons and barn dance last week. Thank you for encouraging an open-mind and positive attitude with your child as they tried something new! I was very proud of all they learned.
This Wednesday we have our career-readiness field trip to the Sanger CAL Fire department. We will be at the fire station in the morning, and will be back at school by lunch time. Please make sure your student’s permission slips are turned in. Parents interested in chaperoning for the Sacramento trip on April 24 must attend a mandatory parent meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 20 from 6:00-6:30pm. We’ll meet in Room 12 for a quick meeting so I can go over some details in person with you. Please plan to attend only if you have fingerprints cleared through Fresno Unified on record. Finally, our class will not be having a Valentine’s party, per se, but if students would like to bring valentine’s cards to exchange, we will make some time for that in the afternoon. If your student chooses to bring cards, please include one for each student in the class, so that no one is left out. We have 32 students in our class. This week in class: Spelling: This week our spelling list focuses on words with the /u/ sound. Please find a pre-test coming home on Tuesday and practice activities on spellingcity.com to do during the week. Test will be on Friday. Language Arts: We are learning about themes in literature, and beginning to analyze the themes of different Chris VanAllsburg books. Students should be able to find text evidence to support what the theme is. We will be doing a response to literature, which will be an important writing grade. Math: We are continuing our study of adding & subtracting fractions and using mixed numbers this week in Ch. 7 of our GO Math books. Social studies/Science: We are conducting experiments about sound waves in class for a science unit. In social studies, we are progressing through CA history into the Rancho era. We will be having our Rancho Day on Friday, Feb. 23 with the other 4th grade classes. If you are able to volunteer on Rancho Day I would greatly appreciate the help! Important Dates: Wed. Feb. 7 Field Trip to Fire Station Mon. Feb. 12 & 19 NO SCHOOL Tues. Feb. 20 Parent Chaperone Meeting at 6:00pm Fri. Feb. 23 Rancho Day I hope everyone enjoyed the break from school and had a fabulous time resting, celebrating, and playing with your families. We’re going to have a great 3rd quarter, learning and growing together!
Hopefully everyone has made progress on their mission projects. These are due on Monday, January 22, so there is still time to get started if you haven’t yet. I made the grading criteria accessible to you on our Google Classroom, so please go over this with your student and please call or email me with any questions. Each student is expected to present their mission project to the class as part of their grade, so be sure your student has practiced presenting their project at home. My goal is that each student will be the expert on their mission and will teach the rest of us, so we can learn from each other. The 4th grade Awards Assembly for the 2nd quarter will be in the cafeteria at 9:30am. We would love for you to come and support your Honor Roll and Merit List students. Block M awards will also be presented at the assembly. This week in class: Spelling: Our spelling list this week contains words that are plurals. We have a spelling test on Friday, and your students should be practicing their words on spellingcity.com at home on Monday-Thursday. Langauge Arts: This week we are finishing our chapter summaries and Tri-Ramas for the book, Pasquala. We are beginning an author study on Chris Van Allsburg which will last several weeks. We will explore author’s craft, plot, characters and literary themes through the study of several of his award-winning books. This unit will culminate with students writing a response to literature where they will analyze at least one of Van Allsburg’s stories. Math: The Chapter 5 test is going home this week. These test scores will be included in the 3rd quarter math average. We begin Ch. 6 this week, which is the first of 4 chapters in our fraction unit. We will be exploring equivalent fractions this week, and gaining a deeper understanding of what fractions represent and how to compare them to each other. I will have several math assignments on Khan Academy to help your students study fractions at home. Social studies/Science: We will be studying the mission era of California and the influence of the Spanish settlements in our state’s early history. In science, we’ll be starting a unit on energy. Important Dates: Tues. Jan 9 Band meeting for new 4th grade parents at 3:15 & 6:00pm Fri. Jan 12 4th grade Awards Assembly at 9:30am in cafeteria Mon. Jan. 15 Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, no school Mon. Jan. 22 Mission projects and presentations due Thanks for all you do!! Mrs. Co It is so hard to believe that we are already in December and rapidly winding up the 2nd quarter of 4th grade! I have been very encouraged by how hard the students have worked last week, and hope we can keep up this momentum for the next two weeks.
If your student has any unfinished work, or assignments that they want to resubmit, all work needs to be turned in by Friday, Dec. 8 to be included in the 2nd quarter report period. Our word masters challenge will be on Tuesday, Dec. 5. We have been reviewing the words and studying the word analogy format. Please help support your students in preparing for this contest with their word cards and asking them to “build bridges” (make connections and comparisons) between them. This week in class: Spelling List: Our spelling words this week are words with r-controlled vowels. The pretest goes home on Monday, and the final test will be on Friday. Students should be using spellingcity.com to help them study their words for 10 minutes each evening. Langauge Arts: We finished Pasquala last week and will be doing a summary project and creating a tri-rama for each chapter. We are also comparing the main characters from Pasquala and Island of the Blue Dolphins, which will culminate in an opinion essay that students will be writing this week. Math: We continue our study of factors and multiples in Chapter 5. I expect that we will finish this chapter by the end of this week, and have a test at the beginning of next week. This will likely be the last math grade for the 2nd quarter, so we need to push hard and finish strong! Social studies/Science: In social studies, we are learning about the early explorers of CA. They are researching a specific explorer in groups to present and share with the class. In science, we will do an investigation on the human eye and how it works. Missions projects: It is that time! I am sending a letter home today for you to read with your scholars about our upcoming missions projects. The projects will be due in January, but most families will want to make use of the extra time during vacation to prepare for the project. If there is a particular mission that you or your child wants to research, please let me know. Please read the letter for more details, and I will be covering this in class with our students before we leave for vacation. Upcoming Important Dates: Fri. Dec. 8 All assignments due for the 2nd quarter. Wed. Dec. 13 Craft Day (am) Please let me know if you are able to help in the classroom. Fri. Dec. 15 Last Day of 2nd quarter/Reading day Thank you for all your support!! Welcome back! I hope you all had a restful Thanksgiving holiday and are energized to come back to school. There are only 3 weeks left in the 2nd quarter, and there is a lot to do! It will take a lot of self-discipline on all of our parts to stay focused as the holidays approach to keep working hard in class.
Thank you to parent volunteers who helped with transportation to the Wonder movie. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I plan to revisit the theme of “choosing kind” throughout our school year. I have a copy of Mr. Browne’s Precepts (a follow-up book to Wonder written by the same author), and will be using this in class to help our students continue to think about the choices they make and the kind of people they want to be. As we only have 3 weeks left in the 2nd quarter, I am requesting that any work that your student wants to re-submit from this quarter is turned in to me no later than Friday, Dec. 8. I will need that final week of school to complete all grading and have grades recorded before we leave for Winter Break. This week in class: Spelling List: We do have a spelling list to study this week. The skill focus is words with soft c & g sounds. The pretest goes home on Monday, and the final test will be on Friday. Students should be using spellingcity.com to help them study their words for 10 minutes each evening. Word Masters: By now all of your students should have their set of 25 flash cards to help them study for the Word Masters analogy quiz coming up on Tuesday, Nov. 5th. We’ll be doing some activities in class to study these words, but students should study at home as well. They need to know various meanings of the word and the different connotations and nuances of how each word can be used. It’s an analogy quiz, so it’s important that they understand the words deeply and can make connections between related words. Langauge Arts: We are continuing to read the book, Pasquala, and will work on summarizing chapters. We’ll finish studying structures in non-fiction texts, and will begin our opinion writing unit. Math: We are starting Ch. 5 this week, which covers factors and multiples. It is foundational to understanding of fractions. Please ensure your student has their basic facts memorized!!! Social studies/Science: In social studies, students will be learning about the early explorers of CA. We will be compiling data into a timeline and writing about each explorer. In science, students will be learning about the 5 senses. Upcoming Important Dates: Thursday, Nov. 30 Grandparents’ Lunch at school (with 5th-6th grade classes) Tuesday, Dec. 5 Word Masters Quiz Wed. Dec. 13 Craft Day (morning only)- volunteers needed!! Thank you for all your support!! Please reach out to me if you have any questions. Mrs. Co |
Your Guide:I'm Mrs. Co, a fellow California explorer who is passionate about teaching and learning. Welcome to a great adventure in 4th grade! Archives
June 2018
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