Newsletter for the Week

Check it out HERE

Authors at Work

We've been reading and writing and performing fractured fairy tales this week.  Check out this version of the 3 little pigs:

The Three Twizzlers

By Abi

Once upon a time there was three twizzlers they were on the counter in the basket with smarties. The smarties said, “we are going to get eaten.” So they all jumped out the window. Twizzler number one went to the tall grass.  Twizzler number two went to the beach and twizzler number three went to the woods. Twizzler number one built her house out of tall grass. Twizzler number two built her house out of sand. The third twizzler built her house out of wood.

Soon after the twizzlers had built their new homes, the biggest baddest wolf came by and blew the first twizzlers house down.  Then the first twizzler went to the second twizzler’s house. Her house was made out of sand. Sure enough here comes the biggest baddest wolf to the second twizzler’s house. He got in just in time. The biggest baddest  wolf came and blew their house down. The two twizzlers went to the last house left -  the wood one.  The wolf came. He huffed and puffed but he never blew their house down. They never saw him again.

This Week's News

Most weeks we do some close reading with short articles.  The past couple of weeks I have chosen song lyrics to use for our close reads.  It’s been fun to see the excitement that the kids have about the songs, especially when I did Rachel Phlatten’s This is My Fight Song.  This week’s song was VERY different from This is My Fight Song.  This week I chose Rachel Delyvoryas.  The song was the perfect companion for Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson.  There are so many great themes for discussion in both the song and the book:  accepting others’ differences, take a stand, don’t be a bystander, treat others like you’d like to be treated.  As we closed out our day on Thursday we changed up our exit slip a bit.  I asked each 4^th grader to write down one kind thing that they had done that day.  My heart swelled as I read some of their answers:  helped a friend at recess, gave a note to my friend who looked really sad, took a book to Miss Johnson when it was turned in at the library instead of returned to her, was quiet so my mom would be happy that nobody was woken up.   Today we celebrated Global Play Day so we only had 2 days of regular routine.  All of our “work” from this week will carry over into next week.  You will find a note about class lists in today’s folder.  It is due back to the office by Monday.  There is also a class list Valentine’s on the back of today’s note.  If you need to get in touch with me, my email is bussanm@lancastersd.k12.wi.us.

Upcoming Events:

FINAL LITTLE ARROWS PRACTICES are on Sunday (February 7) at Lancaster High School.

                                                  Girls from 1 to 2

                                                  Boys from 2 to 3

Thursday, February 11 – Boys Little Arrows Perform at the High School Girls’ game

Friday, February 12 – Classroom Valentine’s Day Party at 2 p.m.

                                                  Girls Little Arrows Perform at the High School Boys’ game

Thursday, February 18 – FOW Wild West Celebration      5 – 7:30p.m.

Our NEWSLETTER is HERE.

Newsletter from Friday, January 29

Newsletter

This week in our classroom

WOW!  We just closed the doors on the 2^nd quarter (wrapped-up the 1^st semester) of the school year.  Let me just say that these 4^th graders are ON FIRE!  Seriously.  We started our STAR tests and the results so far show good growth.  We went a little deeper with our classification of living things sort.  We created a foldable to show the scientific classification of an animal of our own choosing.  Next week we will begin to do some animal research to lead up to an animal report.  As I evaluate each and every day there are some common themes for the good days and common characteristics of the not so good days.  See if these make sense: 

1-      We want our days to be HAPPY!

2-      We want to be part of the group.

This week we had some days that I left school celebrating---like floating on clouds celebrating.  There were also a couple of days where I left thinking, “what do I need to do differently because we cannot have another day like that?”  What happened on the days that we all left feeling happy?  It wasn’t that everything went our way.  We just chose to remember the good pieces.  I really believe this.  There were still rough parts of the happy days but somehow I chose to celebrate the way that Student A said, “thank you,” for something.  I chose to appreciate the time that Student B had worked on quality work.  I chose to acknowledge the great STAR scores and XTRAMATH progress that we had in our classroom.  What about the part of the group thing?   Well….that is definitely a little trickier with 4^th graders.  I saw it happen in an amazing way this week.  Students were so excited about learning how a scale works on Monday.  Then we had more questions about other electronics and things with circuit boards.  Students were excited to offer things from home:  tools, broken electronics, hangers, yarn, etc.    There was evidence of mutual respect and excitement about learning.  Everyone was included and students felt like they needed to do what was being done.  In Native American cultures belonging was so important.  Ella Doria, anthropologist, said, “Be related, somehow, to everyone you know.”  We are a family in this fabulous 4^th grade classroom.  The good days are definitely the ones where we choose happy and we include everyone.  Enough of my rambling---get out there and enjoy this LONG weekend!

Get the digital copy of the newsletter HERE

Here's What's Up This Week

Check out the newsletter HERE

Newsletter This Week

Check it out HERE