Hello, parents and students! We are already two weeks into the second grading period, and busy learning a lot! Keep up all the hard work, and thank you for all the support of our curriculum at home by allowing your child to use the computer for extra practice. I feel so lucky to be at Ford where we have such wonderful families! Now on to our announcements:
* Please remember that in order for an absence/tardy to be counted as "Exscused - for medical reasons" you must send in a doctor's note from the physician who saw your child. This is county policy, thank you for understanding.
* Thank you ALL for your wonderful donations for our sister school, Brown Elementary. Mrs. Kastensmidt has been amazing for coordinating this effort, and she will be picking up the box on Friday, Oct. 31st. We will be writing the students letters this week to send with our supplies.
* This week's writing project will be to create a fall poem. Maybe this weekend you and your child can take a moment to appreciate all the fall colors by taking a walk and allowing them to get a sense of how fall looks, feels, and smells. These poems will be published for display in the hallway, and also your child will have a chance to recite their poem to an audience this week at Barnes & Noble at the Avenues! Thursday evening is 4th grade's time slot to present - times to come home soon. We will be taking volunteers to sign up to share their poetry. What a great opportunity to practice the 4th grade standards of listening/speaking - and to get experience before the "Book Talk" project coming up in November! I hope you all will be able to come out to shop and enjoy the special activities at Barnes & Noble this week, even if you can't make the performing time. Don't miss Mrs. Fritts dressed up as the Magic School Bus' "Mrs. Frizzle" on Thursday also, doing a read-aloud!
* Speaking of the "Book Talk" project - have you picked the book you're going to use yet? It should be a chapter book that you have read recently or are currently reading now, and this time it should be fiction. Send in your choice as soon as possible using the form at the bottom of the packet we sent home. Keep that back page with suggested ideas and the grading rubric to guide your work. This project is to be completed entirely at home, and your child will be graded on the live presentation. This is different than a "book report" where we grade the written project, this activity looks at how well your child is communicating what they know and understand. If you have any questions, please let me know, I'd like to clear up any confusion before the actual presentations start on Nov 17th.
* We sent home a letter on Friday outlining your child's progress with the "25 Books Campaign." I know you're probably thinking, "My child has read way more books than this," but have they filled out the story map to show their knowledge of the book? We keep extra story maps by the bookshelf in the classroom, and if your child needs more time to fill them out, they are welcome to complete story maps at home. The books do not have to be AR books, and we are expecting half of them to be fiction and half of them non-fiction. They do need to be chapter books, however, to count.
* We have a busy week ahead! On Tuesday, Mrs. Kastensmidt and Mrs. Povich will be in the classroom to do our Earth Lesson for the month - making homemade weather instruments! We look forward to this as a wrap-up to our unit on weather. We will be reviewing this week and having a test on Thursday, Oct. 30th. Your child should be bringing home their interactive science notebook to study - and don't forget the online version of the science textbook that you can access at home. It reads to you!
* Thursday we look forward to Mrs. Nardulli presenting our next Fine Arts lesson!
* Starting in November, we will be coordinating Mystery Readers along with classroom reading parents. I'm looking for parents to give us an hour a week to read and practice test taking skills with individual students. If you're interested, please email Mrs. Kastensmidt. Early morning, 7:15-8:00 works well, as does 10:00-11:00, or 12:00 - 1:00. Whenever you can come in, we'll be able to put you to great use!
* Did you get the flyer about the upcoming Fun Run? Start calling your friends/relatives to prepare them that you will be asking for pledges soon to support the new "SCIENCE LAB" we want to get at Ford! We will be having a student pep rally on Nov 5th to give out further details. 10% of the proceeds go directly back to our classroom to support our instruction! This could help supplement the book publishing project your kids are interested in doing, buy more books for the classroom library, or science materials for projects. It's our choice!
* This week Mrs. Waddell will make her yearly pilgrimage to Cincinnati for the Halloween weekend to visit family. Mrs. Fritts and Mrs. Anglin (primo substitute) will be holding down the fort in her absence, and I know the students will be as awesome and respectful as they are to their regular instructor. Please wish us safe passage, and I'm looking forward to visiting my favorite teacher from elementary school who I just got in touch with again! I'll be bringing back pictures to show the kids when we do our "Favorite Teacher" writing project coming up soon.
* Have a SAFE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Week in Review - 10/24
