Dear UPark families,
Our school year has had an exciting start. Back to School Night, the learning landscape dedication ceremony, fundraisers, learning the classroom rituals and routines, testing for reading and writing, the 4th grade Spell-A-Thon, and now Curriculum Night for parents this Thursday evening have kept all the teachers and students very busy. Whew! On top of all that, the class has covered Unit 1 (geometry) in Math. The test will be this week, Wednesday. Encourage your child to study their journal pages and worksheets. In Science, we studied the effects of weathering on tombstones in the first chapter. In further chapters, we will look at weathering and erosion on a larger scale. We start Social Studies this week and will learn about the different types of social scientists. Students will need to bring artifacts from home in a small paper bag. Directions will be sent home for completing this activity this week. In writing the students are writing small moment stories. They are learning to write great leads and endings, to be a peer editor, to use a rubric to improve their writing, and how to generate ideas to write about. Finally, the students are learning to make better choices for their independent reading choices. If your child is making more than 3 errors (not counting proper nouns) without coaching when reading one page of the book, then the book is too hard for them to read independently. Many in the classroom have been picking books way above their abilities. Miss Gourlay and I have listened to many read, and we are directing them to books at a more appropriate level. Many of the books in the classroom library are mine. I do allow students to take them home. Please help them to remember to return them when they finish. I love to share my books and am doing this on the honor system.
At this time, students should be collecting money from their spelling sponsors. This helps pay for the field trip and materials for Young AmeriTowne ($20). Leftover funds go toward the field trip to the theatre in April. We will view the new Disney film that ties into Earth Day. In the past we've viewed Cats and Gorillas. This ties into our science unit on ecosystems. And finally, if there are still funds, the money goes toward purchasing pizzas for the 4th grade end of the year picnic. Thank you for supporting the 4th grade in raising funds for these activities.
Please take a moment to welcome my apprentice teacher from DU, Miss Ainsley Gourlay. She has graduated from DU with a degree in Psychology and has returned to study elementary education through the DU master's program. She will be at UPark Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for the 1st two trimesters. She'll be here four days a week for the last trimester. Ainsley will be working with all of the students as the year goes on. She will be a great asset to the classroom!
See you soon,
Mrs. Debbie Durkee
Our school year has had an exciting start. Back to School Night, the learning landscape dedication ceremony, fundraisers, learning the classroom rituals and routines, testing for reading and writing, the 4th grade Spell-A-Thon, and now Curriculum Night for parents this Thursday evening have kept all the teachers and students very busy. Whew! On top of all that, the class has covered Unit 1 (geometry) in Math. The test will be this week, Wednesday. Encourage your child to study their journal pages and worksheets. In Science, we studied the effects of weathering on tombstones in the first chapter. In further chapters, we will look at weathering and erosion on a larger scale. We start Social Studies this week and will learn about the different types of social scientists. Students will need to bring artifacts from home in a small paper bag. Directions will be sent home for completing this activity this week. In writing the students are writing small moment stories. They are learning to write great leads and endings, to be a peer editor, to use a rubric to improve their writing, and how to generate ideas to write about. Finally, the students are learning to make better choices for their independent reading choices. If your child is making more than 3 errors (not counting proper nouns) without coaching when reading one page of the book, then the book is too hard for them to read independently. Many in the classroom have been picking books way above their abilities. Miss Gourlay and I have listened to many read, and we are directing them to books at a more appropriate level. Many of the books in the classroom library are mine. I do allow students to take them home. Please help them to remember to return them when they finish. I love to share my books and am doing this on the honor system.
At this time, students should be collecting money from their spelling sponsors. This helps pay for the field trip and materials for Young AmeriTowne ($20). Leftover funds go toward the field trip to the theatre in April. We will view the new Disney film that ties into Earth Day. In the past we've viewed Cats and Gorillas. This ties into our science unit on ecosystems. And finally, if there are still funds, the money goes toward purchasing pizzas for the 4th grade end of the year picnic. Thank you for supporting the 4th grade in raising funds for these activities.
Please take a moment to welcome my apprentice teacher from DU, Miss Ainsley Gourlay. She has graduated from DU with a degree in Psychology and has returned to study elementary education through the DU master's program. She will be at UPark Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for the 1st two trimesters. She'll be here four days a week for the last trimester. Ainsley will be working with all of the students as the year goes on. She will be a great asset to the classroom!
See you soon,
Mrs. Debbie Durkee
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