Thursday, September 26, 2013

Sturgeon in the Classroom Coming Soon




Hey Parents, this week I located a fish tank, cleaned it out, and it’s placed in the classroom.  Our Endangered Species Permit is hung on the glass outside our door.   If you would still like to make a donation towards the project you can either write a check to Quincy Elementary with Sturgeon Project in the memo line or deliver cash to the front office.  We have created an account through the school and I will be needed some supplies through the school year.  Thanks again for any and all donations, it really helps and the Quincy Community has always been so generous.  We appreciate all your support!   We should receive our Sturgeon sometime in October.
The students are doing a good job on our weekly reading logs.  Please re-enforce the 4 details for 4th grade with them and capital letters with punctuation. 

 We will begin our invasive species projects  this week.  We will have a portion of the project here at school and an at home portion.   We will start next week and set-up a due date for approximately 2 weeks. 

Language Arts:
Narrative Reading and Writing:  We will continue with our Daily 5 that incorporates multiple texts from our reading series, social studies and science.


Math:
Unit  1 Place Value and Multi-digit Addition and Subtraction
TEST this WEEK Unit 1!  Most  likely Wed. or Thurs.

Science:
Organisms in Our Environment

Social Studies:
Geography


Monday, September 23, 2013

P.J. Hoffmaster State Park

Once again our students loved their trip to P.J. Hoffmaster State Park last week.  Hoffmaster kicks off our studies of organisms in our environment, ecosystems, and habitats.  The Great Lakes Dune Ecosystem is very rare and fragile.  Scientists come from all over the world to study how this complex and unique ecosystem operates.  As always the hog-nosed snake and and other animals are a highlight for the kids in the Genevieve Gillette Nature Center, which is aptly named after a woman nicknamed "Natures Guardian Angel" for her help in the formation of our wonderful state parks. This trip is fantastic and free of charge, we are thankful that we have such wonderful resources here in West Michigan, and it's always so much fun to bring kids to the wonderful ecosystem of the sand dunes.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Parent Screen Cast 2013-1014

Dear Parents,
Hopefully everyone had a chance to view the screen cast I sent home on email the other day.  I know it’s kind of long, but I promise most other communication will be 3 minutes and under.  If you didn’t receive any emails from me yet please write your preferred email address on the line below so I can add you to our parent list. 
Email:_______________________________________________
I am looking forward to a great year with the kids, as we get into the beginning of the school year and our routine please make sure you initial the students agendas each night that we have home work and leave any notes for me in the agenda.  I will check with the kids each morning.  Again homework will be Mon-Thurs. and will mostly be math, homework and remembering worksheets, and our reading logs which will come home next week. 
We will be starting some projects on Organisms in our Environment soon and those may require some weekend homework.   Again, I am looking forward to a great year!  Thank you for all you do!