Week of 9/30 Newsletter

Dear ⅘ Families,

Congratulations to all of the students who ran for student council! All of the speeches were fantastic. We will be nominating 2 classroom representatives in addition to Daphne Tong being voted for Secretary. Thanks to Elisa, Wendi, Nicole & Amanda for bringing treats to our monthly birthday celebration. It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate all of the August & September birthdays. We look forward to doing the same for the October birthdays on Halloween.

Your child brought home a yellow permission slip today for our first field trip to San Juan Bautista scheduled for Friday, October 11. Please sign & return the permission slip by Friday, October 4. The cost is $3 per student and if you would like to volunteer to drive and chaperone, please make note of that on the permission slip. I've added a page on our class website called Field Trip Information and there you will find details about the trip as well as a driver form.

What we’re learning this week:

ELA & Social Sciences: We have begun to learn about the early European explorers and will use the information to write a historical fiction revolving around an explorer & the era. Students will be learning to research from a variety of resources and take notes. They will also learn about sentence variety and elements of a story.

Math: 4th graders will be learning how to add and subtract numbers into the thousands using a variety of methods including the traditional algorithm. 5th graders will be learning about square numbers and exponents.

Science: 4th graders will continue to learn about food webs and food chains. 5th graders are learning about plate tectonics and earthquakes.

Thanks for your support and help in the classroom and at home. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at rhonig@santacruz.k12.ca.us.

Best,

Ms. Honig

Week of 9-23 Newsletter

Dear 4/5 Families,

I hope this note finds you well! Our annual Jog-a-thon is Tuesday. Please send your child to school with water, appropriate running shoes, and sunscreen or a hat. We’ll be running at 11:10-11:30 with popsicles afterward. The office is accepting pledges, so please send them in with your child.

Mary Beth Duncan, our new art teacher, has been working with our students to create some fabulous art! Check out a few pictures on our class website of the oil pastel art. She aligned the lesson to our study on Native Americans. Students made pictures demonstrating their understanding of foreground and background as well as the use of Native American symbols. They turned out beautifully!

This week we will be holding student council elections. A packet went home with your child on Friday with information. If your child is interested in running for an office (4th graders: Secretary; 5th graders: Treasurer & Vice President) please work with him/her to complete the application and send to school by this Wednesday. I will help kids with their speeches and they can bring in posters to hang up on Friday. Speeches & elections will be held on Friday at 10:30AM. We will also nominate 2 classroom representatives to participate in the student council meetings. We will be looking for students who demonstrate leadership skills and set an example for the rest of the class.

Thanks for your support both in the classroom and at home! If you have any questions or concerns, please email me at rhonig@santacruz.k12.ca.us.

Smiles,

Ms. Honig

Oil Pastel Artwork: Teepees

Thank you Mary Beth!

Newsletter for week of 9/16

Dear 4/5 Families,

Thank you for coming out to Back-to-School Night! It was really great getting to share with you our plans for the school year. Thank you also to those of you who signed up to volunteer in our classroom. I’ve attached a schedule with a few more openings on Tuesday & Thursday afternoons (PE & Art) if anyone would like to help out in those times. I am looking forward to working with you this year!

The Jogathon is right around the corner and is a great fundraiser for our school! Please take some time to look over the Jogathon envelope that came home last week and encourage your child to gather sponsors (either for laps - 10 max, or a flat donation). The students will run on Tuesday, 9/24 so they’ll need to gather their donations in the coming 2 weeks.

What we’re learning about this week:

Math:

Factors & Multiples: students will create arrays to illustrate their understanding of factors for numbers. 4th graders will learn about and, 5th graders will review and extend their understanding of, multiples for numbers and identify common factors & multiples for numbers. There will be a test Friday.

Social Studies/ELA:

Students are in the process of creating a Native Americans Regions Flip-book using their Cornell Notes they’ve taken from the History Alive textbook and some online research. They’ll finish their final drafts this week, demonstrating their understanding of the US landforms and various environments that affected the settlements of the Native Americans. We also began reading the novel The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich that follows the life of a young Native American girl in the Great Lakes area in the 1800s.

Vocabulary & Spelling:

We will study the past 2 weeks’ lists for a comprehensive vocab quiz Friday. We’ll also use many of the terms in our Native Americans Regions “Flip-books” that are due Wednesday. We have our first spelling assignments this week.

Thank you for your continued support with your child’s homework and please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions: rhonig@santacruz.k12.ca.us.

Best, 

Ms. Honig

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:30-8:40	Agenda/ Attendance/ Classroom Business/ Flag Salute
8:40-9:05	Quick Write/ Daily Grams /DEAR/ Spelling  or Vocabulary Test (Friday)
9:05-10:15	Language Arts/ Social Studies Iseth Rae	Language Arts/ Social Studies	Science (Textbook) Nichole	Language Arts/ Social Studies Laura Jones	Language Arts/ Social Studies
10:15-10:30	Recess
10:30-11:05	4th Gr. Math/ 5th Gr. DEAR	Math	Math Summer	Math	Class Meeting
11:10-12	4th Gr. Music/ 5th Gr. Math Bill Tong every other week	Linda Swan Eliana Javed	& Nichole (Alternating)	Laura Jones	Math Dan Heichel
12:05-12:40 Wed: 12:15-12:35	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch Comp Books/HW Read Aloud	Lunch	Lunch
12:45-1:45	5th Gr. Science/  4th Gr. Science	PE _________________	12:35 Dismissal	Art _________________
1:45-2:35	5th Gr. Music/  4th Gr. Math Tania Ryan	Writing Tarynn Myers		PE _________________	Writing Tarynn Myers (every other)
2:35-2:50	Comp Books/ HW Monday Folders Jennifer Mankins	Comp Books/HW		Comp Books/HW
2:50	Dismissal

Vocabulary

Here's a link to Quizlet for this week's vocabulary words.
The quiz is Friday!
Ancient Americans Vocab

Back-to-School Night 2013

Here is some information & links from my presentation.

Parent Information Packet

Brief example of what students will learn to do in MATH according to the CCSS:

Fourth grade students perform multi-digit arithmetic (345x56). They use large whole numbers to fluently add and subtract and to develop fluency with multiplication and division (including quotients with remainders). They develop an understanding of fraction equivalence, addition and subtraction of fractions (with like denominators) and multiplication of fractions by whole numbers. Students classify geometric shapes based on properties (i.e. parallel or perpendicular sides, angle measurements and symmetry).

Students in fifth grade apply their understanding of fractions and fraction models to represent the addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators. They develop an understanding of the multiplication of fractions and, in limited cases, the division of fractions. Students develop fluency in multiplying and dividing decimals to hundredths and finalize fluency in using the four operations with whole numbers. They find the volume of right rectangular prisms and classify two-dimensional figures into categories based on their properties. Students graph points on a coordinate plane to solve real-world problems and interpret the coordinate value of points in the context of the situation.

Guide to shifts with the CCSS for Parents & Students

What do Parents need to know about the CCSS?

Parents' Guide to Student Success (from the National PTA)

Newsletter for the week of 9/9/2013

Dear 4/5 Families,

I hope this letter finds you well! Thank you for the abundance of classroom supplies that you have been sending in, we are so appreciative of your generosity! Thank you also for support with homework folders, we had almost 100% of students bringing their folders with completed homework everyday!

In an effort to prepare your child for middle school responsibilities, Mrs. Dudley and I have been working together to create an organization system of binders for the Intermediate students (4th-6th grade).  As a class, we organized our binders on Friday and hope that throughout the year the students will gain the skills to become more responsible and organized. I will keep a teacher binder for students to reference throughout the year.

In order to create and maintain a safe and supportive learning community, we have begun to discuss some “habits of mind” that we can practice together. I’ve put a link on our classroom website to the definitions if you are interested in reading through them. I hope that it will be a common language that we can use to think about our thinking and support one another in the classroom & on the playground.

Check out our class website for an update on what we’ve started studying and learning about. I will be giving you a more detailed curriculum plan at Back-to-school Night, this Wednesday. Please plan to arrive at Mountain school by 6:30 PM for a presentation with Ms. Morgenstern in the PAC room. Immediately following, I will be presenting at 7-7:25 and 7:30-7:55 in our classroom. Please remember that it is an evening for adults only and there will not be child-care available.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me at rhonig@santacruz.k12.ca.us.

Best,

Ms. Honig

What we're learning about:

Reading/Writing
Use Cornell Notes to organize information from the Social Sciences texts and in our novel study (The Birchbark House). Focus on the purpose of writing and different formats for writing narrative & informative pieces, using Step-up-to-Writing methods. 

Social Sciences
Focus on the geography of the United States and how the environment affected the settlements and lives of Native Americans.

Math
4th: Use place value to identify numbers (to the ten thousands place), round and estimate sums & differences of these numbers 

5th: Use place value to identify numbers (to the billions place), round and estimate products & quotients of these numbers 

Both grades: Practice and memorize math facts (multiplication, division, addition and subtraction)

Science

4th Grade: Environments Module, study the relationships between organisms and their environment.

5th Grade: Stay tuned!