Hello Families,

I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and stayed cool.

Reminders:

"Gold Dust or Bust" Opening Night: this coming Thursday at 7 p.m.  Actors arrive at the school at 6:30.  School performance Friday Sept. 30 at 11 a.m.
Cast Party: Friday Sept. 30 from 12:20 - 1:15. Thank you to all those who have volunteered in any way for the play and the cast party. A special thank you goes out to Krissy for organizing the nacho bar. What fun!!

Field Trip: The Tech Museum Oct 5

Simplicity of Electricity Lab and IMAX

You must be sure that all DMV paperwork is current in the office to drive on this field trip. We have selected drivers and will assign students to cars in the next week. We leave school at 8:15 sharp so that we arrive at the museum in San Jose at 9:00. We will gather on Park Avenue and then go into the museum as a group. A brief orientation will follow where we will receive our wristbands and tech tags. Our Simplicity of Electricity Lab begins at 9:30 and runs 90 minutes. The "Forces of Nature" IMAX starts at 11:00 and has a 45 minute running time. We will have a quick lunch in Venture Hall inside the museum and then head back to school. Because it is a short day, I would like to get back to school in a timely fashion so that pick up will not be too delayed.

For tech parking and info

ELA: We are continuing our reading and study of the Gold Rush and various vocab and events to prepare for Coloma and the play. 

Math: we will continue to practice place value, rounding and estimating and begin our next unit on factors and multiples and prime factorization. Please check your child's planner for specific page numbers for homework assignments.  In an effort to keep everyone organized, binders will be cleaned out every other week and old lessons and papers will be paper clipped together and sent home. You may chose to keep papers in a drop folder or file at home if you like.

Science: We will continue our study of magnets this week. We experimented with permanent and temporary magnets, learned about north and south poles, and how magnets attract and repel.

Social Studies: We will continue our study of the Gold Rush.

Writing: As our play wraps up, we will take what we have learned about prepositions and create our first poems.

Vocab./Grammar: we will continue to rehearse exclamatory, declarative, imperative, interrogative in conjunction with simple, compound, and complex sentences in the coming weeks. Nightly vocabulary (shades of meaning) homework will be assigned each Monday and wrap up with a quiz on Friday.

Enjoy your week!

With Gratitude,

Mrs. Young

Dear families,

I am really enjoying your bright, funny and inquisitive children!

With our third week of school accomplished, we are all settling in to our routines and working on practicing our play. Our music has been shared with all families. Please let me know if you are having trouble accessing the shared folder on google drive. Micha will be here helping with choreography starting Monday Sept. 12 from 9-12. It is important for all students to know their lines and the words to all the songs. We practice daily at school, but your child should read the play as nightly reading in order to memorize and get comfortable with the dialogue.

**Play dates: Thursday Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Pac room for families and friends and Friday Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. in the Pac room for all students. To volunteer to help with our play, click here.

Art, Music, and P.E.: your child is enjoying a full, well-rounded curriculum that includes the arts and physical education.  We are so very lucky to have these very talented teachers supporting our students. Thank you Mary Beth Duncan, Ket Tom-Conway and Kim Fleming!

Reading Buddies: our buddies are Ms. Martin's first graders this year! Both the first and fourth graders are doing very well with this and enjoy reading to their buddies on Friday afternoons before going home for the weekend. Happiness is a reading buddy!

The Blue Binder: includes the planner, a black homework pocket for each day's assignments, and a reading log for parent signatures/initials every night. This binder has three sections: notes; homework/classwork; and tests. This is the only binder that will travel back and forth every day between the classroom and home (doesn't come home on Fridays). Your child's planner is the best place to see what is assigned and when it is due. We fill in our planners every morning and Shauna, our wonderful aide, will be checking to see that homework, planners, and signatures/initials are complete every morning. This is a system to help your child manage and organize class work, homework and a schedule. We support each child with this, but it is very important that your child brings his/her binder each day with a parent signature and an initial for the reading log.  Academic success can be impacted if this is a regularly forgotten item. It is helpful to complete and pack the binder in the back pack and place it by the door the night before so that in the rush of the morning it is not left behind. We appreciate the support you give your child with this at home.

Math: we have been reviewing whole numbers and place value up to the millions. We will continue to review math facts and begin to go forward this week with estimation, approximation and rounding. We will, as a general rule, have a test every Friday to assess the week's concepts. In addition, we are working on a POM (problem of the month) and continue to do math story problems each period to reinforce concepts.

Social Sciences: Gold Rush as it aligns to our play and our Coloma trip this year. Gold Country here we come!! 

Science: we will move into our Foss curriculum on electricity and magnets this week. Our Tech museum field trip (details below) supports this.

Read Aloud: Kit Carson. We are mapping Kit's journey through the Sierra Nevada Mountains
from California to Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

Accelerated Reader: Information on how to use and support your child with Accelerated Reader will come home this week, and I will be modeling this with students so that they become comfortable with it.  This is something that Ms. Treen does as well. So many of you and your children may be familiar with it already. 

Novel: By the Great Horn Spoon.  This will be our first novel and deep dive into literature. We will read this aloud together on the doc camera so that all students are supported regardless of varying reading levels. This was read to your child last year as a read aloud, and now we are using a second-read (common core strategy) to study this more in depth and develop a deeper understanding of the text  (comprehension, literary devices, academic vocabulary and discussion).

Growth Mindset video: I support best practices and a growth mindset in the classroom. Please click here to view an excellent video on this concept. Your child has viewed this video already.

**Our First Field Trip: Tech Museum Wed. October 5 from 8-12:30. Drivers needed. Please be sure that you have filled out the necessary paper work with the office. You will find our field trip drivers sign up page on our blog if you are interested in driving and joining us. I select drivers on a first-come-first-serve basis. Look for the field trip permission slip in the Monday folders tomorrow. Please return asap.

**Back to School Night and Coloma Meeting: Wednesday September 21. At 6:15 Ms. M. will meet all families in the PAC room with current Mt. topics, presentation and discussion--all parents are encouraged to attend. Then, teachers will give classroom presentations for everyone at 7:00 and again at 7:30.  At 8 p.m. Reina Honig and I will give information about the 4/5 trip to Coloma this year.  I look forward to greeting everyone and talking about the curriculum, Coloma and our fabulous year! (Mark your calendars Coloma: Oct. 19-21).

Classroom volunteers: please find the volunteer expectations for our classroom here.  If you are interested in volunteering in our classroom, know that we appreciate it very much! It's what makes Mountain so special.  You can click here to put your name on the volunteer list. Thank you.

Student Council Election packet coming home today: 4th grade can run for secretary. There is an application and speech guidelines in the green Monday folder.

Mountain nightly homework duration policy: 10 minutes per grade level plus reading--40 min. + 30 min. for reading = 70 min. 

Warmly,

Mrs. Young and Shauna