Band forms and Hike forms...

Just a reminder, all band forms are due to school tomorrow. 

Also, coming home tonight is a form to sign up for the school hike that we will have on September 29!  Please go over this information with your student and return these forms to school by Friday at the latest! 

Also, please remember that Friday is picture day!

-Dave

It is hard to believe it has been two weeks already.

Man, what a first couple of weeks.  Our class is really starting to gel.  We have been very focused thus far on teamwork and communication and it is really paying off!  To this end, we ended last week with some student designed challenges that were very well designed and thought out.  And this week we have been practicing untying the human knot during our morning meetings, making group observations of monarch caterpillars in the afternoons, and finally on Friday we met our Kindergarten buddies!  We will spend the next few Fridays hangin' out with them.  This is such a great opportunity to get to know some younger kids in our school, model the great team work that we have been developing and have some fun!

We have also been working on dusting off some of our math skills.  We have been working with and manipulating 3-digit numbers.  Not only manipulating them in our minds, but also practicing some standard addition.  Before we get too deep into anything we want to make sure that all of our pre-requisite skills are dialed in and running smoothly.

We also have a class of strong writers, this week we have been working on creating stories that follow a predictable pattern (beginning, middle and end), as well as crafting beginnings that establish characters and setting, and finally on Friday we switched our focus to developing characters, making sure that they are believable...even if they happen to be caterpillars.

On another note, please remember that I am working to make sure to add photos to our photo tab fairly regularly.  After you click this tab, you do need to follow a link to the album...I ma working on making this tab a direct link, I just haven't worked it all out yet.

I hope you have a great Sunday!

-Dave

Band information coming home tonight.

Hey gang, there is a form coming home tonight about band.  Please check it out with your student to see what their preferences are.  Please please please, send these band forms as back as soon as possible, and certainly no later than next Tuesday.

Thanks,

Dave

Thoughts after our first week.

I hope this post finds all of you well, and enjoying this first (long) weekend of the school year.  We had a wonderful first week.  During the first week of school all students are getting to know one another, and the new set-up of a fresh year.  While many (9) of these students were with me last year, we have six new faces in our mix, and we are all getting to know one another.  That being said, during this week students exhibited some amazing teamwork skills.  Throughout the week we focused on building some of our transferable skills.  For an outline of these please follow this link: https://www.wcsu32.org/Page/470

In particular this week we worked on expressive and effective communication.  We did this through a team-building exercise I like to call the "helium stick," as well as a series of challenges.  The challenges are kind of like treasure hunts, and during the first two days of the week I designed them and students used and developed their power of communication to solve the challenges.  Later in the week, students designed their own challenges in small groups, and different groups solved one another's.  It was super fun, and effective, these challenges can only be designed and solved by using, and asking others to use transferable skills!

We also saw the arrival of our monarch caterpillars this week! We will be rearing them in the coming weeks.  They have made their initial transfer to some delicious milkweed leaves and we are in need of more.  Earlier this week I reached out to ask if anyone had milkweed plants around their house they would be willing to let me dig up, but after some experimenting, I don't think the plants will thrive in containers.  So, I am asking if anyone has a few of these plants in their yards, and they see this post before Tuesday, could they please ask their student to bring a few leaves in on Tuesday to feed to our monarchs.

I hope you all enjoy this weekend and look forward to seeing you for parent night on Wednesday.

Paperwork and forms coming home today.

Hello there, you will notice that your student has a blue folder with them when they come home today.  This folder has some important information inside.  In there you will find a family handbook on the right side, as well as a pack of forms and things on the left side.  In this pack are things like health file updates, contact information, and our Elementary Technology Acceptable Use Contract.  Please fill these forms out and send them back as soon as possible.  We are having a wonderful first day!  Make sure to check in and ask what was your student's favorite thing today.

Dave

First day, Yellow Submarine, and Milkweed...

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I am really looking forward to seeing everyone!  We will be working tomorrow on a class challenge that is focused on our Yellow Submarine, and it's colorful bubbles!

Also, I would like to rear some monarch caterpillars in our room this year, and am looking for a source for milkweed.  I am thinking of trying to keep a live plant or two in a container wither in our room or just outside it.  To this end if any of you have some milkweed you would be willing to dig up and send in, or would be willing to let me stop by and dig up please let me know!  Thanks so much, and see you all in the morning!

Dave

Getting ready for the new year!

Hello!  Just about this time every year I start to get excited for the beginning of school.  This post is to share that excitement and check in with everyone out there.  I am so excited to see all of you during the first weeks of school, and wanted to update everyone on a few small tidbits of information.

First off, my classroom has moved, it is now just down the hall from where it was, across from the art room and right next door to Mrs. Gannon!  This move is great for a bunch of reasons:  One reason is it means that my grade alike teaching partner and I will be right next door.  Now this is exciting because a) my teaching partner is Mrs. Gannon, and b) all the fourth graders will be in close proximity to one another which will allow them to interact easily, as well as allow me to see students who are in a different class this year, but whom I love seeing on a daily basis.  Geez, that was sort of a long cascading list of different things...

Second of all I wanted to let everyone know about supplies for the coming school year.  Our classroom will have all the supplies that everyone needs for a successful and engaged year.  That being said, many people still like to have some of their own stuff (I know that I certainly do).  Generally speaking there are only really two physical supplies that are needed in fourth grade: something to write with, and a binder to keep things tidy.  If kids would like to bring their own pencils my suggestion is a simple mechanical one (Bic makes some lovely ones that come in multi-packs for a relatively low price), and a 3 ring binder, I have some wonderful plain black ones for students but some times kids like ones with their favorite characters printed on them, or kittens and unicorns or something, you know what I am talkin' about.

Anyhow, I hope you all have a wonderful final week of summer, and I am looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday the 28th.

If you have any questions, drop me a line at dwillard@u32.org.

-Dave