Monday, November 25, 2013

Early Out Tomorrow

Just a quick reminder that 12:00 Dismissal tomorrow. We took our multiplication computation math assessment today. Overall, the class is doing well. You can go over your child's with them tonight as they have been checked and were sent home. Lead 21 research project presentation tomorrow. Students will share all the information they found about their endangered animals. Art projects-they are doing a pretty cool art project right now in Art. If they can tell you about it, write Art in the planner. In Montana History today, we watched a DVD about "How Indian Tribes in Montana Got Their Names". They learned some sign language that the tribes use. If they can sign one of the MT tribes for you and tell you what it is, write the tribe name in the planner. Happy Birthday, Hanna! Thank you for the yummy treats. Have a great night.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Great Job Team Hankins

Food Drive is off to an amazing start thanks to Team Hankins. As you can see by the picture, we collected quite a bit for Day 1 already. In fact, they brought in the most!! Thank you, parents. We made Food Drive Posters today with our buddies and then they, with their buddies, went around the school collecting the food. Love the teamwork!! Great Team Spirit shown today by everyone as they sported their favorite team gear. Unfortunately, there sure was a lot of maroon & white in the building. :(((( Looking forward to a great game tomorrow at Bobcat Stadium! GO CATS!! Today in Math, we made a chart for Units of Time. We will use this to complete multiplication/division problems. For example: 400 years= _______centuries -----3 years = ________weeks. If your child can complete each of these, write "time" in the planner. We didn't take our 2 digit x 2 digit test today. I want students to do some more practice at home this weekend so please give them some problems to work out and check them for them. This will help them be even more ready when we do take it. Thank you-if you do this, write "ready" in the planner. Lead 21 endangered animals projects are great. They are learning many, new things about their animal. We will be ready to share on Tuesday. If your child still needs pictures, please print them out this weekend so they can finish on Monday. PTA calendar came home today. I want to draw your attention to the Music Concert on December 13th. I want you to know that this is only for Grades K-3. 4th Grade will have a performance in January with their recorders. Just wanted to clarify this for you as this is new for us this year of not being in the Christmas Program. Congratulations to Kylee, our Purple Hand Recipient for the month of November. She was nominated for her helpfulness, including others, and of course her never-ending smile!!! Great Job-we are proud of you. Isaac was our Student of the Week this week. We learned that he likes the color black, math is his favorite subject, football is his favorite subject, and he loves hamburgers. We also never knew he could sing. Maybe someday he will be on American Idol. Again, just another reminder that Tuesday November 26th is an Early Out-12:00 Dismissal.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Show Your Team Spirit Day Tomorrow

Yes, tomorrow is the day to show your team spirit whether it be CAT/GRIZ or any other team gear. Come out and support your teams. Of course free money for those that wear CAT gear!!!! Just kidding-guess I can't do that!!! Also, we are starting the food drive here at Bitterroot tomorrow. Students can wear hats inside the building if they bring a non-perishable item for the food drive. So help out those in need and wear your favorite hat!! States & Capitals test went very well today for the most part. You will see 2 grades-I gave one for matching the state with the capital and another for location. As we finished this section, we found out why the NE is the birthplace of our nation and which of our nation's largest cities are located here. If your child can answer both of these, write NE in the planner. Recorders went home for them to practice tonight. Have them play the song they learned for you-if they do and put their recorders back in their backpacks for tomorrow, write recorders in the planner for free money. Also, more multiplication practice tonight. I sent home a copy of all 3 algorithms with some of the kids today so I want them to pick one that works for them and stick with it. Look carefully at the examples. Dress for the weather tomorrow as I think we will finally get to be outside for recess & lunch. PE tomorrow too so bring those tennis shoes. I encourage the kids to bring extra shoes when they have boots as I don't like them wearing the boots & snow pants all day long as they get too hot and uncomfortable. Lead 21 kids-bring your pictures for your endangered animal posters tomorrow. Some started typing their reports out on Microsoft Word. I am amazed at how well they are doing with so few keyboarding lessons. Great job. Have a great night.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

BRRRR!!!

WOW-it is cold out there! I hope you all got to where you needed this evening safely and are snuggled in at home enjoying some family time making memories. First of all, I want to compliment these kids for having a great day yesterday with the guest teacher. They received 2 compliment points. Today was a busy day catching up and reviewing from being gone. As you can see from the papers that came home, in math they had a review which should have been completed with a high percentage of accuracy since we have been reviewing these skills over & over and they also have them on Success Maker. But, some students chose to "rush" through it and not do their best and you can see from the 2nd try grade (those that had more than 8 wrong had to retry) how much better they did just by reading it carefully, working out the problems, and not rushing. So they received an average of the 2 grades for their final grade. This was a good opportunity to converse about how expectations remain the same no matter who is here and that they always have to do their BEST!! Hopefully this was a good lesson for all. Tonight's math homework is 2 digit x 2 digit practice. They are able to use 1 of the 3 algorithms that they have been given to solve them. We are testing on this on Friday. Also, tomorrow is the Northeast states & capitals test. Again, take the time to study and put forth the effort. Lead 21 students are to bring in at least 3 colored pictures of their animal. These can be of it showing some of their characteristics, the animal in its' environment, what it eats,what is making it endangered etc. Any pictures that portray their animal are great. We are going to try and use Microsoft Word to type out some of our facts now that we have been practicing keyboarding, and then they will have the option to finish the rest at home tomorrow or write out the rest. I know it may look silly with some being typed and some printed so that will be their choice. Then everything will be mounted on colored tagboard. Can't wait to hear about all they learned and share. Recorders & books tomorrow for Music!!! Have a great night.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Substitute Tomorrow

Yes, there will be a substitute tomorrow as I have Leadership Team training. Please take a minute to review expectations with your child. Thank you. Today in Social Studies we learned about building the Erie Canal, why it was built, and what 2 bodies of water it connected. Ask your child about it, make sure they have the term "locks" in their description and what these are like that we use when going up many levels or floors in a tall building. If they can tell you, write Erie Canal in the planner. Lead 21 kids were assigned to their endangered animals today. They are so excited. Ask them what animal they have and what they have already learned in a short time today. If possible, they can start printing a couple of pictures of their animal for their projects. No worries if you can't tonight yet though. In math, we did a little bit of long division. We learned the steps by following a guide called the Royal Family. Ask them if they can tell you the members of the royal family. :))) Just a quick reminder that next week is a very short week. Students are dismissed on Tuesday at 12:00 and then No School on Wed.-Fri. for the Thanksgiving Holiday break. Have a great night.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Happy Friday!!

Where did the week go? We had another great, busy week by learning lots of new things and getting lots accomplished. Highlights of the week were: making idioms, learning about endangered animals and what we can do to take care of our Earth, learning how to debate, working hard on multiplication algorithms, playing recorders and learning our 1st song, and enjoying time with our buddies while helping them with their stoplight writing cards, and them teaching us a mystery number math today which they were so excited about. Ask your child what their favorite part of the week was and if they tell you, put it in the planner. Goals for the upcoming week are: starting some measurement/time in math and taking a test on 2 & 3 digit multiplication x 1 digit along with 2 by 2. In Social Studies, we will finish our tour of the NE and taking our states & capitals test on Thursday. In Lead 21, we will assess for week 3 and then start our research/inquiry projects on Monday. Students will be assigned an endangered animal in which they will research to find some facts and to why it is endangered and how it can be repopulated. Research will be done here on computers and then on Monday night students will be asked to print off some pictures for their project at home so more on this on Monday's blog. Then at the end of the week, we will finish Unit 2 by reading Selection 4 which is about how to protect & save the Earth. Students will make a web of ways to protect the world along with details/evidence of how to and then they will do a paragraph writing project to share all they learned and then illustrate it for a completed project. In Language, we will be learning about linking & irregular verbs. Unit 11 spelling list words. Look at that cool dude, Dylan, our student of the week. He had lots of fun things to share. We learned he loves football, Tiger Woods, Social Studies and that he has set the record of 48 touchdowns in Mighty Mights football. YAYYYY-maybe he will play for the Bobcats someday!! Have a great weekend.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Fun Debate

Yes, today in Social Studies we learned how to debate. Have a fun conversation with your child about what we were debating and how it started. I was impressed by the good conversation/evidence that was presented by the 4 different sides. Great job for their first one. If they can tell you about it, write debate in the planner. Music was great today as everyone had their recorders here and Mr. Hennesy was impressed and they are starting to sound quite good for just getting started. Things to work on for homework tonight: math facts, reading, keyboarding, practice spelling words. Remember PE shoes tomorrow. Have a great night.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Happy Wednesday

Today we finally started our tour of the Northeast. Ask your child what they learned about the light houses & shoreline of West Quoddy Head, Maine and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Also, ask them what was wrong in Plymouth when the Pilgrims landed there. If they can tell you, write NE in the planner. More multiplication computation practice tonight. They have to practice facts anyway so may as well do computation too. Keyboarding program-great job today keeping those fingers on home row & or reaching to keys they needed to. Keep practicing at home those of you that are and hopefully those of you that haven't started at home yet will soon. Nightly reading-remember to read at least 30 min./night for 5 days/week and keep track on the calendar. 600 minutes are the minimum for this month. This is a big part of your reading grade. In Lead 21 today, we shared our idioms-they were great. We also worked on comprehension/questioning skills and for writing we wrote a letter to the captain of the ship that helped save the baluga whales in the story "Symphony of Whales". Tomorrow is Music and recorders and books are a MUST!!!! Have a great night.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Idiom Fun

Today in Lead 21, we had fun interpreting & illustrated the meaning of some fun, common idioms. Ask your child if they are in Lead 21, what their idiom was and what it means. Also, in Lead 21 today, we started Selection 3. Ask your child what their realistic fiction story is called and how it correlates with our unit called "A Green Future". We are going to be starting our Lead 21 Inquiry projects soon as Unit 2 -A Green Future starts coming to a close. Students will be choosing an endangered animal to research and find out the causes for it to become endangered and what can be done to help repopulate it. More to come on this later this week. In Montana History, we located the 7 indian reservations along with their tribes. Ask your child what at least 2/7 are. If they can tell you, write the names of them in the planner. We will do more in depth learning of these as we go. New computer program. Yes, today we started practicing keyboarding. Students each have an account so I strongly recommend they practice at home. We will do it some at school, but we have Success Maker & ReadAbout that we have to do here as they are on the school server and can't be accessed from home. The site is: www.typingweb.com/tutor. Thank you for encouraging your child to practice. The big reason we are doing this is not only to help with summaries they have to type in ReadAbout along with report typing on Microsoft word, but our upcoming tests are set up with a format such that students need to type in answers in complete sentences/paragraphs. Yikes- so keyboarding is a must!!! Also, continue to practice xtramath.com for fact mastery. Today in math we were doing multiplication/division algebraic expressions and these were tough for those kiddos that are struggling with their facts. I stressed to them the fact that they are going to take some work on their part and they aren't just going to "fall from the sky" and into their memory bank. We made our flashcards today for the NE states & capitals so now we have another tool to use for mastering them. Continue to practice-the test will be sometime in the next 10-14 days. Library books tomorrow. Also, remember recorders need to be brought back here for Music on Thursday. Have a great night.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Proud to be an American

Today we celebrated Veteran's Day by having in our very own Mr. English as a guest speaker. He talked about and shared a slide presentation with us about his deployment over in Iraq. We so appreciate him and all the other men & women in the Armed Forces that fight for our country & our freedom. We learned some pretty cool facts about what he did over there, but I think the favorite one was "how many blackhawk helicopters could fit in the cargo plane with room to spare for bunks on top? If your child can answer that, write the number in the planner. We started our morning by reading about the history of Veteran's Day. We found out it wasn't always called this and it used to be called Armistice Day. Ask them why this date & time in history was chosen. Next, we watched the "changing of the guards" at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Quite amazing-the students were intrigued by the seriousness of it and what one has to do be selected to be a guard of the tomb. Ask them how many steps they take on the walk as they guard the tomb and why this number is significant. If they can tell you, write the number in the planner. Then we read a book called "America's White Table". Very powerful-ask your child to tell you about it. If any of you, would like to read it, I will borrow it out to you. The pictures below show the things on the table so ask your child what they stand for to see if they can remember. As you can probably tell, we learned a lot today which makes us even more grateful to all those military men & women out there who are fighting for us & our freedom. Tomorrow we are making our flash cards for the NE states & capitals to study here at school and then we are starting our tour. Finally!!!! Math story problems today using multiplication. Some may have these for homework. Good computation practice. Remember to practice those facts!!!! Test over all the 0-12's is SOON!!!!! Remember PE shoes tomorrow. Have a great night.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Thank you-Thank you

Once again thank you for our visits during conference time. I enjoyed our time very much. This week is going to be another busy week. Following are some of the happenings: Math-we will be writing story problems using multi-steps/operations. Also, continuing to practice our multiplication algorithms. We will add on algebraic multiplication/division equations and finding the rule for in/out boxes. In Social Studies, we will begin the week with Veteran's Day. We will read the book: "America's White Table" and then learn about the history behind Veteran's Day along with watching the "changing of the guards" in Washington D.C. Then we will finally get on our tour of the Northeast. Keep practicing those states and capitals. The test will be not this week, but the next. In Language, we are continuing to work on verbs, but adding in more suffixes & homophones. In Reading, we are continuing to find & write examples of figurative language. We are also starting Selection 3 in our readers. Skills/strategies we are going to work on are: Making predictions, writing questions for discussion, and writing summaries. We will also practice synonyms/antonyms with the voc. words from their section. No Science as we are going to take a break so we can get through Social Studies. In Computer time, we will continue with ReadAbout & Success Maker, but now we will be adding a keyboarding program for practice. Since we won't have the extra time to do the XtraMath, please continue to keep doing it online at home like many of you are. Thank you. Today Kaitlin shared Student of the Week things. We found out she likes to collect diamonds. Yes, can you believe it?? Not real ones though-darn!!! We loved all the things she shared with us-keep working & playing hard in softball. You will be on the Skyview High School team someday-I know-then I can come and watch you. That about sums up the week. Have a great weekend.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Quick Post During a Short Break

HI Everyone- Just a quick post to check in. Conferences are going well and I appreciate you coming and taking an interest in your child's education. Your interest & communication with me shows them that education is valued and it makes a difference in their attitude toward learning so Thank you. I love talking about the progress they are making and discussing what they can do both here at school and at home to help make them more successful. Tomorrow is Montana's birthday and I am bringing treats!!!! Have a great day.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Conferences Are in Full Swing

Great afternoon visiting with those of you that had a conference with me today. I always enjoy sharing your child's accomplishments and discussing what they can do to make their learning experiences more positive. Thank you to those of you that came today and for the rest of you, I will see you tomorrow. As you can see from the schedule, the timing is tight so try your best to be on time and I will do my best to keep us on schedule. Have a great night.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Conferences & Early Out Tomorrow

Yes, tomorrow is the first day of conferences and a 12:00 Dismissal. Check to see that you have your conference time marked on your calendar as I am looking forward to visiting with each of you. Come with any questions you have about curriculum, the blog, classroom routines, etc. I will mainly be talking about strengths & weaknesses of your child along with going over test data. Today, students got to purchase items with the remainder of their fake money. Everyone got to purchase something so that is truly a great thing. Remember lots of coupons were purchased yesterday. Now tomorrow everyone starts over with $100. We had our final weather grade taken today. Students found out some fun weather facts while doing a scavenger hunt with a partner. Ask them 2 new things they learned and if they can, write weather in the planner. In Math today, we worked on multiplication computation. Students now have 3 algorithms/strategies they can use to solve 2&3 digit x 1 digit problems. I can't stress enough the importance of knowing their basic facts. Please please practice at home. Library tomorrow-bring those library books. Have a great night.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Spending Our Fake Money For Quarter 1

Yes, today students got to buy coupons with their fake money if they chose to. They were $300/each and they could buy as many as they wanted. Ask them what they purchased and write $ in the planner for free money. Tomorrow, they will be able to shop at Hankins' store to spend any remaining money. Then we start over with $100. Has been a good real-life experience. "The better the choices you make, the more money you have to spend". Raindrops and stories that came in today were amazing. I just LOVE seeing all that creativity. They are all due TOMORROW!!! Today, we had a quiz on the water cycle and they all did a great job. Tomorrow we will finish up with a weather scavenger hunt. In Montana History today, we started the government section. Our capital has not always been Helena. Ask them where the 1st capital was and if they can tell you, write its' name in the planner. Multiplication Facts: Parents please please see to it that your child practices these on a nightly basis. It is so hard to do computation if basic facts are missing. This is so important. Thank you. November Reading Calendars went home today. 600 minutes is expected for the month. Remember 150/week at least. I hope you are enjoying the pictures that came home today. Speaking of picture, the one of Kylee is she with her participation award for competing in the County/City Cross Country meet at Pioneer Park earlier this year. Great job, Kylee. Also, remember to mark your calendar for your conference time if you haven't already. They are listed over on the side of the blog. Have a great night.

Friday, November 1, 2013

We Made It!!

Yes, we made it through Halloween week. Actually the kids did a great job these past 2 days with all the excitement. It is fun to be able to do the fun things and yet still be able to use good character and "rope" that excitement back in and get down to business. Today we started out with a little skit consisting of: Reasons to say "NO" to drugs. Then we made leaf animals with our 2nd grade buddies that turned out so cool. The 4th graders that had extra time made leaf animals also and then we hung them in the hall with our fun slogan: "Mrs. Hankins's Class Leaves Drugs Alone" along with drug free messages hanging with them. You will see them hanging in the hall next week at conference. Ask them what animal they helped their buddy create and/or what animal they created. Some 4th graders share buddies and also some of our buddies moved so we had a couple groups of just 4th graders working together w/o a buddy. That happens. Took our Math Chapter test today and the students did a great job. Now we are moving on to more multiplication/division strategies. Goals for next week: Lead 21-finishing up our informational text on A Green Future. Skills & strategies for the week are: Point of view, drawing conclusions, and idioms. Language-continuing with Verbs & verb tenses. Spelling-Unit 9 word list Math-multiplication/division story problems along with multi step story problems. Also, the properties of multiplication. Science-finishing up the water cycle unit Social Studies-practicing those NE states & capitals Montana History-Government section-Also Friday is Montana's Birthday so we will be do a fun map scavenger hunt with partners. If you know how old Montana will be on Friday, write it in the planner for free money. Speaking of money: Students will use their fake money to buy coupons on Monday and then any money they have left, they will be able to buy things from Mrs. Hankins' store. Any & left over will go back into the bank. Then on Wednesday, they will will start the new quarter with $100. Raindrop Stories & Projects: These are due on Tuesday morning!!! Can't wait to see them and students will get to share their whole story with a partner. Student of the Week: Kira had many fun things to share. We learned she wants to be a Civil Engineer. She has many things she enjoys with horses, purple, soccer, and hunting being just a few of them. Ask your child the thing we learned that she said we didn't know about her. Hint: pink/squirrel Have a great weekend and I hope you get out and enjoy the nice weather.