Academics Are in Full Swing

Welcome Back-I hope you all had a great 3 day weekend.  Now that we have the start of school behind us, we are ready to start with all academic areas this week.
Our objectives/goals for the week are:

Math-we are starting place value and working with large numbers up into the millions.  We will not only be able to say & write them, but to put them into expanded and word form as well.  Also, we will be working hard on the "value" of the digits.

Reading/Lead 21:  We will be taking our Group Placement test on Tues. & Wednesday to see what level we will be in for Lead 21.  Also, this week we will be reading a Read-A-Loud chapter book and working on the strategies of predicting & summarizing.

Language:  We will be learning the 4 types of sentences as well as starting parts of speech.
Spelling:  Unit 1 word list will come home on Tuesday so study for test on Friday.

Montana History:  We started this on Friday by students writing down all they know about Montana.  I saw some good, interesting facts, but also got to see that they will be excited to learn many new, cool things about our magnificent state.  They are actually going to have a journal of information to take with them at the end of the year.  These are pretty amazing!!!!

Social Studies:  We start out the year working with map skills like the continents, hemispheres, latitude/longitude, etc.

Science:  We are going to start with fun experiment on Tuesday to introduce the Scientific Process.  After that we are going to be learning about hurricanes.

Please make sure you get those getting to know you forms back by to me by Tuesday.  Thank you.
Looking forward to a great week with lots of learning going on.  Make sure you read this blog daily to keep up with our daily classroom happenings.

Terrific Thursday

Another great day today for Team Hankins.  We finally were able to do more than just procedures-procedures-procedures today.  We started off the day with some fun review math.  I think these kids are ready for a math challenge!!!!  Yay.  It was so nice to see them come in right away and get to work on tasks at hand.  Also, they were so helpful to each other without any complaining.  Way to work on that positive character.  We started a "getting to know you" project today where they are coming up with 10 cool things that we should know about them.  We will continue these tomorrow and they will be ready for your viewing by Open House on September 9th.  Ask them 3 things they learned about Mrs. Hankins today.  If they can tell you, write in on a notecard or wherever and send it to school with them tomorrow for free money.  (Eventually we will put these blog answers in our assignment notebooks when they arrive.)
Mrs. Neese came in for her first visit today to introduce herself and tell us about what she will be doing to help kids out here at Bitterroot School.  She played a fun game too.  Ask them about it and if they can tell you, write Mrs. Neese on the card for free money.
Then we moved on to more math and played an addition game with cards as you can see from the few pics I took.
My newsletter went home today for you to read.  Has lots in it about our fake money system.  We did have a few tickets & money taken today, but it is all a learning experience about making "good choices" and remaining positive.  In the packet, please make sure you fill out the "All about you" form for me to put in my binder so I have your contact numbers & email.  Thank you.  These are due by Tuesday.  Free money when they are returned by then.
Have a great night.

Great Class of 4th Graders

What a great first day. These kids are amazing and I am so excited to. Be their teacher!  Most of them left today excited about 4th grade which is awesome even though it was not a very exciting day. So much of the 1st day is spent going over procedures. We did make our class " guidelines for success" (rules) today. We have only 2 of them. We will go over them again tomorrow and then see if your child can tell you them.   We also had 2 specialists today with Art being one of them which they are so excited for.
Tomorrow will be a much more fun, interesting day and a day for us to start getting to know each other.
All the office papers went home today.  There are 8 of them to be read & signed. I know that is a lot, but they important & we would like for them to be back ASAP.  Students get $50 of fake money for each one so what a great way to earn $400.  They have until Friday to bring them back to earn the money.
Tomorrow is PE so make sure you have PE shoes.
 Have a great night.