Holiday Fun on Friday

We have a fun day planned this Friday, December 19, and wanted to let families know what to expect before winter break.

We will start our morning with two stations; the first is a craft project that half the students will work on while the other half play with Snap Circuits. If you are not familiar with Snap Circuits, they are a great way for our students to get some safe, hands-on experience with electricity. This is the perfect end to our energy unit, which we just finished today!

Snap Circuits: One of the coolest toys ever!

 

Later in the morning the students will be finishing their fun winter stories and then will have their last Artist in Residence session. Finally, we will return to the classroom for our Electronics Party!!! We let the students vote on a party to celebrate their participation in the food drive and electronics party won! Tomorrow, we will be sending home more information about our electronics policies, but please be aware that we have school iPads available to use rather than bringing devices from home.

If you would like to send a treat to school with your child to share with the class, please have your student let us know tomorrow. We will be offering these as snacks during our afternoon party. 

Have a wonderful winter break with your families. We look forward to seeing you all in 2015!

The joy of creating computer code.  Last week some of the 4th graders had the opportunity to do further experimentation in developing computer code.  As you can see from the video below it was met with the kind of enthusiasm that only our amazing 4th graders can exude. Students can do that at home as well.  Just go to Code.org and follow the directions.  I know some of them have already tried it.

Canned Food Drive

Despite our best efforts, the H/K kids took second place in the canned food drive! We lost by a mere eight cans! I want to give a HUGE thank you to all of our students and families who donated to this wonderful cause. I know our local food bank appreciates all of our efforts. Your kids have amazing spirit and big hearts.

The students furiously unpacking the huge donation from Peyton's family.

Posted with Blogsy

Teligami

Last week the students we serve with our new iPads were asked to create a "Teligami" to express their opinion about living in the tropics vs. a desert climate.  It was the first time the students had been exposed to the Teligami app.  The app allows the students to record their voice using an animated character.  The students can make choices on the physical features of the character.  They can also choose different backgrounds for the character.  The app is modeled and intended for short messages.  They can not be longer than 90 seconds. We had a brief time on our first trial but we had a couple of successful "Teligamis".  The young women below says..." In my opinion it is much better to live in the tropics than the desert because there are many more usable natural resources in the tropics."  Let us know if you would like us to send you the "Teligami" directly.
  

Updates

Extreme Weather Excitement

Now that we have survived the first bout of “Extreme Winter Weather”, it’s time to get back to business! Last week we did not send home DSL’s, Reading Logs, or spelling lists. With conferences starting on Friday, we have decided to NOT send home Fox Reports this afternoon. If you have any questions about how your student performed last week, we can happily say that everyone had a great two day week! There were no new major assignments, and we are seeing a huge improvement in math homework turn-in. Thank you for your ongoing support from home.

Not quite this extreme

Conferences

As stated above, conferences begin this Friday, November 21^st. We have early release on Friday; kids will be excused at 11:20 and conferences will begin at 3:30. We will continue conferences on Monday, November 24^th. If you have any questions about your conference time, please contact the main office. They have access to our schedules and may be able to make changes.

Your students are welcome to join us, as they are an important part of the conversation. We will also hand out report cards at that time.

Shoebox Speech

This week we are also not sending home a traditional DSL assignment. Instead, we are asking students to begin work on a Shoebox Speech. This is a great assignment that gives us an opportunity to learn a little more about the lives of our learners outside of the classroom. We have attached the assignment here so you can look over the expectations with your child. We will help students begin the outline and write the introduction and conclusion in class, but the practicing and refining of the speech will need to be done at home over the next two weeks. We will begin presenting speeches the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday, December 1^st.

Shoebox Speech Assignment

Fun in the Fourth Grade

After nearly two months of hard work, last week was a great opportunity to have some fun in the fourth grade.

For the last two weeks our students have been mastering the art of the array. These handy models help students learn the processes behind multi-digit multiplication. If you look carefully at the pic collage above, you will notice the students carefully creating the arrays with our base-ten pieces. This week's focus will be on using sketches of the models to quickly solve two-digit by two-digit algorithms.

In addition to new learning in math, we also completed our second independently written persuasive paper. The students were asked to describe the perfect pet and defend why they thought it was a good choice. We are already seeing huge gains in the writing abilities of our students. It will be fun to share their work at our upcoming conferences.

In Language Arts we have been focused on informational text and learning about climates from around the world. This has tied in nicely to our new ELD unit, which is a series of lessons on the geographical features of Oregon. We will end our studies with a writing piece where students must defend living in either a desert or tropical climate.

And, finally, the fun! On Friday, rather than having a traditional harvest party, our students headed to the computer lab for an afternoon of code.org. This fantastic site is dedicated to helping kids learn the fundamentals of computer coding. While it at first seems like all fun and games, we believe our students will attest to the thinking skills they had to use in order to complete the coding challenges. You could feel the energy in the lab as the kids worked through some pretty tricky puzzles. We want to encourage all our students to visit the code.org website and continue the course two activities.

Friday was wrapped up with one of our favorite art projects. Students used crayon, Sharpie, water colors, and a straw to create the masterpieces shown above. If you are in the building, be sure to take a closer look in the fourth grade hallway.

We were lucky to have two of our moms donate time to come in and cut apples and scoop caramel for our special "harvest" snack. A special thank you from Mrs. Harrington and Ms. Kinsman for not only providing the help in getting the food ready, but also cleaning up the classroom after the art and eating!

October 31st is Sneaking Up!

We are preparing for a bit of fun in the afternoon on Friday, October 31st!  We are actually going to be doing a bit of computer "code" writing.  The students have really enjoyed this in the past, and it is highly engaging and great for critical thinking.  We would also like to enjoy a little treat on this day.  Are you willing to send in a few fresh, crunchy apples or a container of soft-serve dipping caramel?  After doing our last health unit on eating more fruits and vegetables, apples seem like a good compromise. :)  Please send us an e-mail if you can help with sending in these items.  You are appreciated.

Routines

Routines

In the fourth grade, we take a lot of pride in helping our students learn and maintain routines that lead to ongoing success. This is why we spend a lot of time working on establishing and practicing day-to-day organization skills. Below, we have included our Back-to-School night presentation, which discusses some of our routines.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Harrington or Ms. Kinsman. We are here to help!

And in the Classroom...

We had another busy week. With school pictures, our first spelling tests, and technology class, there was not a dull moment to be had!

Math

We are nearly to the end of our first unit on multiplication. The students have been learning about different strategies they can use to solve simple multiplication problems. Many of these skills will be transferred into more complicated equations in the coming months. 

In addition, we have continued using our longer math block to provide daily math fact fluency quizzes. For students that need the practice, we will continue to focus on subtraction fluency through the end of the month. About eight of our students have started their multiplication facts; in November, all of our kids will be practicing multiplication facts.

Language Arts

We are wrapping up our study of My Name is Maria Isabel and will be assessing the students ability to identify the main idea, characters, and theme of a story by reading Tómas and the Library Lady next week. 

In addition, we started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing aloud. Next quarter we are going to look at how the story has been adapted into different formats, like plays and films. Plus, it is a great read.

Our students also finished their family writing essays. These pieces of writing will be ready for you to read at conferences next month. For many of our learners, this is their first "five paragraph essay". We have been very impressed with their hard work and dedication in making these great pieces of writing.

Technology

We also had our monthly technology class last week. The students reviewed the logging in process, opening Word documents, and practiced using a search engine. Our hope is to provide students with enough exposure and education to technology that they can use it with ease and responsibility. Our new state tests are computer-based and will require a good deal of typing. We are very fortunate to be able to offer this class to our students to help them prepare for the spring!

Back to School Night Presentation 2014-2015

Back to School Spanish2

Come Back to School on Thursday Night

Back to School Night

Yes, that's right, on Thursday evening, from 6:00-7:30pm, we will be holding our Back-to-School Night.  This is an important event where we will cover the following topics:

• Our goals at Free Orchards Elementary
• Our goals in the fourth grade
• Our homework policy (with a video, no less!)
• A chance to meet the teachers face-to-face and ask any questions you may have about the year

A Glance at Last Week

Last week we accomplished so much with our students. Take a look below to see what we have been working on.

Math

Last week we focused on multiplication models and improving our subtraction fluency. Based on a pretest, we saw that students needed some extra work with subtraction. Each morning students were given a quick, two and a half minute, timed test on basic subtraction facts. Most kids had score of 15 or less on the 50 question quiz on Monday; by Friday, nearly every score had doubled, or even tripled!

We will continue to work on multiplication arrays next week and will be learning about prime and composite numbers. If you need a quick review, here's a great song to help students remember their prime numbers (don't worry, we'll watch this in class at least 50 times this year!):

Reading

Our students received their first "Reading Menu" of the year. This is a fun, student-driven set of activities designed to help students focus on a variety of reading skills. They are given a selection of 5-10 reading exercises to complete over the course of two weeks. Some of the activities review basic skills, while others extend learning beyond the text we are reading in class. 

We have been reading The Kid in the Red Jacket aloud and Grandfather's Journey in smaller groups. Both stories tell about characters that have dealt with life-changing moves. We are focused on finding the main ideas, character's traits, and the themes of these pieces.

A-Z Reading Challenge

We also introduced the A-Z Reading Challenge on Friday. This is a fun way to help motivate our students to read throughout the year. We included the PowerPoint presentation below in case you or your student have any questions about this fun activity.

A to Z Reading Challenge

Homework

We also assigned our nightly math homework, provided a reading log, and gave our second DSL (writing homework) of the year. If you are not seeing these items every night, please be sure to ask your student to see their homework folder. If you have any questions, you may contact Mrs. Harrington or Ms. Kinsman by phone or email.

We are looking forward to seeing all of you next week!

"I Pick" books

Yesterday in class we worked on choosing books that are the right fit.  These are books that the students will read during independent reading time.

I  - Chose the book

P - There is a PURPOSE for the book: pleasure, research, etc.
I - You have to be drawn in or have an INTEREST in the book.
C- You have to be able to COMPREHEND or understand the book.
K- You have to KNOW the words.  The book needs to be at a level that you can figure out the words.

At the end of the period all of our 4th grade class had 3-5 books chosen.  If you are a parent reading this, take a minute and ask your student what books they chose and what they like about what they have read so far.




  

Back to School and Having Fun!

Thank You to our Wonderful New Students!

Thank you for making our first week back to school a success! Mrs. Harrington and I were VERY impressed by our students' behavior and self-management skills this week. We received numerous compliments from other school staff about the amazing attentiveness and positive attitudes of our learners. All around, we had a fabulous week!

Schedules

As we get the year started, we wanted to share a little more information about what a typical day looks like in the H/K classroom:

• 7:50-8:00       BIG 5 (Math Practice) & Attendance
• 8:00-8:30       English Language Development
• 8:30-10:00     Number Corner/Math
• 10:00-10:30   E/I (Extensions and Interventions)
• 10:30-11:20   Lunch & Recess
• 11:20-11:40   Read Aloud & Response
• 11:40-1:00     Language Arts/Content (Science & Social Studies)
• 1:00-1:15       Recess
• 1:20-1:50       Specials
• 1:50-2:18       Language Arts/Content

And our specials calendar:

 

‘A’ Week	PE	Music	Library	PE	Keyboarding
‘B’ Week	Music	Music	Library	PE	Guidance Lesson

We need our students to remember to come with appropriate shoes on PE days and to have their library books ready to turn in on Wednesdays. Last week was an 'A' week, the upcoming week will be a 'B' week.

Homework

Next week we will also begin sending home nightly homework. Our assignments typically only take students 10-15 minutes to finish and work to reinforce or review skills from class. We try to be very careful about reviewing our homework assignments and allowing students to get started in class.

Upcoming Events

Our PTO fundraiser kick-off assembly will be held on September, 12 at 7:50am. This is for students, but you may attend if you like. On Thursday, September 25th, we will be holding our Back-to-School Night. This is a VERY important evening, filled with a lot of important information about our school and classroom. We look forward to seeing you there!

Welcome Back!

With the final moments of summer slipping away, we want to welcome our new students and families to The Whole Array with H/K blog. Instead of a weekly newsletter, we try to post updates, fun picture or videos, and important information each week. You can follow our posts by submitting your address in the text box to the right. We also send email reminders to check the blog. 
 
We are very excited to be starting the new school year, and want to make sure our students "Soar to Success"! Here's our official list of H/K FAQ's to help our families get started:
 
What supplies do we need for the 4th grade?
 

• We appreciate all supplies sent to school with your student. Unfortunately, we do not use three-ring binders in the fourth grade. We have very little control over the supply list and apologize for this miscommunication.


• We do, however, love, Love, LOVE to receive extra Kleenex and Ticonderoga pencils (Yes, I could talk for at least an hour about my love of these pencils!).


• We also have enough hand sanitizer to sanitize the state of Oregon; if you haven't purchased any yet, we should be set for the year!

Do we give homework on the first day of school?

• Of course!! We will be sending home short homework assignments and paperwork to be signed each night this week. We will be sure each student has a homework folder started before sending them home Tuesday afternoon. Please take a few minutes each evening to review the information in your student's folder.

Why do I have so many teachers?

• Mrs. Harrington and Ms. Kinsman co-teach, which means we share the week. On Mondays, Tuesday, and every other Wednesday, Mrs. Harrington is in the classroom. Ms. Kinsman teaches the rest of the week.


• This year we also have a student teacher, Ms. Cocheu (Co-shoe), who will be joining us in January.

Where do I send the rest of my questions?

• We both respond to emails, phone calls, and other school business all week. If you have a classroom question, please do not hesitate to contact us by phone or email, including both our names in the 'To:' line. Whoever reads/hears the message first will get back to you as quickly as possible.


• Reach us at harringk@hsd.k12.or.us and kinsmanl@hsd.k12.or.us or by phone 503-844-1140 x5527.

Do you have children of your own, and are they cute? 

• Yes! And here is a picture to prove it! We'll see you Tuesday!

 

This is the End!

Next Week

Next week we have a lot of events to celebrate the end of the school year. 

• On Monday afternoon, the teachers will be competing with the sixth graders in a staff vs. students kickball game. 
• Then, on Tuesday morning, we have our school talent show at 9:15 in the gym. Please come and join us watch our talented Free Orchards students. 
• On Wednesday we will celebrate the end of the year with a movie afternoon.
• We have our 'Hats Off' awards assembly on Thursday morning at 9:00. Dismissal on Thursday will be at 11:20 and summer then begins!

Oregon Garden

We had a wonderful time at the Oregon Garden last week. We had perfect weather for the outdoor adventure and learned a lot about the forest and water habitats in Northwestern Oregon. We want to thank our parent volunteers for joining us on the trip. We really could not do the field trips without the support. 

The Boston Tea Party (without the tea)

Finally, we would really like to thank Sina Hirning, from our cafeteria, for making the absolutely delicious Boston Creme Pie served at our tea party. While we didn't have the tea, there were very complaints when students saw the size of the cake slices they were about to receive. This was a great activity to end our study of the American Revolution. 

URL for Famous Contributer to the American Revolution

We are starting on a new adventure in writing/speech this week.  The 5th graders are going to choose a person that made a significant contribution to the American Revolution.  They will start by exploring the following web site to determine who they will choose to explore and write about.

theamericanrevolution.org. 

Update...

Here is a list of a few more sites that kids might find helpful when writing their speeches. Please feel free to work on the speech at home, as well. 

Click on the portraits to learn more about your famous person: Mr. Nussbaum's list of Important People

Scroll down the page to find the section that says, "Biographies of People Important to the American Revolution": Kid Info about Famous People

This Liberty's Kids site has very short biographies about your famous people: Liberty's Kids Famous People

Look under the heading "People" to find short biographies: Ducksters American Revolution

Shorter and slightly easier to read biographies: HistoryCentral.com

Look at the long list of names on the left side of the page: Shmoop.com

A Little Bit of Washington County History

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming the Washington County Mobile Museum to the fifth grade. Our presenter explained how Hillsboro, Beaverton, and the surrounding areas got the nickname of 'The Silicon Forest'. She also brought along some of the technology that has been developed in our area. Parents, you might recognize some of the old cell phones in the pictures. It really is amazing to think how far technology has come and how many of the developments have happened in our own backyards!

Examining the insides of a hard drive & making an important call!

Putting the phones in chronological order 

Taking a closer look at a circuit board

Next week we will have a presentation from the Hillsboro Police department on cyber safety. Please join us for the parent information night on Tuesday, at 6:00pm. We are hoping to increase our students' awareness of the most positive ways to use 21st century technologies. 

Finally, please be aware that we will continue to send home Writing Sparks, Reading Logs, Nightly Math Homework and Fox Reports through the first week of June. While we understand that students are excited for summer break, we still have a number of topics we want to finish covering before the end of the year. We are finishing our fraction unit (ask your students if they can add/subtract fractions with unlike denominators) and learning about early U.S. history. 

Have a wonderful week!

Fractions, Time, and the Clock

It is really neat as a teacher to see that application of math into the real world of students.  One of our math lessons last week connected the concepts of time and the clock to our study of fractions.  The students did a great job demonstrating their knowledge with story problems. It was really nice to use the clock to demonstrate fractions because it isn't just based on our number system of 10's and 100's.  Students really had to think to make the connections....

Untitled

What a great week of learning! We enjoyed a really fun visit from the Evergreen Aviation Center last Friday. We learned about how design affects rockets and then had fun testing our own rockets outside. We appreciate this engaging learning experience and our instructor for coming out to Free Orchards!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Colonial Regions Posters

5th graders display and share what they have learned about the New England Colonial Region.

This group also did their research on the New England Region of the 13 original colonies.

The Southern Colonies were distinctly different from the Mid-Atlantic or the New England Colonies.

For the past 7 days all the 5th graders have been researching the three distinct regions of the 13 original colonies.  They were divided into groups of four students each and each student then researched a significant topic that shaped that region of the colonies.  These topics included the founding, geography, religion, slavery, plantations,  and economy.  The culmination of the project was a well designed poster  presented to their class.  Each student had the opportunity to share a summary of what they had learned.  The plan is to display the posters in the upstairs hallway so other grade levels can learn more about the colonial period as well.  We urge all to come take a look.

Let's Get Fired Up!

Science Fair Success!

We were so impressed with our students' science fair projects this year. Thank you for the effort your families put forth. We know it is a lot of work to get a project completed! Here are some of our projects.

End of the Year Expectations

With the end of the year fast approaching, we understand that the weekly responsibilities of our students may get harder to manage from home. However, we want to encourage our learners to continue strong work and study habits through the end of the year. We have many fun activities planned and would hate for students to miss out because they are finishing class work.

Weekly writing homework turn-in has been pretty strong, but nightly math assignments and reading logs are starting to be more challenging to the kids. They also need to have a parent sign/return the Fox Report every Tuesday. If you are not seeing a Fox Report, please check with your child or contact one of the teachers; we are sending them home every Monday evening.

State Capitol Visit

We had a wonderful time at the state capitol on Friday. The tour was very well done, and the view from the top of the building was beautiful. Thank you so much to our families that sent money in to help cover the cost of busing and/or who helped chaperon our student groups. Here are a couple of great shots from our trip (thank you Ivy for your photos):

Viewing the Pioneer statue from the rooftop

Sitting at the governor's ceremonial desk

Oregon Garden Call Out

On June 3rd, we will be visiting the beautiful Oregon Gardens. We are looking for parent volunteers that are available to chaperon the whole day (7:50-2:20). Only our class is attending, so seating on the bus ride will be much more comfortable. If you are available to help, please let Mrs. Harrington or Ms. Kinsman know through email or with a telephone call.

While we are on the Topic of Gardens

Do you live near the school and love to water plants? Well, we have a job for you! Over the summer we need some helpful families to water the plants in our school garden. If you are interested in helping, please contact Mrs. Harrington or Ms. Kinsman. We are setting up a schedule soon. 

Great Sites to Learn More About the 13 Original Colonies

Today we start a new research project.  Below are a list of student friendly websites that will help in the research.  This is a team project.  Teams of 4 will work together to create a poster of one of the three early colonial regions.  Once finished we will post pictures of amazing projects.

http://www.ops.org/elementary/catlin/Portals/0/Teachers/T_Hagen_Suzanne/north.pdf

http://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/4153/Group%20-%20infosheet.pdf

https://sites.google.com/site/theamericancolonies/southern-region-1

http://www.solpass.org/6ss/Standards/standard_us1.5b.htm

http://mrnussbaum.com/13colonies/13regions/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw9pw8rIDlU      Middle Colonies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ScZh2-QLOE   New England Colonies

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3KAOWye1AM   Southern Colonies