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.