Mrs. Todd’s Blog

I was happy to see so many people at the face-to-face meetings.  Remember about the history projects.  Don’t let your student wait until the last minute.  We will have the first of four writing assessments Friday (October 9)  morning.  This week has been a normal week for spelling and skills book.  We will have a reading test and spelling test on Friday as well.

August 24, 2009

Dear 4^th Grade Parents,

            We have had to do revisions to the schedule, as we told you at open house would happen. We have the time assigned to us for recess and for the Burlington Rec. Department P.E. to happen. We have also added an extra resource in math to help our students even more. So the schedule has changed to accommodate all the changes. Attached you will see an example schedule for your students homeroom for a week.

Our math resource is Mrs. Cappelletto. She will be visiting with the students to work with the classes from 11:50 – 12:50 each day. We have had to do some major shuffling to allow both classes equal access to her expertise. The classes will alternate having math during the time Mrs. Cappelletto is available.

            The Burlington Rec. Department will not start P.E. classes until September 14, 2009. We added this to the schedule so you would have an idea of how full our days are. As you can see the students will have each subject and at least 30 minutes of physical activity in a day. The big change is that each homeroom teacher will have their homeroom class for science and social studies. Mrs. Welch will still be the 4^th grade math teacher and Mrs. Todd will still handle all the Language Arts. To accommodate all the other extras and resources we decided this schedule change would be simpler for the students and for us to keep track of.

            Please help your student to remember to wear appropriate shoes on Mondays. They will have to have soft-soled shoes (athletic footwear) to run and play in the gym for P.E.  All students are expected to participate. They should not expect to go barefoot, as we have seen in the past. Shoes are required.

            This schedule will change as the extras and resources change. This is not the end all of schedules for 4^th grade. We will keep you updated as these changes happen.

Thank you,

Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Welch

Greetings 4th grade parents and students,

It was wonderful to see so many parents and students at open house. I think we are starting a great year. The fist day of school we will send home the information packets to each student.  It is important that each student gets these packets filled out and signed. The school needs the information ASAP.  Please make sure you read and sign each item.  We need the Internet agreement signed before we can visit the computer lab. This is the big homework assignment for the week. 

The students and I will spend the week on how the class will run and the schedule we have set up. We will not have a weekly reading test this week because I will be giving assessment tests.  Look for a writing assignment, which will be a personal narrative.  Writing is becoming more and more important and we have four official state assessments this year.  There is a post from last year that is under the writing assessment category on the blog. This will explain some of what you can expect this year. Some minor changes have happened as the state refines the process, but it is essentially the same.  We will be sending more home soon on when to expect the writing assessments to take place.

I will start tutoring after Labor Day. I have set my tutoring day for Mondays from 3:00 to 3:45 this year. Please email, call, or write a note to let me know when your student will be staying for tutoring. I will be tutoring in the reading and writing processes.  We will have a better idea of who needs to stay for tutoring after we have a couple of weeks behind us. The students can start tutoring at any time during the year and stop, if we see enough progress, at any time. So if we see grades slipping feel free to start sending your student to tutoring.

Once again it was wonderful to meet you all and I look forward to working with you this year.

Pam Todd

I hope to see everyone on Aug. 13 at open house for the start of the new year!

Hello,

Report cards went home Thursday, January 22nd.  The weather slowed up the process. Enclosed will be re-enrollment forms for the 2009-2010 school year.  The school needs these forms back no later than January 30th.  You can send them back inside the signed report card envelope.

Also enclosed were the state print out of last year’s EOG.  Remember they were delayed because of the rescaling the reading scores.  I you have any questions please give us a call and we can explain the results to you.

Remember, the Robinson Crusoe final assessment is due Friday, January 30th.

We will also be starting round three of this year’s new state writing assessment on January 29th.  All of this has to be done at school because it is a state assessment.

Mrs. Todd

12-11-08

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,

    The school has been having difficulty with printing from the computers in the new building.  I apologize for not sending home progress before now in this grading period, the printing issues prevent me from even sending the information to the other building. I finally got the progress reports printed. 

            I want everyone to know that the students have had difficulty with the reading lessons in these six weeks.  We have been reading nonfiction text and they are not as interesting and the text is more difficult to comprehend.  Put the two things together and the test scores suffered greatly.  The students have improved and the reading scores are improving.  

            On a personal note, I would like to thank every one for all the thoughts and prayers and Thanksgiving.  You are a wonderful group of parents.  My family is enjoying a two-month break in treatments.  We will be resting and preparing for the doctors in February.

            REMEMBER, we are having our class brunch Friday, December 19^th starting around 10:00am.  If you have not signed up to bring something check out my blog to see what others have already committed to bring.

            REMEMBER, we are changing the schedule after the winter break.  You can check out the blog for that as well to see the schedule as it stands.  Mrs. Wagner and I are still working out how to schedule out Library and Living Lab time.  We will still be meeting as one class on Friday afternoons for art.  We will start splitting art up with computers.  I will take a group for computers and Mrs. Wagner will take a group for art.  We will swap them so all of the students will have computers and art every Friday afternoon.

            REMEMBER, Mrs. Wagner has a science project due on January 9^th.

Thank you,

Mrs. Todd

c.c.  Mrs. Wagner

12-10-08

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,

The follow is a list of items that have been promised for the brunch on December 19^th.  We will start our brunch at 10:00 am after the students finish listening to the concert by the Clover Garden School band. 

Matkins family                          plates, napkins, cups

Cameron family                                    sausage balls

Rodriguez family                           chips, plates, napkins

Eakes family                                         chips drinks

Rogers family                                        cheese cubes, chocolate chip cookies

Whitesell family                         chips and dip, juice

Hartel family                                         plates, napkins, and utensils

Surrette family                          cheese cubes

Hackney family                         cheese and crackers

Roberts family                                      grapes and muffins

Amoriello family                           cheeses, spreads, crackers

Cheek family                                        plates, cups, and napkins

If you wish to change your choice please let me know so that I can change the list.  Please send in your forms ASAP so that we know what we can expect for our class brunch.

Thank you,

Mrs. Todd