Halloween Reminders

• Halloween is a half day this year and the end of the first quarter. Students will be released at 12:30 on Friday.
• Students can wear their Halloween costumes to school. They should not cover their face, paint themselves up, or bring weapons. They can wear their costumes straight to school, and don't need to change once they get here.
• Our Halloween party is after lunch and before early dismissal. That will give us about 45 minutes of fun!

LEGO Club

Where: Cobb Public Library

When: Saturday, November 1

          @ 1:00pm - 2:00pm

Who: All ages

~LEGOs provided

~FREE

Children 6 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Parent/Teacher Conferences are coming up soon! Conferences are scheduled for Thursday, November 6 and Tuesday, November 11 from 4-8 p.m. each night. I will be sending home a schedule tonight for parents to fill in the time slot that works best for them. If neither of those time slots work let me know and we can make other arrangements too. Please put a 1, 2, and 3 in the boxes that work best.

Conferences will be in the classroom this year. Your child can with, or you can have them stay home. Hopefully, the things I tell you is not new information to them.

If you need to rearrange times later for whatever reason, just send me an e-mail or send a note with your child.

Challenge Words

For the last week of the quarter I gave the kids the choice to move to a harder spelling list if they have been successful with their current list of spelling words. Some kids decided to stay where they were, but many wanted a more difficult set of words. We will go back to our normal set of words next week, so if your child is really struggling this week with words don't panic.

We will take the test first thing Friday morning (yes, Halloween morning!) I am hoping we can focus for 15 minutes right away even if we are dressed in our costumes.

WCKE Testing Monday and Wednesday

Just a reminder that students will be taking the science and social studies portion of the WKCE this week. On Monday they will take the science test at 10:30 a.m. and Wednesday will be the social studies test at the same time.

We will no longer be using the WKCE testing for reading and math. The testing for those will now be done with a program called the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which is computer based. Those tests will be done either in late winter or spring.

WKCE Test (Science and Social Studies Only)

This letter is being sent home tonight too. We are only doing the science and social studies at this time. The reading and language arts portions will now be done in the spring with a new testing system called the Smarter Balanced test.

October 23, 2014

Dear Family,

            This letter is to inform you of the dates on which W.K.C.E. testing will take place for children in fourth grade at Iowa-Grant.   Please look over the testing schedule on the back of this letter carefully.   It is appreciated if medical or other appointments are avoided on these dates.  The best preparation you can give your son or daughter for testing day is a good night’s rest!  Also, children tend to concentrate better when they have eaten breakfast.   We encourage your child to participate in our school breakfast program, if he or she does not eat breakfast at home.  Children may bring a healthy snack to school for milk break, if they wish, as well.  All students will need to have at least two # 2 pencils and a good eraser to use during the tests.  Thank you for your support and cooperation.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.

Sincerely,

The Fourth Grade Team

Adam VanOvermeer

Jodi Bast                   

Brandee Hrubes

 Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam

4^th Grade Testing Schedule

October 27^th-31^st, 2014

Date	Test	Start Time	Length (min.)
MON 10/27	Science	Math Class 10:30-11:15	40 minutes
WED 10/29	Social Studies	Math Class 10:30-11:15	40 minutes

Students who miss a testing session, will make it up during the following week.

Halloween

Costumes

Students will be able to dress up this year for Halloween on Friday, October 31. There are a few rules to keep for them though. The costumes are optional.

• No masks or face coverings
• No face painting
• No blood or extremely scary costumes (that would scare our kindergartners)
• No weapons (real or fake)

Our party will be on October 31, even though it is a half day. On half days we have about 45 minutes after lunch when we are in the room. The plan is to have the party at that time. The Halloween committee is meeting today to make plans. Other students do not need to bring anything.

Halloween Parties

There is information about two parties below. One at the Livingston Fire House and the other at the Montfort Library.

Montfort Halloween Party

Sponsored by Montfort Library

Where: Montfort Community Building

When: Friday, October 31 from 6-7

Following Montfort trick or treating 4-6pm

There will be games and treats for the children.

Also a costume contest at 6:30.

Livingston Halloween Party

Where: Livingston Fire House at 230 N. Grand St.

When: Sunday, October 23 from 1-3 p.m.

             

Admission: $5.00 - Kids 13 and under

Games, Truck n' Treats, and a Spook Room...to name a few.

...and a Costume Contest too.

Proceeds go towards Park Preservation Project

Weekend Game!

We are working on multiplication in our second unit of math. The following game will fit in well with multiplication practice and the upcoming World Series!

Batter's Up Baseball Math Game

Party Committee

Click to Enlarge

Attached is the party committees for this year. If you are getting this via e-mail, you may not see the list above. If not, click on the link or go to vanclanblog.blogspot.com. It will be there. Each committee will be split up into two groups: A snack group and activity group.

The Halloween committee will be meeting this week to establish who is bringing in treats and who is planning the activities. We will work together to create healthy snacks.  A group may pick cheese and crackers and each bring in one piece. Previous years have also done fruit kabobs and each snack person brought in a different fruit.

The activity committee will come up with something that involves all the students. In the past we have done relay races, crafts, scavenger hunts, and bingo for games.

I work with the kids at the beginning to help them establish groups and come up with ideas. I like them to be in charge as much as they can though. I try to have them lead the party as much as possible.

Tech Savvy Parenting

Strategies and Resources for IGEMS Parents

 It is with great excitement to announce the first Tech Savvy Parenting night which is a new “Digital Bootcamp Series” designed to educate and connect parents and community members of Iowa-Grant Schools. The first event is being held on Monday, October 20, from 5:30-6:30 pm at Iowa-Grant Elementary Middle School. The focus of the first event will be on Technology in the classroom and is geared towards parents of students in grades K-8.

The evening will be hands on with parents learning about the tools their children are using everyday at IGEMS.

Our Digital World—Information, Strategies and Resources for parents of 4K-4^th grade students

I-pad  Bootcamp for parents of 5^th-8^th grade students

**Student Council Members will have activities planned  for all students in Grades K-4 during the presentations**

Spelling and Pumpkins

No Spelling

We won't have a set of spelling words this week (Oct. 13-17) in language arts. We are doing our unit test, which is going to split up into three small sections. We will spend our spelling time taking the test this week and resume spelling next week.

This is an note from the Cobb Library!

Family Pumpkin Fun

Where: Cobb Public Library

When: Saturday, October 18

                1:00pm - 2:00pm

Who: All ages are welcome.

     (Children 13 and younger must be accompanied by an adult.)

What: Storytime and pumpkin carving

~ Pumpkins will be provided~

~ Please bring your favorite pumpkin carving tool~

Pajama Day

On Friday, Oct. 10, we will have our first Paws Reward. The class or students can earn paws for good behavior. Our class picks their reward, which was pajama day this time. I picked a day when we don't have P.E. class, so the students can wear slippers if they'd like. Please have the students bring a regular pair of shoes to get to and from school and to go out for recess. We will just be wearing our pajamas for the day, no blankets or stuffed animals please.

A Couple of Notes

Cobb Library Movie

The movie tomorrow has changed times. It will start at 1:30 instead of two

Cobb Public Library

MOVIE MATINEE - TIME CHANGE

START TIME - 1:30pm (not 2:00pm)

Showing; Muppets Most Wanted

Rated: PG

Running Time: 112 minutes

FREE

Children 6 and younger must be accompanied by an adult

Two Congratulations!

I have two sets of congratulations to give out this post. The first is for turning in the September Reading Calendars. The following students turned in their first calendar of the year: Jalyssa, Braiden, Teejay, Mackenzie, Madalyn, Kennedy, Indigo, Samuel, Sarah, MecKenna, Raymond, Alex P., Ty, Ashley, Jeran, Julia, Alex S., Alexiyia, Richard, and Evie.  Great Work!

Also, IGEMS is doing Character Education in the whole school. The theme for September was Respect and the person in our class who was recognized was Jalyssa. Great Job! I have a great group of kids this year who are very responsible so it makes it a very difficult choice.  The theme for October is Responsibility!

Early Release Tomorrow!

One more reminder that we have an early release tomorrow, Wednesday, October 8. It sounds like there will be some beautiful fall weather. Hopefully the kids will get a chance to get outside and enjoy it.

Spelling Words

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but time got away from us and we missed the spelling test this morning during language arts. We will take the spelling test on Monday, October 6. I will still hand out the new words on Monday too. We'll have our normal spelling words next week though.

Have a Great Homecoming Weekend! Go Panthers!

Lou Gehrig

This week we are reading about Lou Gehrig during language arts. It has led us to many interesting conversations, especially with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge occurring this summer.

One of the questions the students had was whether Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth played together. As you can see in the picture, they were teammates. They actually played together for nine years until Babe Ruth retired.

Below is the video of Lou Gehrig giving his farewell speech.

We also discussed the Ice Bucket Challenge. Lou Gehrig's Disease is ALS. I looked online to find how much money the Ice Bucket Challenge had raised. At the end of summer they had collected over $100 million!

$100 Million and Counting

Finally, we watched the Ice Bucket Challenge of Stephen Hawking, who also suffers from ALS. We discussed some of his accomplishments even after being stricken with the disease.

Calendar

Upcoming Events

• October 2 - UW-P Basketball
• October 3 - Homecoming Parade - 2:30
• October 7 - Picture Retakes
• October 8 - Early Release
• October 31 - End 1st Quarter - Early Release
• November 6 - P/T Conferences
• November 11 - P/T Conferences

October 2 - UW-Platteville Basketball

• On Thursday we will have a group of UW-Platteville Basketball Players come to our classroom encourage reading and hard work. They will read a story to the class and join them for the afternoon recess. It should be a lot of fun!

October 3 - Homecoming Parade at 2:30

• The Homecoming Parade will start at 2:30 on Friday. The fourth grade students will sit with their kindergarten buddies for the parade. If a fourth grader is in the parade, they will just go to the parade and other students or teachers will stay with their buddy. The weather is supposed to be in the low 50s with strong winds so make sure they have a couple of layers. If you are taking your child after the parade please send a note in the morning. Thanks

October 7 - Picture Retakes

• This is the last set of picture retakes. If you need retakes please send in the original uncut pictures.