Cheese....

Usually with Mondays, some students feel more vulnerable about starting the school week.  This morning however, I felt there was an extroidinary amount of whining (about body parts being sore/tired, about not wanting to do work, WHY do we have to work???).  If your student comes home and announces that Mrs.Gordon has asked him or her to bring a specific cheese to school, please understand that your child exhibited an excessive amount of whining today.

To reduce cheese bring brought to school, please ensure that your child gets to bed early enough to get plenty of sleep especially on Sunday evenings.  "I went to bed too late" seemed to be the most common excuse heard today.

The majority of the class was fine, but it just takes a few persistant whines before everyone in the class (including myself), starts feeling like whining about the whining.

First Math Night!

Wednesday, September 18th, Shorewood Library 6-7pm

All Shorewood parents are invited to do math together in ancitipation of supporting our students in a positive manner.  Emphasis this month will be on:

• Forming a Positive Mindset
• Importance of Concrete - Pictorial - Abstract
• Place Value
• Estimation with Mental Math

Shorewood Elementary's Math Team looks forward to seeing you!

4th Year Teaching 4th Grade

Maile relaxes in the classroom, the day before school starts

And another school year begins!  It has been a fun short week as I enjoyed getting to know each student, getting a feel of the group dynamics and having the students adjust to me and each other.  We will be rolling up our sleeves starting this week, to begin diving into more of the nitty-gritty lessons.

I noticed that students are experiencing difficulty knowing the calendar, including their full birthdate (month-day-year), along with the sequence of months (January, February, etc) and month ordinal (September is the ninth month of the year).  If you can review this with your child, it will be helpful!  I've made myself a note to touch upon it if we have time to, but having students practice individually at home would help them greatly.  Thank you for your support!

It is my 4th year teaching 4th grade, and I'm so looking forward to what this year brings for each student in the class.

Math Bonanza!

These four students from our class represented Shorewood in the 2013 Math Bonanza!  Great job Riley, Tristan, Viana and Rose!

Last homework: Week 30!

As of today, our last homework was due and there is no more homework for the next 11 school days left.  Homework treat party invites and voting will come on Monday.  I'm looking forward to seeing what treats students want.

Seward Park Field Trip

We visited our friends from the Seward Park Audubon Conservatory, and they guided us through three different field studies:

1) Life Cycle
2) Animals in Seward Park

3) Botany (Study of Plants)

We also had a blast during lunch, when all three of the 4th grade classes were able to eat lunch together and then run around!  It was a load of fun and we came back to school quite exhausted from being outside all day.  We did have just the last burst of energy to create a video thank you to our friends at Seward Park.  [check back later for link!]

Playing the "Ecosystem Game!"

Checking out the bald eagle nest!  We got to watch the male fly away to hunt for food, and listen to the female call for him to return!

Our class, plus Taichi from Mrs. Frank's class :-)

Eating lunch with all of Shorewood's 4th graders

Silly Photo

From today's class photo :-)