Dear Parents,

Happy Holidays! The children are more than excited about Christmas, and about Tuesday's concert. I hope to see many of you at Goffstown High School at 7:00.

Our party will be Friday at 1:00. Thank you to all who agreed to supply some treats for the children. We will have a normal day until our party begins at 1:00.

Enjoy your holidays, and vacation week.

Dear Parents,

Thank you for coming to the Parent-Teacher conferences on Friday. It was so nice to get to talk to all of you about your child. I am enjoying the children very much and feel blessed that each of these children are entrusted to me this year.

The children are very excited about Christmas. As you can imagine, keeping them focused is a challenge and will continue to be for the rest of this month.

They want to know about the Christmas party, so here's the plan. We will be making a craft just before lunch. If we don't get it finished we will finish after lunch. Then we will eat the food that Cassidy's mom has asked people to bring. After that I will read them a story and we will probably sing songs. The children will not be exchanging gifts (I abandonded that idea after several years of crying children). You may stop by for a visit, if you are around, but please don't feel pressured to take time off of work. This isn't a major event.

This is review week for Reading Streets so we will be revisiting the spelling words for the last 5 weeks and the skills such as possessives, plurals etc.

Our school has a couple of projects going. One is a pajama drive such as we did last year. The other is a quilt project. There is an orphanage in Thailand where the children don't have enough blankets to keep them warm. Mrs. Mostue is collecting 81/2 x 81/2 squares of cloth to make several quilts for these children. If you are interested in donating squares, some teachers will be putting them together to make the quilts. Your help in this project would be much appreciated.

Have a great week.

Dear Parents,

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with your family and friends. We have a full week ahead, and much to accomplish.

There will be a conference form coming home on Monday. Please pick a time for a conference on Dec 9. The conferences will be scheduled for 15 minute appointments. If you would like me to coordinate them with the teacher of a sibling, please let me know as soon as possible. I will do all I can to make it easier on you.

The children are finishing up their compare and contrast essays. They went to the Smart Room to type and edit them, several are finished. Did you get the free pizza coupon from Vickster's?
We also are finishing up a map project of New Hampshire. The children have learned about physical and political maps, our counties, waterways, cities, and mountains. They did such a nice job and are very proud of their work!

Our winter concert will be on Dec 20. If you need more tickets please let Mr. Landano know. He is trying to give the extras out on a first come, first serve basis. If you don't need the two tickets that each child gets, please return them so someone else can use them.

Have a great week.

Dear Parents,

This week we will be finishing up our compare and contrast stories, and will be recongnized in Cubby's Corner and they will receive a coupon for a free pizza from Vickster's This is what will appear:

Ms. Hamilton's fourth grade class is this week's Literacy Class of the Week. The students are working on compare and contrast stories. After reading about Colonial days, they made Venn Diagrams comparing life now with Colonial life. They are using their notes to write a 4-5 paragraph paper using the facts that they learned and transition words that show comparison. Focusing on introductory statements and supporting details, these students are learning how to write a piece based on fact, rather than writing to entertain. Ms. Hamilton will proudly display this work in the near future!

We are starting unit 4 in Math. This unit will cover decimal place value, comparing and ordering decimals, addition and subtraction of decimals, and the use of decimals in money and measurement. It is my intent to have some games ready for the children to borrow for use at home. I find that it is the easiest way for them to learn some basic concepts. I have been using some trading games in class and they have responded well to them. Mrs. Bennett is setting up a system for checking out the games. I will publish a list of games on this site so that you will know what is available. Then just send a note, or have your child check out a game. More info to follow.

Dear Parents,

Our Halloween Party and Parade were a huge success. Thank you to all the parents who brought in goodies, I am very grateful for your generosity! It was nice to see so many parents visiting the children in the classroom and walking in the parade. Thank you to Kim Koslowsky for helping to arrange it and for setting up and cleaning up. I hope that the children will be nice and calm on Monday, but something tells me that isn't going to be the case. It doesn't help that we are getting our first snow of the season on the same weekend!

This week we will finish up Chapter 3 in Math, but that doesn't mean the children can stop studying their multiplication facts. We are only taking a short break on multiplication to focus on decimals in Chapter 4. They are a little behind in their Study Links, so I might send home 2 in one night.

Rotations started this week and the children were very excited about it. Remember, that they need to be responsible for their homework, even when they have a week to do it. Sometimes, we find that they wait until the last minute and then can't find it. They can pass it in on the next day if that is a problem.

We will start Unit 2 of Reading Street. This past week we were able to squeeze in a Chapter book while reviewing. I enjoy having book talks with them.

Enjoy the week
Jackie

Dear Parents,

This is our review week for Unit 1 of Reading Street, therefore we have review spelling words. We will be taking the unit test on Wed and Thursday. The children can review the types of sentences at home if you would like. They are declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative. We also studied complex and simple sentences. Within the sentences we learned complete and dependent phrases. With all these terms in gets very confusing.

In Math, we have started learning multiplication and division. I will be giving them timed tests throughout the year, so please remember to practice these facts frequently.

Rotations begin on Wednesday. You will be getting a letter from your child's teacher explaining the expectations for the class. Rotations is another way for the children to learn to have some independence and develop responsibility. They take great pride in being able to go to Rotations.

Have a great week.

Dear Parents,

Only one more day for our NECAP testing. It will be on Monday morning and we will be taking the last math test. The children have been working very hard. They have been motivated with cards and treats from the second graders and then rewarded for doing their best, with small gifts from the administration.

We just finished our second chapter of Math and will be starting our next chapter this week. The children are making good progress on partial sums and differences and traditional addition and subtraction. We will continue to work on data.

Now that we have the testing done, we will spend some time studying New Hampshire history.

At the end of this month we will be starting Rotations. I will explain more about that in an upcoming blog.

Hope you have a good week
Jackie

Wow, what a beautiful weekend! I hope the children spent a lot of time outdoors. It was a great weekend to spend with my grandsons at the top of Loon Mountain, ahh, the pleasures of being a grandmother!
Back to work... The children will be taking the Math NECAP this week, on Tuesday and Thursday, then again on Monday of next week. They did an awesome job on the Reading portion. Of course, we don't know the scores, yet but we do know that they were using their test taking strategies.
Enrichment block starts this week. The children have been divided into groups, and will be joining children from Mrs. Swank's class for the last half hour of the day. We meet everyday and our focus will be reading.
If your child is interested in running for student council, the forms are due on Friday. They need to give a speech before the class prior to the children voting.
Please read Cubby's Corner for more school info.

Dear Parents,

This week we will be taking the NECAP test in Reading on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Please maximize your child's ability to do their best by encouraging them and making sure that they get a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast. They will be working hard.
This year the younger students have partnered with the third and fourth graders to cheer them on. Mrs. Pinard's class is our buddy class and we look forward to seeing what they have planned.
Also, Mrs. Pyszka has prizes for all the students who demonstrate that they are working to the best of their ability.

Dear Parents,

We had a great field trip to Warner's Native American Museum. The guide was very informative and spent a lot of time telling the children about life in the different parts of the country. I was impressed with how well the children listened.

This week the PFT will be sponsoring an ice cream social for all parents and children. It will be on Tuesday evening at 6:30. I hope to see you there. Also, we will be having picture day on Thursday.

We have been taking a little extra time getting to know each other, but this week we will need to work a little faster to get everything in. I will probably have to send some work home if they don't finish on time. Please be looking for unfinished work in your child's folder. Hopefully, the kids will get used to the increased pace, and they won't have extra homework too many times.

Sincerely,
Jackie

Dear Parents,

It was nice to see so many of you at information night. I appreciate you coming on such a beautiful night, to learn about our class. The ice cream social will be on Sept 27th.

The spelling words this week are the same as last week. After this, we will be getting new words every week.

I gave the children a timed test on their addition and subtraction facts. Only 3 children got 100 or even close to 100%. Please continue to study these facts as it is very important for the children to have this knowledge in order to build on their skills. The children also took a baseline reading test which will help me place them in groups for reading and enrichment. This is only one bit of data that I will use for placement.

We have been practicing for the NECAP exam which will be held during 2 weeks in October.

The children have been working cooperatively, and so far have been very kind and polite to one another.

Have a great week. Call or e-mail if you have any questions or concerns.
Jackie

September 12, 2010

Dear Parents,

It is great to be back at school and to see how excited the children are! They all looked so cute  with their new clothes and fresh haircuts.  I am ready and eager to start another year in fourth grade! 

It seems we have some new children (and parents) to the school this year.  To those of you who don’t know me, let me tell you a little bit about myself.  This is my fifth year teaching fourth grade, but I have plenty of experience teaching.  I taught Reading Recovery for 11 years in Concord before coming to Maple Ave.  Here I have taught first grade for 5 years, second grade for one year and now this is my fifth year teaching fourth grade.  I have a very strong background in Reading and Writing.  I have had experience working with older kids in private school before Concord, and as an Odyssey of the Mind coach. I continue to take graduate courses when I am able. I love teaching fourth grade here at Maple Ave.  We have a strong, united fourth grade team.

I am also the proud mother of two grown sons and the grandmother of two precious little boys. The oldest just three and the youngest is six months old. My oldest son (and now a proud daddy) is a State Trooper up North and my youngest son finished his tour in the Peace Corps, is married and is attending law school in New York.

Our new Core Reading program, Reading Street, will be our primary source of instruction for spelling,vocabulary, writing, handwriting and language instruction as well as reading. This, being our second year in the program, should be a little easier for everyone. We now know how to best use the materials and we are all working toward a common goal- fantastic readers and writers.  Mrs. Pyszka has designated a ninety minute block in the morning for uninterrupted Math time and another one, in the afternoon for uninterrupted Reading time. We will also have an enrichment block at the end of the day with the support staff helping in the classroom to provide enrichment to all students.  During this enrichment block, Mrs. Swank and I will be combining our classes  and forming small groups of children with similar needs in order to provide specific instruction to each group of children.  Mrs Mistretta will be taking a group also.  Each group of students will rotate to another teacher every 6 weeks.

I will be sending home letters that explain our math program. It would be helpful if you would keep this information in a folder at home to refer to as the year progresses.  You may need one folder alone for the Everyday math games and chapter letters.  I have given the children plastic folders to use to go to and from home.  If you have anything that you want me to see, please put it in the folder.  The children often lose things in their backpacks. Any envelope, check, or papers should be clearly labeled with your child’s name on it.

Our schedule will include Music on Tuesday, PE on Friday and Art on Monday  Please make sure that your child has sneakers for PE.  Recess will be at 11:35 followed by lunch.  The children will be back in class at 12:25.  The dismissal time is the same as last year, 3:00-3:10. Please refrain from dismissing the children early, as this interrupts our enrichment time.  We will have snack in the morning, but we won’t be serving milk, so please send a drink. Please send a healthy snack every day. The children are also encouraged to bring sport bottles of water to keep at their desks during the day.  I hope you will join me in encouraging them to take care of our environment by using  refillable water bottles and reusable containers for snacks. It is usually hot in school and the children need water for good brain functioning, (please no juice, tea or other flavored drinks).  We have a water cooler in our room that they can use to fill their sports bottles.

For the first few weeks I will be concentrating on teaching the children how to work cooperatively.  I expect that they will learn to listen to me when they hear my voice, they will share with others, be respectful of others and wait their turn to talk.  Since they are fourth graders now, I am planning on them contributing to our classroom rules and procedures.  I would like them to take on more responsibility this year for getting their work done on time and getting their homework in daily, our job is to get them ready for middle school.

My Newsletters will be on-line.  Just go to the Goffstown school website, then go to Maple Avenue, then teachers.  There you will find a link to my website.  I will update it every two weeks. 

I am sure you have lots of questions, some of which, hopefully, I addressed here.  If your questions are still not answered please call me at school or e-mail me at Jhamilton@goffstown.k12.nh.us  I will get back to you as soon as I can.  Would you please send me your  e-mail address?  I find that e-mail is the easiest way for me to contact you.  I hope you will come to Parent Information night on Thursday.


Sincerely,
Jackie Hamilton

Dear Parents,

Welcome to a new school year! I have been busy preparing the classroom for the children and learning about your child. This blog will be where I publish important information about our class, their spelling words and the class schedule. Please check it weekly to see what your son or daughter is doing in school. I look forward to meeting you and the children on Tuesday morning!

Dear Parents,

Our time together is winding down quickly and the kids are very excited for summer vacation! Yet, they are somewhat hesitant and apprehensive about going to the Middle school. To relieve their anxiety, we will be taking them to see their new school and meet their teachers on June 13.

First we need to get Spring Fling underway! The kids look forward to this with much anticipation each year. This will be our second year of holding most of the events indoors. Our festivities begin at 11:00 and continue through dismissal time. If you would like to dismiss your child when you are here, please remember to sign them out in the classroom. Also, the fourth graders are responsible for providing the baked goods for the bake sale. Please remember to let the Spring Fling committee know that you will be bringing something.

Spring Fling will come at the end of a very busy week of assessments. The children will be taking the end-of-year Math assessment, as well as the end-of-year Reading and Writing assessment. They just completed their writing project for their portfolio, and I am pleased to say they were very persuasive in their letters to me about a place that I should visit this summer. I thought they were great!

Next week we will have the opportunity to go to Strawberry Banke at the end of the week. I have enough chaperones, and have contacted the people who will accompany us. Thank you for volunteering.

Have a great week.
Jackie

Dear Parents,

Last week was our review week for Reading Street. The children worked hard on their tests. This week we start our last unit by discussing the Question of the Week- "How can words change people's lives?"

The children had their NECAP Science test which they worked on for 3 days last week. There investigation involved percolation of 3 different types of soil. For the investigation, they got to work with partners to measure, time the experiment, and collect data. Then they finished by writing a summary of the results on their own.

This week we have a chance to participate in some African drumming, thanks to our PFT who sponsored the event. We saw a performance and now we will have two workshops to learn more and we will conclude our week with a performance for the first and second graders. This should be a fun event for everyone.

Have a great week.

Dear Parents,

We are very happy to be back at school! It sounds like all of us enjoyed the rest and relaxation. The children are very quiet, although I am sure that won't last long.

This week we are on Unit 5 week 5. That means that next week we will be taking the unit 5 test. Also, the children will be taking the Science NECAP test on the 10th, 12th and 13th. Please make sure the kids get more sleep and a good breakfast.

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Jackie

Dear Parents,

The children have started their research report on Colonial jobs. We are studying this time in history and thought that a research report would coordinate nicely with Goffstown's 250th anniversary celebration. Not all the jobs we are researching actually pertain to Goffstown, though. I will work with them on the writing part in school. We will be learning to write paragraphs with the intent of informing the audience.

Recently information went home about the need for you to be fingerprinted before we can
ask you to be a chaperone on a field trip. Our next field trip will be to Strawberry Banke in June.

The children had a lockdown drill yesterday, at the time when I would have been checking their assignment books. Since we didn't have time to write anything, they were told that they didn't have homework. I hope this didn't cause any confusion.

Dear Parents,

This week was a very difficult week with the 3 days of testing and the field trip. The children were great and worked hard despite their exhaustion and Spring Fever. They got their results immediately, but the reports won't be ready for another month or so.

We will be having a chapter test in Math, soon.

In preparation for the Goffstown 250th year celebrations, the children will be doing a research report on a colonial period job. They will do most of the work in school, but I am sure there will be a time when I ask them to do some of it at home. I will give you more information as we go.

Have a great week.

Dear Parents,

Last week was busy with testing in Reading, writing, and Math. The kids were good about trying their best. I was very happy with the Math test.

This week we will be starting Unit 5 in Reading Street. The big question for this unit is "What makes an adventure?" This week we will be reading about smokejumpers and preparing for emergencies.

I started reading a gripping book to the class called Fever 1793 by a national award winning author, Laurie Halse Anderson. It is an historical fiction book about the yellow fever epidemic that killed many people in Philadephia in 1793, the main theme being perseverance and self-reliance. I am quite sure there will be many questions and discussions at home as well as in class about living in that time and making some difficult moral decisions. I feel that this book is rich in vocabulary, steeped in history as well as extremely engaging. We will be using it to compare and contrast that time period with what we now know about diseases and medicine, build vocabulary and review what we learned of that time period. I hope this leads to thoughtful discussions in school and at home. So far, most of the kids love it!

With the longer days and more outside activities, some of the kids seem very tired. I hope that they can get enough sleep to be bright and alert during the school day. Spring fever seems to be setting in.

Happy St. Patrick's day. The spelling words for this week are posted.

Dear Parents,

The class has been doing a great job with their cursive writing and I am pleased to see them using it on their own. They should be practicing their spelling words in cursive at home while we continue to practice on a weekly basis in school. Soon they will need to write a whole paper in cursive. They are also doing much better in learning their multiplication facts. I saw a great improvement in some of the children. We have about nine children who have earned a reward for scoring 90-100%. More timed tests will be given through the remainder of the year, so keep practicing.

The children are finishing up their Biome project and will be sharing them with the class this week. They really seemed to enjoy doing it, and I appreciate your help at home.

We will have some more tests in Reading in about two weeks. I hope to see some more growth. In class, I am encouraging them to read more challenging chapter books. If you haven't seen them choosing good books at home, it is time to give them a little push. We have set up a place in the classroom for book recommendations. Hopefully, this will spur the reluctant readers on.

Have a great weekend.

Dear Parents,

The results are in for our Math mid-term and Reading Street assessments. Most children did very well and made significant gains. I am very pleased with the results; the class average rose by 8 points! We finished the first half of the math journal this week, but some children still had pages or partial pages that they didn't do in class. If I sent the workbook home, it was for them to complete and return to me. I would like to go over them again. Remember that this is a workbook and as such, they weren't always corrected by me, I was checking during class to see if they had any trouble.

This week we start unit 4 of Reading Street. The unit is entitled Puzzles and Mysteries, and the "big idea" for this unit is "Is there an explanation for everything?" To quote the authors "a big idea is a concept, theme, or issue that gives meaning and connection to discrete facts and skills...In an education for understanding, a vital challenge is to highlight the big ideas, show how they prioritize the learning, and help students understand their value for making sense of all the "stuff" of content."

On Friday of this week, we will have our Valentine Party. I sent home a list of all the children in the class. Please make sure that they address a valentine to every member of the class. I don't want any hurt feelings. Mrs. Welbourne has taken care of all the preparations, and Mrs. Murphy is going to do a craft with them. Also, in the middle of the party, we will be going to an assembly for Goffstown's birthday celebration. The children going to ski school will be able to participate in the card exchange and craft, I will have them take some treats with them when they leave.

Sincerely,
Jackie

So much for getting a lot accomplished this month! The unexpected vacation was nice, but...

Since we missed most of last week, we will be reviewing and adding some of the things we didn't get to last week, to this week's schedule. Our spelling words will be the possessives that the children wrote down last week, but weren't required to memorize. I will give them to them out of order, but in context so that they need to know which one to use in a sentence.

We are scheduled to take another unit test in Reading. The test will be on the computer, so their results will be available immediately. We are also due to take the midterm math test this week and finish the writing prompt. All of this is followed by progress reports that will be sent home soon.

Rotations were delayed last week, but we will continue on schedule this week. We have time at the end of the year to make sure everyone gets through all the classes.

I hope we don't miss any more school days this week, but I heard there might be another storm coming. The children can always spend some time memorizing their math facts and reading, if it is too cold to play outdoors.

Sincerely,
Jackie Hamilton

Happy New Year! Thank you for all the gifts that I received for Christmas. I am so sorry that I wasn't able to make it in for the last day before vacation, but as luck would have it, I caught the stomach bug just a few hours before I would have left for school. I am so glad that Mrs Welbourne and Mrs. Murphy were able to carry on with making the gingerbread houses and ornaments without me and on such short notice. When I went back to school a few days after Christmas, it seemed like a fairy godmother came in and cleaned up the whole room! That was amazing and made me feel so good. I want to thank the children, too! The substitute said they were wonderful!

We are now into the winter months that can be very conducive to learning. I hope to see a lot of intellectual growth in the children, and I hope that they will put in a lot of effort for these few months.

This week in Reading, we will be talking about Myths, specifically, how people have explained the pattern of day and night. We will also be working on subject-verb agreement. Could you help out by listening to how your child speaks and correcting them when appropriate?

In Math we will finish Chapter 5 with comparing data and reporting large numbers. We will take the Chapter 5 test after a review day or two. Chapter 6 will focus on division, map reference frames, and measures of angles.

In Social Studies we are studying events that happened in the 1800's . We will cover slavery and equal rights during January and February. This is always a fascinating topic for the kids, and can lead to many interesting questions at home.

We will continue to plug away at life science and eventually get into physical and earth science.

There are still some conferences that need to be rescheduled. I will get in touch with you soon.

Sincerely,
Jackie Hamilton