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