Dear Families,

I hope you are all staying healthy and well. I just wanted to fill you in some more information as we now know our schools will remain closed through April, 10th.

I imagine you have received Mrs. Wright's email about the Remote Learning tab on our school website and know where to look for lesson plans for next week for 4th grade. If you have any questions about this though, please feel free to send me an email. As Mrs. Wright said, just do what works best for you and your family.

I intend to start using Google Classroom in addition to the information in our 4th grade plan. This will just be an easier format for me to personalize our learning and communication for our particular classroom--the 4P Crew! In order for the kids to be able to access Google Classroom, I have included some directions below to help!

1. Go to the MCPS website and log into Web Connect
2. Under the Students section click on Google Student Portal
3. Click on Classroom to find new information

 The kids should all know their username and password information, as wel have used it throughout the year.  There is one big difference however. If your child has never logged in from home their username will change just slightly. Here is what you need to know as parents...

The kids log on first with the year they will graduate, which for our class is 28. This is followed by the first 3 letters of their last name and the first 3 letters of their first name. This part is exactly what the kids are used to doing. Here's where the change comes...

IF the kids have never signed on to Google from home then they need to add @student.mcpsmt.org.

So, for instance, if I was a student in our class, I would type in 28piesam@student.mcpsmt.org. From there I would just type in my regular password (which the kids should all know). If your child can't remember their password, please send me an email and I will get that information to you.

Tada!You and your kiddos have connected to me!

I am including a short video to say "Hi" to the kids on Google Classroom just to touch bases. In Google Docs will you have the kids tell me how their spring break went? Once I get their note, I will pass on their code for Splash Learn.

Sorry to inundate you with all of this information. I truly hope it is helpful! 

Missing you kids,

Ms. Pierce

My Dear Kids and Families,

I just wanted to let you know that I am thinking of you all and miss you tons!

I just finished up with a virtual staff meeting and wanted to let you know that we are indeed working and figuring things out. Please reach out to me via email during this time if you have any questions, and I will do my best to answer. I may not have the answer, but I can guarantee that I will pass on your questions and respond to your email.

For now, please access the information put out by the District for this week's student learning. Basically, they just want to make sure that everyone can access it and play with some of the sites that have been introduced. 

This is brand new for many of us and there will definitely be a learning curve (for me, very steep at times!!) Just know that we are all in this together and that everyone is doing their best.

To my sweet chickadees, I love you and miss you! Feel free to email me at any time just to say hello!

Stay healthy!!

Ms. Pierce

 

Happy President's Day! I hope you have all been able to get out and play in the beautiful, fresh, new snow today!❄️

It has been a fast and furious couple of weeks, with the symphony, our poet, our visiting natural scientist and a Valentine's Day party to boot! Thank you to everyone for the goodies sent in for our party. It was a lovely day! 💌

ELA--We have finished our book clubs and are now completing written responses and projects for our books. We have worked on the comprehension strategy of asking questions and are now moving into making inferences.

Math--We will be taking our math test on algebra concepts, factors and multiples, prime and composite numbers, and patterns. This week we will start our next unit on measurement. 

Social Studies--We will be finishing up our study about the Midwest region this week and pushing forward in the next month to finish up on the last two regions--the Southwest and the West. 

Upcoming Events:

Book Orders are due Friday, Feb. 21st

Friday, Feb. 28th--the end of second trimester

March 9th-12th Parent-Teacher conferences

March 16th-20th Spring Break (really??!)

Thanks for all you do!

Sam

 

Good Evening!

I hope you are all doing well!

Just to give you a brief update on some of the things we have been learning about ...

ELA--We have finished reading several selections on Native American tribes throughout the United States. Today we concluded this unit by writing about which tribe we would most like to visit, including specific evidence from the text to support our ideas. 

Math--We have been working on an algebra unit and learning about the order of operations. Later this week we will move on to factors and prime numbers as well as looking at patterns. If things go as planned, we should probably be taking our next math test some time mid week of the following week.

Social Studies--We are continuing with our unit of the regions of the United States. So far, we have covered the Northeast and Southeast region and will be moving on to the midwest region tomorrow.

Finally, some important, upcoming events...

• Friday, Feb. 7th-- We will be attending the Missoula Symphony
• Friday, Feb. 14th--We will have a Valentine party. I am sending home a note tomorrow that has the kids' names on it for cards and also explaining the Valentine's boxes which they should make at home. 

Thanks for all you do!

Sam

Good Evening!

I can't believe we are more than halfway through January! I hope everyone had a great 3 day weekend! So, we have been very busy this month...

ELA--We have read a book from ReadyGen called The Longest Night and just started a book this week called Three Native Nations. We will use information learned in these books to write an opinion paper in the upcoming weeks.

We have also started book clubs. Ask your kiddo what adventure story they are reading in their book group!

Math--We have finished our unit on Geometry and will be taking our math test this week.

Social Studies--We finished learning about the Northeast Region of the United States and have begun to learn about the Southeast Region this week. 

Important Upcoming Dates:

Jan. 23rd--Our resident poet begins visiting our room and teaching us poetry lessons

Jan. 24th--Our VNS specialist visits

Jan. 28th--Star Reading Test

Jan. 29th--Star Math Test

Feb. 7th--Field Trip to attend the Missoula Symphony Youth Concert

Feb. 10th--No School--Teacher Professional Development Day

Feb. 17th--No School--Presidents' Day

Stay healthy...we've seen some cases of the flu and other yucky bugs!

Happy New Year All!

I hope the beginning of 2020 finds you all well! I am so excited to start a new decade, and there is something really neat about the sound of 2020! 

I am going to try and use my webpage to blog our current events. I believe it's possible to copy and paste information from here to the Blackboard Mass Communication forum and vice versa. I am hoping this works so that I can reach everyone with the same information. 

Just to let you know that we will start school on Monday, Jan. 6th. We will be starting several new units including one in geometry, the regions of the United States in Social Studies and opinion writing. Look for more details to come...I am hoping to include some links for some math sites we will be visiting!

I can't wait to see your sweet kids and hope you are all enjoying some quality family time!

Sam