Hi Families! 

We miss you all so much.  This has been a hard and strange week.  We have been working to wrap our heads around how online learning will look and work, and we want to give you a preview of what you can expect next week.

NEXT WEEK IN A NUTSHELL:

ASSIGNMENTS:    Starting Monday, there will be a page on Paxson’s website for each grade level.   The 4th grade page will link to a calendar for the week.  We each have a review assignment for your kiddos to complete every day. Starred assignments are required, while non-starred assignments are optional.  The links to these assignments will be embedded in the calendar. 

VIRTUAL CLASSES:  We are going to use Zoom to connect virtually with students in real time.  Students will have a 20-minute virtual class with one of us each day.  The Meeting ID for each of these sessions will be on the calendar for the week.

• On Monday and Friday, students will “meet” with their homeroom classes from 9:30-9:50. 
• All students will “meet” with Mrs.Parkey on Tuesday, with Mrs. J on Wednesday, and with Maestra Corona on Thursday.  The times will be on the calendar for the week.  

VIRTUAL OFFICE HOURS:  We are also using Zoom to connect with families.  We are holding “Office Hours” for our homerooms on Mondays and Fridays from 10:00-10:30.  This is a time when family members can join a Zoom session to ask questions or let us know if you need anything.  You can also reach us over email.  

TRY A ZOOM SESSION WITH US TOMORROW:

Zoom is new to all of us.  We want to work out the kinks before meeting for class time on Monday.  We are offering some Zoom Trial Sessions tomorrow. We hope that every student has an opportunity to join one session.

Please choose the session that works for you. You do not have to stay on for the whole 30 minutes.  We just want to ensure that everyone knows how to participate in the class sessions going forward.   

HOW DO YOU JOIN A SESSION?  

Go to zoom.com.  

Click on “Join a Meeting” at the top of the page. Type in the meeting id number for the session you are joining:  

9:00-9:30  Meeting ID:  679 320 4001

10:30-11:00 Meeting ID: 283 658 6097

12:30-1:00 Meeting ID: 591 410 3754

CAN YOU GET ONTO YOUR GOOGLE CLASSROOM?

Please make sure your kiddo can log onto their google classroom on their home device.  Mrs. Parkey sent out the directions on how to do this earlier this week.  

WE MISS YOU!

We wish we were back in our classes with you.   We look forward to seeing your faces tomorrow. 

-Mrs. J, Mrs. Parkey, Maestra Corona

Hello again!

We have had a couple parents contact us wondering how to access Google Classroom from a home computer.  Thank you so much for reaching out!  Chances are in this move to digital learning, if you are struggling with something, many others are as well.  We are here to help and assist in what ever way we can, and we appreciate you letting us know when you encounter a snag.  

I put together a document that should walk you through how to get access to Google Classroom from a home.  The link to the document is below. 

In addition to this, if you go to the mcpsmt.org website and click on the Web Connect, you will see a link in the student section for Clever.  When students click on this link it will prompt them to log in using their google account.  It is the same username and password that they use to log in to Google as directed in the attachment to this email.  

Clever is the site that will give them access to the IRLA and ENIL books mentioned on the Online Learning website created by our district.

Hope this helps, and keep those questions coming!  

The 4th Grade Team

Logging in from Home

Hello Paxson 4th Grade Families,

We hope you and your family are doing well and staying safe during this unusual time.  It is hard not to be seeing our students face to face, and we recognize it’s hard for you to teach them at home.  We will get through this, working together.  

We are planning together as a 4th grade team, as a school, and as a district to come up with a blueprint for online learning.   Here is where we are right now: 

This week, March 24-27, students are asked to participate in online learning using the mcpsmt.org website. Our Teaching and Learning department has provided a daily schedule to keep students’ minds sharp while we await our next steps.  All of the activities are useful and friendly to navigate. Below is how you can access the daily plans:

1.   Go to mcpsmt.org
2.   Click on COVID-19 on the bottom of the page.
3.   Click on Remote Learning on the right side of the page.
4.   Scroll down to Remote Learning Opportunities. Click on Grades 3-5. 
5.   This will bring you the daily plans with learning links.

In addition to the ideas provided by the district, we encourage students to log onto their Google Classroom to make sure they are connected with us.  

We know you have a lot of questions. Please stay informed through the superintendent’s updates, which he posts on the district website and sends via Blackboard messages, as is the most current information. District level communications will come out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays by 3:00 pm. School level communications will come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays by 3:00 pm.  

You can also email any of us with questions.  We can email you back or set up a time to talk.  

This is new to all of us.  We are going to be learning together. Thank you for your patience during this time, and we will be in touch regarding our next steps.   We miss you lots and hope you stay well.  

Sending you all virtual hugs,

The 4th Grade Team

Hello 4th Grade Families!  

Next Friday is the end of the second trimester!  The end of the trimester is always a flurry of activity, so we want to be sure you know about all the upcoming events.  

PROGRESS REPORTS AND CONFERENCES

• Today we are sending out the last progress report before report cards.  Please look over these with your kiddos and celebrate their hard work! If there are missing assignments, students have until Friday, February 28 to turn them in.

• Tomorrow, we will send out an email invitation to sign up for Spring Conferences.  Please sign up for 1 thirty minute spot. At Paxson, Spring conferences are Student-led.  Your kiddo will share some work and talk to you about their experiences as a 4th grader. We three teachers will circulate, chime in, and answer questions.  

HELP WANTED!  “CELEBRATE MONTANA” SCRIPT REVISION:

In keeping with our 4th grade Social Studies and Indian Education for All standards, we have a tradition of putting on a Montana History musical in May.  This play is a work in progress in an ongoing quest to make it as representative, accurate, and educational as possible. Every year, we re-work the script with a few members of our community who volunteer their time to help us.  

This year, we would like to extend the invitation to all 4th grade families.  Are you interested in helping us make the MT History script the best it can be?  Do you have an interest/expertise in Montana history? Or would you just like to preview the script and  offer any feedback before we perform it?  Please join us at our Script Revision Session on  April 2 at 2:30 in Mrs. J’s room.  

UPCOMING EVENTS:  

• February 25: Family Fun Night at Paxson.  Free! Fun! Family!  

• February 28:  End of trimester.

• March 9, 10, 11, 12: Student-led conferences

• March 10-13:  Book Fair in the Library (stop in during conferences!)

• March 12: 4th Grade Poetry Reading
•  11:35 dismissal

• March 13: no school 

• March 16-20: Spring Break

Please let us know if you have questions after looking over the progress reports this evening. Have a great day!

-The 4th Grade Team

Happy Wednesday!

Quick reminder that we will be doing a short but sweet Valentine's Day celebration on Friday for the last 30 minutes of school.  Students will be in their homeroom (Rotation 1) classes and will deliver Valentines to each other and socialize.  

Class lists went home in agendas last week.  Please let me know if you need another list.

Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Autumn Johnstone

Happy New Year, 4th Grade Families, 

We hope you had a restful break.  It’s been great to be back with your kiddos!  

CLASS UPDATES:  

Mrs. Johnstone’s Class:  

• We are getting into our Division unit.  Students will learn many ways to solve division problems, including the traditional algorithm.  
• Our goal is for all students to have their multiplication facts (0-10) memorized in the next few weeks.  Knowing the facts quickly will help them immensely when working through upcoming long division problems.  We have started working on a fact fluency program called XtraMath.  I will send home an XtraMath report next week so you can help your kiddos at home.    

Maestra Corona’s class: 

• We are finishing “Region Medio Oeste.”  we looked at states, capitals, resources, animals, and created a map that shows the resources of this area.
• We will start “Region Suroeste.”
• We are practicing sentence’s structure, nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the past tense.

Mrs. Parkey’s class:

• We are continuing to work on opinion writing.  Students are separating introductions and conclusions away from body paragraphs and using direct quotes from texts to support their opinions.
• We will be taking the STAR test next week to measure our reading progress so far this year.
• We have been learning about Indigenous cultures of North America though a fictional story.  Our next texts will continue this learning.  We will read nonfiction texts about four different indigenous cultures in North America.
• We have begun learning and using Greek and Latin root words to help students with both spelling and vocabulary acquisition.
• We continue to practice and learn proper conventions and grammar.  We are focusing on punctuating dialogue correctly, as our next writing standard will be narrative writing.
• We have begun discussing figurative language and using words as an artform.  We will continue this investigation as we start our 6 week poetry unit at the end of January!  

UPCOMING EVENTS:  

• Friday, January 10:  Progress Reports go home.  Please check on missing assignments!

• January 13-24 ELA, SLA, and Math STAR testing window.

• January 15: Paxson’s  Around the World Cultural Night (This is a fun evening where students get to learn about some of the diverse cultures represented at Paxson!)

• January 20: NO SCHOOL for Martin Luther King Day

• January 22:  Mid-term reports go home 

• February 7: MCPS 4th Grade Youth Symphony Field Trip

Have a great afternoon!

-The 4th Grade Team