Team Mindcrafter Daily Update - 8-30-13

Parents,

Today your child took his/her first spelling test, and this will come home next week.  This year our grade cards will be all standards-based, and there will be no more percents or letter grades.  However, this new system does not work well with figuring out grades for traditional spelling tests.  Therefore, your child's spelling test will be graded using a percent (correctly spelled bonus words add 1% each).  At the end of the quarter, your child's average percent will be converted to a 4, 3, 2, or 1.  

• 4 will be given for an average that is 92% or higher
• 3 for 82-91%
• 2 for 72-81%
• 1 for an average that is below 72%.

This was a great first week!  We appreciate all of your patience and understanding as we are getting into our routines.  Enjoy your 3-day weekend!

Reminders:

• Art Shirts - Due next week.
  
• Book Orders for Mrs. Dressel - Due Friday, 9/6 (Online code GJLYC)
  
• Home Connect - Use your child's AR login information to access this great site to monitor progress with AR, AM (Accelerated Math), and Math Facts in a Flash.  Look in the top right corner for a place to enter your email.  You will get an email of his/her results after taking an AR quiz, or completing an AM assignment.

Have a great evening,

Mrs. Dressel and Mr. Pransky

Reading/Language:  

Read your AR book for 15-20 minutes EACH NIGHT.  Students will need 11% to play battleball on Tuesday.

AR Goal for Friday, September 6 is 22%

Social Studies:  

None.

Science: 

None.

Math:   

Study math facts 
(+/- must be mastered by end of 1st quarter)

Spelling:  

Lesson 2 pretest  is Tuesday

Practice list on SpellingCity

Class Blog- frequently used links and daily updates.

Team Mindcrafters - Daily Update 8-29-13

Parents,

We realized today that were missing a few e-mails in our daily posts.  Hopefully, everyone is able receive this today.  Thank you for your patience as we get this worked out.

Math.  In Math students are learning about number sense and place value.  Tonight's homework is a fun game you and your child will play to practice place value and addition.  See the worksheet for directions.  I hope you have fun with this!  Don't forget to have your child practice their Math facts - these are so crucial to success in this class. 

Science.  In Science, our first unit is called "The Nature of Science."  We have discussed the differences between Science and Magic and Science and Pseudoscience.  You might want to ask you child about "Magic Glue" and what this had to do with this concept.

Reminders:

• TAP - Please send in a note if you are interested in more information on this free after school tutoring program.
  
• Art Shirts - Due by next week.
  
• Book Orders for Mrs. Dressel - Due by next Friday (Online code GJLYC)
  
• Home Connect - Use your child's AR login information to access this great site to monitor progress with AR, AM (Accelerated Math), and Math Facts in a Flash.  Look in the top right corner for a place to enter your email.  You will get an email of his/her results after taking an AR quiz, or completing an AM assignment.

Have a great evening,

Mrs. Dressel and Mr. Pransky

Reading/Language:  

Read your AR book for 15-20 minutes each night

AR Goal for Friday, August 30 is 11%

Social Studies:  

None.

Science: 

None.

Math:   

100 or Bust game

Study math facts 
(+/- must be mastered by end of 1st quarter)

Spelling:  

Lesson 1 Test  is Friday, Aug. 30

Practice list on SpellingCity

Class Blog- frequently used links and daily updates.

--
Shane Pransky
Whitehouse Primary
4th Grade

Team Mindcrafters - 8-28-13 Daily Update

Parents,

In Social Studies below, there are some guiding questions to ask your child tonight about what he/she has been learning.  These are optional, but are meant to be ways that you can help engage in conversation with your child about what is being taught in the classroom.  Being able to teach others is one of the best ways to strengthen understanding.  

Reminders:

TAP - Please send in a note if you are interested in more information on this after school tutoring program.

Art Shirts - Due by next week.

Book Orders for Mrs. Dressel - Due by next Friday (Online code GJLYC)

Home Connect - Use your child's AR login information to access this great site to monitor progress with AR, AM (Accelerated Math), and Math Facts in a Flash.  Look in the top right corner for a place to enter your email.  You will get an email of his/her results after taking an AR quiz, or completing an AM assignment.  

Have a great evening,

Mrs. Dressel and Mr. Pransky

Reading/Language:  

Read your AR book for 15-20 minutes each night

AR Goal for Friday, August 30 is 11%

Social Studies:  

Rights and Responsibilities worksheet

On Tuesday, we began discussion the skills of civc participation.  Please ask your students the following questions from that lesson: (language we used to answer them in class are in red.)  These do not need to be written down.

What does it mean to cooperate?  get along with one another

What does it mean to collaborate? work together to accomplish a task

What does it mean to participate? to take part in something

What does it mean to communicate? to express thoughts and feelings

What does it mean to compromise? come to an agreement after both sides give up something

What is a privilege? a right given to a certain group

Science: 

None.

Math:   

Study math facts 
(+/- must be mastered by end of 1st quarter)

Spelling:  

Lesson 1 Test  is Friday, Aug. 30

Practice list on SpellingCity

Class Blog- frequently used links and daily updates.

Team Mindcrafters - 8-27-13 Daily Update

Parents,

Birthday Treats.  Feel free to have your child bring in a birthday treat on or near their birthday.  Please keep in mind, however, that the teachers do not have kitchen items in our classrooms so please send napkins and something to cut or serve the treat if it is needed.   Better yet, keep it simple.  Cookies, pre-cut brownies, rice crispy treats make good simple, easy to pass out options.  We would also ask you to consider avoiding treats that have nuts or milk products as we have a couple students with allergies to these foods.

Reminders

• Any parents interested in the TAP program for free after school tutoring, please contact your child's HR teacher
• Send in Art Shirts

-Mr. Pransky & Mrs. Dressel

Reading/Language:  

None.

Read your AR book for 15-20 minutes each night

AR Goal for Friday, August 30 is 11%

Social Studies:  

None.

Science: 

None.

Math:   

Your child has an activity that they will need parent support to compete.  We practiced the activity in class so the children should be familiar with what to do.  It is designed to help your child practice reading numbers fluently.  When the activity is completed, please sign and return the paper with the directions.  Thank you!

Study math facts 
(+/- must be mastered by end of 1st quarter)

Spelling:  

Lesson 1 Test  is Friday, Aug. 30

Practice list on SpellingCity

Quick Links:

Class Blog- frequently used links and daily updates.

Home Connect - check AR reading and Accelerated Math, or practice with Math Facts in a Flash

AR Book Find - Do you have a book at home or from another library that you are wondering if it is AR?  Look it up here.

--
Shane Pransky
Whitehouse Primary
4th Grade

Daily Update 8/26/13

Parents,

Today is our first day sending a team e-mail.  

Homework.  Our plan is to make every effort to keep homework very simple and straightforward for you and your child this year.  Students are expected to spend around 45 minutes on homework each night.  On rare occasions it may take longer, but if you find that your child is consistently spending longer than this amount of time on homework, then please let your child's homeroom teacher know.  Communication with us is really important.  If your child is struggling or very frustrated by his/her homework, it is better to simply attach a note and send it in to school the next day rather than have a melt down at home.  Reassure your child that there will not be any consequence at school as long you let us know of the situation.  We intend to assign one assignment each night.  The remainder of your child's homework time should then be used to read (minimum 15 minutes), study spelling, and study math facts as needed.

TAP - The Tutoring Assistance Program (TAP) is a free one-on-one tutoring program offered by the Zion Lutheran Church just down the road from the school.  Volunteers from the church have work with children from 3:30-4:45 on Wednesdays.  The time begins with a 15 minute snack and beverage and then 1 hour of adult-led tutoring.  Students can work with their tutor to complete homework, read together, study for tests, or work on skills that need practice.  If you are interested in this free program for your child, please contact your child's homeroom teacher so they can send you more information.

Art Shirts.  If you haven't already, please send on old loose fitting or over-sized shirt for your child to wear in Art class this week.  It's a good idea to put your child's name on it as well.

Spelling.  We will give a pretest each Monday and a test each Friday.

• 
  

-Mr. Pransky & Mrs. Dressel

Reading/Language:  

Read "Family Pictures" in Reading book and complete the 3 types of questions worksheet

Read your AR book for 15-20 minutes each night

AR Goal for Friday, August 30 is 11%

Social Studies:  
None.

Science: 

None.

Math:   

Study math facts
(+/- must be mastered by end of 1st quarter)

Spelling:  

Lesson 1 Test  is Friday, Aug. 30

Practice list on SpellingCity

8-24-13 Daily Update

Parents,

A great second day of school.  Thank you to all of the parents would sent in the "Get to know my child" papers.  I'll be reviewing those over the weekend.  Today was our first day "switching" with Mrs. Dressel.  In the next week or so we will be doing some assessments to see where your child stands in Reading and Math at the start of the year.  This will be the baseline that we will use to compare their growth throughout the year.  Mrs. Dressel will also be giving students their reading range and setting goals for the students for how many points they are expected to earn this quarter.

If I get time this weekend, I may be sending you some e-mails regarding Class Dojo (our behavior management system) and Home Connect which can be used to monitor AR and to practice math facts.  Home Connect is linked below

-Mr. Pransky

Reminders:

• Classroom scramble paper is a just for fun activity the students can return for a candy.
• "Me" bag is due Monday.
• "Get to Know Your Child" form is due by Monday
  
  Thank you for those of you who have turned in these materials already!
  

-Mr. Pransky

Language: 

None

Reading:  

Read your AR book for 15-20 minutes each night

AR Goal for Friday, August 30 is 11%

Social Studies:  

None.

Science: 

None.

Math:   

Study math facts
(+/- must be mastered by end of 1st quarter)

Spelling:  

Lesson 1 Pretest is Mon. Aug. 24
Lesson 1 Test  is Friday, Aug. 30

Practice list on SpellingCity

Quick Links:

Class Blog- frequently used links and daily updates.

Home Connect - check AR reading and Accelerated Math, or practice with Math Facts in a Flash

AR Book Find - Do you have a book at home or from another library that you are wondering if it is AR?  Look it up here.

--
Shane Pransky
Whitehouse Primary
4th Grade

Welcome young Mindcrafters and parents!  

Mrs. Dressel and I are very excited to be teaching your child this year!  In an effort to better communicate with you, we will be posting daily to this team blog.  We hope it allows you to stay current with what your child is learning each day.

After some brainstorming sessions, Mrs. Dressel and I settled on the name Team Mindcraft to play off of the popular video game that both of our sons are absolutely addicted to  - "Minecraft."  The game is sort of like a digital version of Legos where players can use their imaginations to create their own structures and environments.  (As an example, the logo design for this page was completed by my son in the game.) We were looking for a name that would resonate with our students' interests, but would also reflect some of the philosophies Mrs. Dressel and I hold about education - that is, learning through creativity, play, and teamwork.

We look forward to working with you this year!

-Mr. Pransky