Mrs. Cummings' Classroom Blog

Reminders from the HIS Office  Morning Drop Off: Please remember that students should not be dropped off at school before 7:30AM. We do not have supervision until then and safety is our top priority.  Field Trips: As spring approaches we get busier with field trips. Please be sure to check your child's backpacks often so you are aware of special activities.  Clothes: Please remember that although the weather is getting nicer (or supposed to anyway) that you student has appropriate outdoor clothing at all times.  Fee free to call our office if you have any questions. We are looking forward to an awesome April!

What's going on in April? April 4th: All School Assembly  At 8:30am we will celebrate our March Madness Reading Challenge as well as the end of the 3rd Quarter. We thank our Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) group for sponsoring this event. April 7th: Report Cards Your child's report card for 3rd Quarter will be coming home on this day. Please take some time to look it over, review it with your child and contact the teacher if you have any questions. April 7th: WKCE (Wisconsin Knowledge and Comprehensive Exam) Results The WKCE will be coming home with the report cards. This exam was taken in November. Remember that this is only one snapshot of your child's school performance. Please feel free to st up an appointment with our guidance counselor, Mrs. Angie Reinke, if you have any questions. April 9th: Early Release The Hayward School District will be releasing students early for a professional development day for the staff. The Intermediate School will...

Most of you have probably heard from your student that yesterday and today they took what is called a Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA). In essence, this assessment is equivalent to the Wisconsin Knowledge and Comprehensive Exam (WKCE) that we are all very familiar with. This assessment that the students took this week was just a PRACTICE test to ensure that all is working smoothly and to get some feedback on how the test worked, what the students thought, etc.  We will not get feedback on the scores.  I encourage those who are interested to research the SBA and look at the findings and such that the state and other trained professionals have published. This will allow you to become better acquainted with the assessment and help you understand more thoroughly why the HCSD is using the SBA.

Don't you just love birthdays! I sure do, which is why I am sending home three calendar months (April, May and June) that will list all of the birthdays left to celebrate. I have realized that quite a few of my students were born in the summer months, meaning that they do not get to have a birthday in school! So, along with the regularly scheduled birthday parties, I have added in all the summer birthdays as well to ensure those students get a chance to have a special day here in school! :) Not everyone is getting these calendars, so please ask your students if they received one from me today (i.e. those students who have birthdays in either April-July will have them). Thanks for your help!

I can't believe that we are talking about Field Day already especially because we have too much snow still! But, I sent home a Field Day Order Form for 2013-2014 Field Day shirts. The cost is $5 and the design of the shirt will be picked later as the art class is having a competition for the best art work submitted. Please have your child turn in their Field Day Order Form with $5 no later than   April 25th, 2014 . Field Day will be on May 21st, 2014 this year. How exciting. :)

As the weather is beginning to warm up we are seeing a lot of students coming to school ill prepared for what could happen weather wise. Please make sure you student has at least a light jacket, gloves and rain boots or snow boots. Because of all of the snow, it is going to be wet and mucky outside and our nurse does not have enough supplies to give out to the students with wet pants, wet shoes, etc. Also, please have a talk with you students about their choices outside. We are having a lot of student who are not prepared for outside going into the snow, down the wet slides and they come inside and either have to sit for the rest of the day in wet clothes or need to borrow from the nurse, which as I said before she has very limited supplies. I would also urge everyone to wash all the winter clothes (boots, snow pants, jackets, gloves ,etc.) as it has begun to become quite smelly in the hallway due to wet, damp and stinky clothes. Thanks for your help! :)

Hey! Hi! Hello!  Welcome Spring! :) Now if only this yucky snow can go away, right?! We are getting to the end of the school year. I can hardly believe it. We only have 55 days left of 4th grade. Wow! We have a lot to get accomplished in the next 11+ weeks. We have been very busy as usual up until today.  In math we have conquered our measurement and data unit. Unit #5 was pretty fun because it gave the students something concrete and hands-on to think about. We had a little trouble with conversions, but for the most part the class did very well with converting customary units of measurement as well as metric units of measurement. As I am sure you have noticed we have jumped right into fractions with unit #6. This math book really takes the idea of fractions, breaks it apart step-by-step in order to get the students thinking and understanding the concept of fractions. I remember when I was little, I really did not like fractions much at all. So making this has pai...

This week in room 406 has been another great week. It was a totally normal, uninterrupted 5 days which was marvelous! In Math we have finished out unit on measurement (#5). Your student has learned all of the metric system measurements (grams, liters, meters) and all of the customary system (inches, feet, yards, miles, pounds/tons, gallons, cups, pints, ounces) (USA) measurements. We had fun with our conversions and the students really seemed to enjoy the lessons and enrichment activities we did in class. Thank you for your help with the homework and such as well! :) On Monday your student will be receiving a Unit #5 Review. We will have most of the math class to work on the problems together and it will be due Tuesday. On Tuesday we will go over the review together as a class and I will be answering any questions the students have. Once we go through this the students will be responsible for bringing it home, studying the material and having the review signed by a parent or guardi...

To conclude our Unit #5 Measurement in math we spent the morning practicing our measuring skills....on each other! The students had to measure their partner's legs, arms, torso, shoulder span, head and total height in inches (customary) and centimeters (metric). After they go the measurements they needed to convert the inches to feet and yards and the centimeters in to meters and kilometers. They had a great time!! :)

Hello! As the snow is melting we are all getting very excited for the spring weather and months ahead (hopefully...). Although I am also very excited to be seeing some green grass and getting outside more, I have been noticing that some of my students are becoming a bit lax with their homework/getting assignment notebooks signed or even filling them out in the classroom at the end of the day. At the beginning of their year, you may have noticed that a lot of the students just had reading and flashcards/math sheet for homework. While this is true on most days, ever so often there are times where the students need to do some ELA work at home. This may include spelling, answering questions for the book we are reading in class, projects, etc. I write all of the homework on the homework board daily. I then ask all students to write down (word for word) what I have written down so they do not forget what their responsibilities are homework wise at home. I have noticed this not happenin...