ABC Presentations

Today 3rd graders came to check out the 4th grade ABC books on display. “Be sure to check out Tony’s,” suggested Samantha to one of the younger ones, “because it’s really big and has lot of pictures of him at the places he’s been in North Carolina. It’s really crafty!!” There were also be some ABC PowerPoints on the Big screen to look at courtesy of Eric.

PARTY!!!

“Hip, hip, hooray! There’s a parté this Thursday,” screamed TJ. Everyone is invited to attend to celebrate the end of 4th Grade. We’re going to kick our party off with a big SPLASH!! “Students who earned tickets will get to trade them for a bucket of water and students will get to splash any of the teacher with it,” explained Lizzy. You will earn as many tickets as your score went up from 3rd grade. For example, if you had 344 in reading last year and you got a 355 this year, you would have grown 11 points so you would get 11 tickets to buy buckets to splash with. There will also be dancing, snacks, board games, singing, and much, much more. The party starts at 8:30 and will last until lunch. Any snack donations, particularly fresh fruit and veggies, would be much appreciated.

Awards Day

Don’t Forget, this Thursday afternoon will also be our final awards ceremony for the school year. “Awards Day is to award students for what they did this year. For example, some will get an award for Accelerated Reading if they got all of their points for AR,” explained Tony. “Make sure you come to see me walking up to the stage to get my ALL of my awards,” bragged Te’ona.

“FUN!” that was the word used by Ashley to describe EOG Week. “I definitely agree,” responded LIzzy to Ashley’s word. “I love taking the EOGs so I can pass and move on to the next grade.” Ashley meant something different. After finishing the EOG, we got to have fun but about the actual EOG, she said, “I felt tired and scared after taking the EOG.”

Stacie’s favorite part of EOG Week was eating the snack Mrs. Robinson passed out everyday and watching movies and playing games. After we took the EOG, she was happy about not doing any more work. “The movie’s were really funny and entertaining and my favorite was watching Series of Unfortunate Events and eating the tasty snacks.”

“I thought the EOG’s were EASY!!” said Gabe. His favorite was the math calculator inactive. “I think I did better on the inactive than any of the other section.” He was able to prove all of the prove all of the questions on the inactive, but had to guess on just a few of the question on the active. But you should, there were a whole mess of questions on the calculator active.

“My favorite part of the EOG was the reading,” explained Xavier. “I think it was kinda easy because they had easy stories.” He did have to go back over the stories though and read them over to get the answers to the questions.
Finally, this week Telisa learned…NOTHING!! “But let me explain. How could I learn something, if I already knew everything on the test?” Her smart teacher, Mr. Kellogg (and no she’s not getting bribed to say this), taught me everything I needed to know to pass.

“Wiggle break!!” That’s what Kayla replied when Telisa asked her what her favorite part of the day was. “I played Uno. We used regular rules. I played with Telisa and Stacie while everybody else was at the DJ party.”

Gabe learned that scientists are trying to invent a fake heart so when people are trying to have a heart transplant, and there aren’t any real hearts available, they will have one so they won’t die. “I found out from one of the science books on the reading table,” explained Gabe. “It was all about how the heart pumps the blood through the body to different jobs.” If you are interested, the book is titled, The Circulatory System by Darlene R. Stille.

“Well, I was watching my friends at the DJ party while I was stuck inside playing Uno with my friends,” complained Stacy. “Everybody was at the DJ party because they sold one or more boxes of Candy. I felt miserable because my friends were having fun and I wasn’t,” even though she was playing Uno with her friends.

Today Tony learned some more math. “I learned more about how to take a shortcut when doing penny jars.” For example, if there were 5 rounds and you add 6 pennies to the jar every round and your jar started with 2 pennies, you could multiply 5 x 6 and then add 2 and you would have 32 pennies.

Cody’s favorite part of the day was watching Tony fall out of his chair and trying to get back in, but he fell down again. “I think he did it on purpose,” explained Cody, but Tony disagrees.

Tips to give your child about taking tests:

• Relax. Just do the best you can. That’s what really matters.
• Your first choice is usually correct. Don’t change an answer unless you have a good reason to do so.
• Be aware of key words such as “all,” “now,” “always,” “never,” “only,” “exactly.”
• Watch for negative words like “not,” “no,” “never.”
• Look for information in some of the questions. This information may help you answer other questions.
• Listen closely to verbal directions and read carefully any instructions on the test itself.
• Ask the teacher to explain any instructions you doesn’t understand.
• Work out math problems, even if they seem easy.
• On the reading portion of the test, search for “clues” to each question and underline them in the story.
• Answer the questions you know first and come back to the harder ones later, remembering to mark unanswered questions so they’re easy to find.

You can assist your child prepare for testing by doing the following:

• Make sure your child gets a good night’s sleep before a test, and make sure your child eats properly the day of a test.
• Maintain a pleasant home environment and avoid unnecessary conflicts. Try to make the morning of the test a pleasant one. Do not add to your child’s stress.
• Make sure your child has taken any needed medication.
• Ensure that your child is present during testing (children generally perform better when taking tests in their groups rather than at a make-up time).
• Get your child to school on time the day of the test.
• Wish your child good luck each morning of the test. Tell your child that he/she is special and that you believe in him/her!
• Remind your child the test is important. Encourage him/her to do his/her best.
• If your child is too ill to attend, please call the school office.
• Remind your child to listen carefully to the instructions from the teacher and to read the directions and each question carefully.
• Tell your child to attempt to answer all of the questions and not to leave any blank.
• Encourage your child to stay focused on the test, even if other students finish early.
• If your child is disappointed after taking a test, reassure him or her that there will be plenty of opportunities to improve and succeed.

“I learned that the museum used to be a house that is now 104 years old. And if you if you stay alone in the house, you might discover some ghosts,” stated Lizzy. At least, that is what the museum tour guide told us.

Speaking of ghosts, Cody’s favorite part of the trip was learning about people who lived long ago. For example, Robert F. Hoke was a famous General that led during the Civil War. “When they were trying to find the name of the county, they thought of General Hoke and used his last name,” explained Cody. “He was very poplular!”

“I thought that we were going to a different type of Museum other than an old house from 1905,” said Stacie, “but I learned so many different things about Hoke County and the house. Stacie learned that kids couldn’t go to school until October because they had to work in fields picking cotton.

Te’ona discvoered two things today about our county while visiting the museum. Number 1, “Raeford came from combining two people’s names, Wilford and McRae.” Number 2 was that I also learned that they used to eat collards, sweet potatoes, and they even fried their chicken in pig fat.”

Mr. Kellogg’s favorite part of the day was having a great time with his students.

Tony liked doing math today. He really liked doing double digit multiplication and Xavier thinks that Tony is getting much better at it. “I learned it from my friend T.J. and Mr. Kellogg.” When Telisa was asked the same question she replies, ” I learned how to do some long division today. For, example, 222 divide by 2 is 111.”

“My favorite thing in math today was doing Accelerated Math.” When asked why by our reporter, T.J. she replied, “It was fun because it’s making me learn more.” Today she learned how to do multiplication with the thousands place and with double digits. Lizzy really liked tutoring her classmates in math. “I love math and I’m very good at it and I like to help others.”

On a final note, here are some additional items to keep in mind:

ABC Books- Thanks to all those parents and grandparents who helped their kids with this enormous project. The quality of this year’s work I think even exceeds that of last year’s students. Which is saying quite a bit. Grades will be given out soon and students will be given one opportunity to improved their grade if it isn’t to their satisfaction, or rather their parents.

Field Trip- The dates and times have been confirmed and students will be heading to the Hoke County Museum this Thursday from 9:00-11:00 to learn about some local history. Parents are welcome to accompany and chaperons are always appreciated.

Field Day- This Friday will be our school-wide field day from 8:30-1:30. Parents are welcome to attend and get active with their kids. Also, if there is any parent out their with a cooler and would like to bring it stocked with drinks, I will have no objection.

Supplies- If you have any spare copy paper or snack laying around the house, it would be extremely appreciated; especially the copy paper as we are running very low.

Homework- Until our EOG, homework will consist entirely of EOG practice items in both math and reading. PLEASE, go over your child’s homework each night to make sure they understand each test item. Now is the time to make student feel as comfortable as possible with the formatting and content of questions so the EOG will seem familiar and unexpected.

Stacie’s favorite part of the day was switching classrooms for math. She went to Mrs. Austin and Mr. Sedgwick and she had a blast. “I learned fractions and long division,” explained Stacie. “I’m also happy today because I finally quit my job as clean-up crew.”

Ashley enjoyed being a mime for reading today. She got to act out the part of the wind in a Pourquoi tale about how the Barn Swallow got its tail. She learned that a pourquoi tale is a folktale that teaches about how something in nature came to be.

Zak’s worst part of the day was breaking the news about having to leave our classroom so he can move to Japan later.