Mr. Kust

May 12, 2011

Recycling Contest

Recycling

Breck Recycles Contest!

Guess how much paper and cardboard Breck will recycle from 7/01/10 through 5/31/11 and you could win one of five iPod Shuffles.Contest ends May 31. There will be one winner from each Breck group: Lower School students, Middle School students, Upper School students, faculty/staff and parents. Click here for more information and for the link to submit your guess. Good luck!

May 2, 2011

May

The month of May will be busy to say the least! As we push through the last month of school, we try to bring many things to closure. Besides finishing math workbooks and science projects, we will be celebrating the fourth graders departure from Lower School and moving on to fifth grade. Make sure you mark your calendars for the fourth grade dinner and performance on Thursday, June 2nd at 6:00 pm. Lower School closing exercises for all grades will be the following week on Monday, June 6th at 11:00 am. (That last day of school will be a half day only).

Other notable dates for your fourth grader include: a trip to the Walker Art Museum on Wed. May 4, a trip down the Mississippi River on Thurs. May 19, Field Day on Fri. May 20, and a service trip to "Feed My Starving Children" on Wed. May 25.

In math, students are completing their decimals booklets and extending their work with fractions in "Homework and Remembering" workbooks. We hope to complete our smaller A.D.D. booklets as well. In science, we have officially submitted our guesses for the Mystery Class project and look forward to discovering where exactly these sites are located via the internet on Friday, May 6.

I have appreciated all of your continued support throughout the year and have thoroughly enjoyed working with your children this school year. I hope you will continue to check in with your fourth grader and on this blog for other important details and announcements that may arise as the school year comes to a close.

April 29, 2011

Cyberbullying

We continue to work on teaching our students how to appropriately use their laptops at school, but it bears repeating that as parents, we need to continue to monitor their technology usage at home. The following link has a few more important reminders along with a short video regarding this topic. 5 Things You Need to Know About Cyberbullying

April 29, 2011

Non-Uniform Days

We have a number of division-wide non-uniform days left in this school year. The dates are:

Friday, April 29 - Last Friday of the month

Thursday, May 5 - Character Day - Dress up as your favorite storybook character.
Friday, May 20 - Field Day
Friday, June 3 - Last Friday of the school year

March 31, 2011

Service Project Reminder

"Birthday Wishes"

Families who use our local food shelf often are unable

to buy extra items that make a birthday special, like

Cake Mix & Frosting, Candles, Paper Plates & Cups

If your family would like to donate, students may bring items to school
April 6-15.

Thank you for your GENEROSITY!

March 31, 2011

Spring Update

Welcome back from Spring Break!

I trust you have enjoyed some quality family time in the past few weeks. Here are some of the things happening in the classroom this spring:

MATH

We have started Volume 2 of our Math series so all of the students have a new hardcover book and a new workbook. They look the same on the outside, but inside are more problems with multi-digit division and decimals, among other new concepts.

SCIENCE

We recently enjoyed a fun visit to Westwood Nature Center where we learned a lot about winter survival. Ask your child if they remember the significance of the five "3s" or if they know what "STOP" stands for? The hunt for our mystery classrooms is getting more interesting too as we have received our longitude clues and our first interdisciplinary clues!

More later!

March 29, 2011

February Photos

A visit from Ms. Van De Wynkel....

A visit from Ms. Van De Wynkel

A fun field trip...

January 14, 2011

More January News

Earlier at school this week, we observed a moment of silence for the victims of the recent tragedy in Arizona. Below is a link to an article that offers a variety of guidelines that may help to explain such events to younger children.

Explaining the News to Our Kids - Common Sense

January 9, 2011

Happy New Year!

As we begin 2011, here is what we are looking forward to in room 23:

Welcome to Ms. Herrmann!

As Ms. Van De Wynkel prepares for her new baby, we would like to officially welcome Mia Herrmann into our classroom. Ms. Herrmann will begin shadowing Ms. Van De Wynkel this week (Jan 10) in an effort to better acquaint herself with the students and the daily routines of our classroom. Ms. Van De Wynkel's last day is Thursday, Jan 13, and we wish her the very best as she nears her delivery date. We look forward to hearing all the particulars, especially the baby's name, and will certainly pass that information along to you as soon as we hear about it!

Math and Science

We will soon be starting a new unit in our Math books. After a quick geometry study of angles and polygons, we will tackle multi-digit multiplication (34 x 48). A.D.D. assignments will continue as well, in addition to pages in the students' Homework and Remembering Workbooks.

In Science, we are soon to begin an online project called the "Mystery Classroom" investigation, designed by the Journey North website. We also will continue our work with the graphing of photoperiods and sunrise/sunset times.

Best wishes to you and yours in 2011!

December 15, 2010

Holiday Greetings!

Happy Holidays to all! Please make sure you read the letter that is going home with our class this afternoon. It details how Ms. Van De Wynkel's upcoming child care leave will be managed, including an important change with Parent-Teacher Conferences. There will be a sign-up sheet posted on our classroom door Thursday evening, so please stop by before or after the program to find a slot.

Enjoy some additional holiday greetings from our fourth graders below in the form of a Pixie Slideshow!
(look for the play button to click on hidden in the manger)

Holiday Greetings

December 1, 2010

December News

Holiday Greetings! Hard to believe it is already December!

The snow and cold have finally arrived! Please help your fourth grader come prepared for outdoor recess with boots, mittens, hats, and snow pants. Rest assured that we will NOT have outdoor recess when the temperatures or wind chills are below zero.

MATH

We are working hard to complete Unit Three before the break. This unit mainly consists of a review of place value, especially with regard to reading and writing larger numbers up to the millions. We will also be doing addition and subtraction of large numbers. Our math curriculum has an added emphasis on solving different kinds of word problems and the students will see plenty of those! Feel free to help your fourth grader work through these problems if necessary. We stress creating visual models on paper and rereading carefully for key words and important information. Basic facts should remain a priority for those who have not achieved our goal of writing the answers to 90 multiplication facts in five minutes or less.

SCIENCE

Our new electricity unit will kick off with a visit to the Bakken Museum, Thursday, December 2. We will learn about the history of electricity and participate in a hands-on workshop. We spend the rest of the month learning about simple circuits and other basics concepts of electricity.

IMPORTANT DATES

As many of you know, our Lower School Christmas programs will be held two weeks from today in the Breck Chapel. Grades Pre-Kdg-1 will perform at 6:00 pm on December 17, followed by grades 2-3-4 at 7:15 pm. This is a nonuniform event and students are encouraged to dress up in their holiday best! Hope to see you all there!

The first of two formal progress reports this year will be mailed out on December 17. These do not have to be signed or returned but we hope you will review the descriptors and comments carefully. Feel free to contact us with any questions or feedback.

One final note: We will be collecting fourth grade laptops on December 17 and they will be harbored in our classroom over the winter break. This allows us to update software and do some routine maintenance checks over those two weeks of vacation. Please remember to send your student with his charger that day so we can have them charged and ready to use again on their first day back to school Monday, January 4.

Once again, happy holidays to you and yours!

Enjoy the following images from Grandparents Day!

GP Day 2010

GP Day 2010

November 19, 2010

Technology Meeting for Fourth Grade Parents

Last month, I spoke to a group of fourth grade parents at Breck about technology. To view the slides of that presentation, click on the link below. Feel free to email me any questions you may have about technology. Many thanks to those parents who were able to attend!

Technology and Your Fourth Grader

Should My Lower Schooler See the New Harry Potter Movie?
Movie Review by Commonsense.org

December 14, 2010

November News

No sun
No moon
No morn
No noon
No butterflies
No bees
No flowers
No leaves
NOVEMBER!

The simple words of Thomas Hood above, capture some of our thoughts as we creep closer to winter in this month of November. Here are some of the things happening in Room 23 these days:

Halloween Celebration!

We enjoyed a fun day last Friday as we paraded right from the Anderson Gym in costume, to the Sunrise Nursing Home in Golden Valley. We decorated pumpkins and also sang for the residents there. We concluded our day with a classroom celebration that afternoon. Below are some photos taken that day!

Halloween 2010 Slideshow-Medium.m4v

Laptops

All fourth graders are bringing home their laptops now and hopefully charging them every night. If they have time, they can be practicing their keyboarding skills with the application called Ultrakey. They will also be developing and utilizing their knowledge of the Word Application and doing a variety of word processing too. If you ever have a question regarding laptops, please don't hesitate to drop me a line or voicemail.

Math

We are cruising through units 2 and 3 in our Math Expressions curriculum! Some of the concepts we are studying include: order of operations, commutative and distributive properties, prime factor trees, and geometry (symmetry, congruence, and similarity).

Science

In Science, we continue to monitor our shadow lengths, and are also keeping track of the monarch migration. Just this week, the peak of the migration hit the "finish line" in Angangueo, Mexico, from which we receive regular updates via the internet. Have your fourth grader show you around the Journey North website sometime!

Grandparents Day

As many of you know, Grandparents Day is just around the corner, Wednesday, November 24. Remember this is a half day, and we begin the day with our whole Lower School and special guest in the Chapel. More detail can be found on the Breck website if you are in need of registering someone.

October 11, 2010

This is Where I Live

Learn the words to our school community song by clicking on the play button below!

This is Where I Live.m4v

October 7, 2010

Monarchs Released!

We had a beautiful sunny day for our monarch release on Wednesday afternoon. Check out some excellent photos at Breck's gallery website located at:

http://breckschool.zenfolio.com/

October 6, 2010

October News

Welcome back to our weblog! I truly enjoyed conferencing with all of you last week. Goals have been set as we push onward through the month of October. Here are a few highlights:

Science

In Science, we have learned a lot about monarch biology and it's life cycle. Our adult monarchs have all emerged and we are set to tag and release them this week!

Below are a few photos to enjoy.

Recently we enjoyed our first field trip at nearby Westwood Nature Center. The fourth graders learned to use a dichotomous key and had fun trying to identify over 16 different kinds of trees on the trail. Below are a few photos from that trip back in September.

Math

As discussed in our conferences, we are really emphasizing the mastery of our basic facts, especially multiplication and division. We will also spend the next week finishing up our measuring booklet. In addition, you will see the students "Homework and Remembering" workbook coming home this week. This is an extension of our Math Expressions core curriculum. Keep practicing those math facts!

October 7, 2010

September News

Off to a Great Start!

Greeting students on the first day of school!

We are off to a great start in the fourth grade as we cruise through the first week of the 2010 school year with new materials, new teachers and new schedules! Here is a brief look as how our schedule is shaping up at the Cyber Cafe in room 23:

I will be in the classroom the mornings of Days 4, 5, and 6, as well as the afternoons of Days 1, 2, and 3, teaching both math and science. We are currently getting acquainted with some of our new math materials. There is a hard cover Math Book, a softcover "Homework and Remembering" workbook, and a smaller orange A.D.D. booklet. Look for all of these to come home at some point in time.

We have also ventured outside to take our first shadow measurements. We will do this regularly throughout the balance of the school year. Our science curriculum tries to emphasize making good observations about the world around you.

In fourth grade, we continue to study the monarch butterfly in more depth, focusing not only on it biology but its amazing migration. We are presently rearing monarchs in the classroom and most of our monarch larvae have already entered the pupa stage. We hope to see adult butterflies in 8-12 days. Check back for more monarch news, as we follow their development!