Biography Presentations

ALL ABOARD THE CHOO CHOO TRAIN....

It was GREAT to see all of you today at the Holiday Concerts. Wasn't it great?!! Pictures and video will be posted tonight! Wow!!! A huge thanks to Mr. Goodheart!

Tomorrow is Polar Express Day! Kids may wear school appropriate pajamas, their bathrobes and slippers, and bring their favorite stuffed animal to cuddle with. Students also need to make sure they bring their train supplies. All students were able to buy in to the event which says a ton about the character in this classroom! Wow and great job!

Kids will bring their candy trains home tomorrow. If possible, I recommend a car ride home. Trains left at school will be thrown away.

Kids had a blast today buying goodies at our Christmas Stocking Stuffer Auction. Giant Candy Bars flew out the window for thousands of dollars!! And the very cool laminated Yoda poster sold to Garret for almost 4,ooo dollars! Sweet! Thanks to you for helping cut down the cost by allowing your children to participate in our two fun days. All kids went home with something! Now kids have limited money and will need to build up their stashes after the New Year. Fun!

I hope that all of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

HOLIDAY CONCERT TOMORROW!

Happy Short Week Before Christmas!!!

The holiday concert is tomorrow at 10:15 or 1:45. It is just 4-6 in this concert. The primary kids are at 9 and 1. Please join us, and don't forget those cameras.

See you tomorrow!

GYM SHOES TOMORROW!!!

Today we were able to play a Hanukkah game called the Dreidel Game. Check it out on the video!

Tomorrow students in my reading class need to remember to bring back their poster and their costumes for their biography reports. All students were told to take their posters home and practice presenting their report in front of you! Please help them remember to get the poster back into their backpacks. Feel free to join us. We will be presenting around 10:45-11:45.

Don't forget to purchase the needed candy train items this weekend for Polar Express Day. Students may start bringing them in on Monday. The items are down below if you need them again.

1. 1 piece of heavy cardboard for the base covered with aluminum foil that is taped on underneath. (The size of a cookie baking sheet or smaller)

2. 2 regular sized Milky Way candy bars or some other similar size rectangular bar. (Snickers)

3. 1 roll of life savers (any flavor)

4. 12 round hard candies for wheels

5. 1 small package of M&Ms, Skittles, or red hots.

6. 1 can of white frosting

7. Other candies are optional like licorice for tracks or sugar ice cream cones to make trees or whatever else they can imagine.

*Please have students bring all supplies in a bag with their name printed clearly upon it.

Just a reminder that family fun night is Friday. 6:30-7:30.

Lastly, Go GRIZ!

FUN DAY!

What a fun day! Here we have our super hero Maddie, The Bubble Blowers, The Stuffed Animal Group, The Sunglasses Group Jasa and Jordan, and our Crazy Hairs Arielle and Hanna! Thanks for all of your support. It will be great fun shopping this weekend for the Auction items.

Family Fun Night a coming in two days!!!!

Family Fun Night is this Friday at Bitterroot! A little birdie, actually it was me cuz I was at the planning meeting:0), told me that there will be a very cool obstacle course down both hallways and the rope swing for parents too! Oh my! That I gotta see! The cost is free and the fun starts at 6:30 and goes until 7:30. There will be a first grade fundraiser going on as well. Wanna take your picture with Santa??? That one will cost ya! :0)

Today the kids came up with new Fun Day ideas for tomorrow. This will be the final one. The cost is the same as last time to participate, $2. They can have crazy hair, super hero day, chew gum, Bring a stuffed animal, or wear their sunglasses or silly glasses. Boy are these kids creative or what??

Tomorrow is also our turn for Santa's workshop. We will head down with a first grade buddy in tow at 9:30. All items are $1.

Library tomorrow! Please remember your books!

Don't forget our holiday music concert is next Monday. There are two shows. Bring those cameras it is fun!

Have a wonderful evening!

Upcoming Events...Start Now.

This just in...

Students MUST wear gym shoes on this Friday (and every Friday)!! They will be doing the rope climb, and if they do not wear proper shoes they will not participate and will receive an F for the day. This is a safety issue and no exceptions will be made! Thanks, Mr. Ness.

Sub tomorrow. I am at TILT, technology class. The sub will be the same one as when I was in CA.

We started our Biography reports today in reading class. Students will need to have their poster and costume ready to go by this Friday. Plenty of classtime will be given to complete the poster if students work hard. A major part of their grade will be effort and 4th grade quality work. That means complete sentences, proper grammar, correct spelling, and effort proven drawings. Students were instructed on all of the graded details and given a grading expectation checklist today. There should be NO question on what I expect. I will be grading these pretty tough. Some students have yet to finish reading their biography. They were assigned to finish them up this past weekend. It will be difficult to write the report without the book being finished. If needed, posters may come home on Thursday night in order to be prepared on Friday. Until then, they need to stay at school to work on.

I am still looking for Polar Express Permission slips from Jacob, Maddie, Dalton, and Matt. Your child has paid for the day but will not be allowed to participate without your permission. Please check their homework folders for slip or write one of your own in the planner. Don't forget to go shopping for the needed items before next Tuesday! Thanks.

Have a great night.

Sharing their sharing...

Hi. I hope that you had a great, warm weekend. Brrr!! This week we will be studying different holidays like Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah. We will study the hows, whens, wheres, and whys of each holiday. We will also play some games and read some stories that will help us learn even more about these different holidays.

Writing notebooks were turned in on Friday. Again, I was laughing on my couch reading them. However, this week we had quite a few sad and heartful entries as well. I think having our Celebrate life week during our morning meetings really stirred some hearts and memories. There were many kids that wanted to travel back in time to see their family members that had passed on. It is hard to know what to say to these types of entries except that they love them to this day and that they should carry them proudly in their hearts. I encourage you to have a discussion at home if your child is one that is needing some clarification on this subject.

I will leave you today with an entry to our prompt, besides Earth, what is your favorite object in space? Jewel wrote a beautiful entry, and I would like to share it with you.

My favorite thing in space is the sun rising in the morning. When I wake up the beautiful colors yellow, pink, purple, orange, red and blue. They light up my room. Every morning the sun rising patterns are always different. Sometimes the patterns are lines, and sometimes they are mixed together. I also enjoy seeing the morning turn into day. The sky is almost like an artist painting. It makes me happy because it just touches my soul.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

What a FUN DAY!!!

Ha Ha! Loved all of the Fun Day Activities! PJ's, Career Dress, Ipods, and Hats! And, we raised a bunch of spending money too! We will have one more fun day next week and then a shopping I will go! Thanks for your support!

Fun Day Tomorrow...$2.00

What a day! You can tell Christmas is around the corner. We are working very hard to stay focussed and on task. We have so much to accomplish before the break.

One of the fun things we will be doing is having a small auction for kids to spend their hard earned fake money on. Items will consist of items one might find in a stocking. In order to purchase these items for your children we will be having two fun days. One is tomorrow and one will be next week. Students can wear their pajamas, robe, and slippers to school, listen to their i-pod for the day, wear a hat in school, or dress up as their career job in the future. In order to participate in the fun day, students will need to donate $2. (Real money that is ;0)) If students want to do more than one thing they may but they need to pay $2 for each fun item done. So for example, if students want to wear their PJs ad listen to a musical devise it is $4. Students had fun coming up with this idea, and it is neat because the money donated actually goes right back to them in a fun way! Kids have worked hard for their fake money, and I want them to have a chance to spend it on fun things. Students will pay for their Polar Express day and Christmas Pageant movie before the auction to ensure that they do not spend all of their cash on the auction and are not able to participate in these two events.

Speaking of Polar Express Day...students came home tonight with their permission slips. We talked in great length today that only students who deserve to participate will participate. Deserving students are ones that control their Christmas excitement and behavior, have ALL their work done (especially their writing assignments), and are demonstrating 4th grade quality work and effort in ALL areas. 90% of my students do these things all the time. Is your child one of them? Please have a conversation about this before you sign the permission slip.

Have a super night!

Celebrate Life!

Hi there. Can I just share with you that Celebrate Life week during our morning meetings have been so fun! Today Preston shared about his grandpa, Abby about her grandparents, Garret about his granddad, Lailyn about her great granddad, Kaleb about his great, great granddad, Arielle about her grandma, Jasa about her grandma, and Maddie about her fun Kitty Fancy. We had a great time trying to figure out what they were doing right now up above for those that believed. Hilarious activities and foods and drinks! Fun! It was also so neat when I would ask their names and the kids would say I don't know I just called her/him grandma/grandpa. Too cute! Reminded me of when my son Beau says that is not Tammie that is mom. Smiles! Keep the items and stories coming!

Watch for Polar Express permission slips coming home tomorrow. My reading class also needs to start working on their Biography costumes for their presentations that are due on December 18th. Expectation sheets will be given out soon and the written part of this will be done at school.

Have a super night!

Read Below.

Please Read the Post below. There is a ton of new information there. Thanks.

Welcome Back! Lots of Announcements Below!

Well hello there. I missed all of you while I was gone. I went into school yesterday for a few hours and do you know what I found?? A super duper sub note! Well done! She stated you were the best class she has ever subbed for!! Way to go Erickson's! I am so proud of you, but honestly not at all surprised. You really are a great class with super character all ready! We will celebrate somehow someday this coming week!

This week we will finish up our math test and begin division and some related algebra concepts. We will also continue with map skills in S.S. How are those Biographies coming. We will be talking about the big report you will be doing starting not this week but the next. I would like for you to start thinking about a costume that will make you look like your selected person however. You will need to present your report in costume. Costumes must be made at home. I encourage you to look around the house to find items rather than store buy, but it is your choice. Be creative and extra credit points will be given for props that fit your person. Start now and plan ahead. Do not bring costumes or props to school until the due date, which I will tell you later this week.

With the upcoming holidays we will be taking a deeper look into what happens around the world. We will be once again joining up with Mrs. Hankin's class to select a country and discover how they celebrate the holidays. Students will be given a list of possible projects they can share with the class, including a food dish. They will have partners for this project. Some work at home may be required. Look for expectation sheet to go home early the following week. We will also be reading the hilarious book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and we will be viewing the movie with Mrs. Hankin's class. There will be a $500 buy in price to participate in this activity. Lastly, we will be doing an all day Believe Polar Express Day. All of our academics will revolve around this theme that day. Students will be making candy trains/scenes and will be watching the movie Polar Express at the end of the day. There will be a $1000.00 buy in price tag for this day! Fun!

In the past, I have offered a Christmas store for kids to shop for items for their families. However, this year I am going to encourage that students shop at our Santa's Workshop where all items are a real dollar. Therefore, I will NOT be doing the store. However, I will be doing a little auction for the kids to spend some of their fake money. In order to help with the cost of these items, we will be holding two hat days in the next weeks. On these days, my students may wear a hat to school and during class for the price of Two real dollars. All money raised from this will be spent on auction items for your children.

Speaking of money, does your child need to earn fake money? Well, we are currently collecting food for the Billings Food Bank. I will give $10 for each item brought in. Make sure students bring items into me first before putting into the circle barrel in the hallway to ensure they get paid. Let's do it!!

Speaking of helping out...look for volunteer opportunity sheets coming home later this week.

Lastly, by now you may have heard that we have had yet another loss in one of our student's families. Preston's grandfather died last week from a heart attack. I have done some research on what I can do to help kids get through this. Every article I read suggested having a life celebration party. So, that is what we are going to do. I would like every student to bring in a picture(s) and/or some items to share of anyone that they have lost. It could be a loved one, grandma, grandpa, pet, cousin, anyone. I want to put the items on display and have the kids share some memories. We will be doing this during morning meeting time all week. Please encourage kids to gather such items tonight and bring them in. I would like to do at least 5 or so a day. Items/pictures will be on display all week on a special board in the classroom. Special breakable items can go home that same day. Otherwise, all items will remain at school until Friday. Let's celebrate life and talk about the transition period of our special loved ones together!

As you can see, we are going to be busy busy for the next two weeks. If you are interested in helping out during any of the above activities, just drop me an email or note in the planner.

Have a super Sunday and I will see you LIVE tomorrow!

Ms. Erickson's Disney/California Trip

From the Beach...

Greetings from California!

On The Airplane...