Dear Parents,

Well, we had a busy week of rehearsals for the Winter Concert.  The kids did an exceptional job!  They learned so many skills of teamwork, sing performance, and diligence.  Joy Denton did a great job.  You can access video of the performance by going to Joy Denton’s blog.

Students should be bringing home a weekly folder of work, notes, Parent Talk, etc.  Please return the folder so that we can use it the following week.  Although much of the work we do is kept at school, i.e., writing journals, reading journals, science folders, etc., you can go over these papers with your student to have conversations about their work.  Remember it is important to celebrate what students do well rather than always focusing on what they miss.  You can also monitor their writing/reading journals when these come home for homework. 

Homework Folder/Planner:  Some students are forgetting to use their planners and homework folders.  These are designed to help students stay organized and give you easy access to their assignments.  By using the planner and notebook, students learn important skills they will need later in their school career.

Students can practice typing skills and play math games online.  See the links on my blog.

Reading:  We continued to work on finding details in what we read.  These skills are being used in the students’ research project of Chinese Inventions, reading comprehension, and in their own writing.

Writing:  We continue to finish up our second Personal Narrative Essay.  These should be complete this week and we will have a writer’s celebration. 

Math:  We will finish up our unit on multiplication this week.  Students have been learning different methods for solving multiplication problems.  They should continue to work on basic math facts as these are the foundation of everything we do.

Social Studies:  We are continuing to study Asian geography.  With the help of Simon Power, we will finish up an I Movie of our trip to the Shanghai History Museum.

Science:  We will finish up our unit on Water this week.

Coming Up:

*Our holiday party is Friday.  Reminder:  Students are to bring in a wrapped book for a book exchange.

*Report Cards will go home January 16^th.

*Chinese Inventions:  Students should be working on their model of their Chinese Invention.  Please let me know if you have any questions about this project.  Students should be recording their process with pictures and notes about how they made the project.  These will be used as part of their presentation at the Chinese Invention Museum on  January 23^rd.

Students Return from Winter Break January 5^th!

Have a great holiday! 

Warm Regards,

Mrs. Merrill

Dear Parents,

We had another exciting week in fourth grade.  The field trip on Monday was a great success.  Thank you to Mrs. Coe, Mrs. McKeon, Mrs. Chiu, and Mrs. Ahmad for your help in leading groups.  The students gathered information and pictures that they will use to create a photo story about Shanghai.  Mr. Power was with us on Monday and he will be helping us complete this project.

As you know Thursday was a US holiday, Thanksgiving.  The students of grade 4 created an enormous turkey with individual feathers.  On the feathers, students wrote what they are most thankful for.  I guess this is something we should remember to do everyday rather than once a year.  As you know, our class participated in an assembly on Thursday in which we did a skit representing the ideas of Skilled Inquirer, one of the EAGLES.  They created and wrote the play and did a wonderful job!

I am continuing to learn more about my teacher blog, and with the help of Mr. Power, I have included pictures from Picasa.  The neat thing about this is that you will be able to download any pictures that you want from the blog.  If you click on the pictures, they will enlarge and guide you through the process.  If you have questions about this, let me know.  I probably won’t be able to answer them, but I have wonderful support from Mr. Power who can help.  J

Last week, Maggie Moon, a trainer for Writer’s Workshop, used our classroom as a training class for grade 4.  The students enjoyed having her, and all the grade 4 teachers, work with them on their writing.

On a personal note, I just watched a Barbara Walters interview of the Obamas in which they talked about how they plan to keep things real for their children in the White House.  They talked about how their children would still have chores; making their beds and cleaning up their rooms, etc.  They also said they would continue to enforce their values of expecting their children to be kind, respectful, and responsible.  Since being in China, I have noticed that many children don’t have chores, and some tend to take the support staff for granted, not always treating them with respect.  Chores, no matter how small, teach children responsibility and how to follow through, an important life skill.  Being kind and respectful to everyone is a life skill that will carry them further than any academic achievement.  Thanks for letting me ramble a bit.

Thank you so much for your donations to the Giving Tree bags in our classroom.  The children have been excited as they bring in their donation and put them in the bags.  I think they know how fortunate they are and recognize that this little bag may contain the only new items these children will receive all year.  Thank you for your support of this wonderful charity.  The time has been extended to December 10^th, so you still have time to send items in.

Upcoming events:

Chinese Invention Project:  Students should be talking to you about their plans for making a model of their Chinese Invention.  We have been working hard, with the help of Mrs. Boyer (school librarian), learning about research.  We will have a Chinese Invention Museum in January and we encourage you to come and celebrate your student’s hard work with us.

Math:  We just started Unit 5 Mulitiplication

Reading:  Students are reading their Just Right Books.  Continuous, consistent reading helps student’s fluency and comprehension.  Next week we will also be reading

Writing:  We will be finishing up our second Personal Narrative Essay this week. 

Social Studies:  Students are learning about Asian Geography and Shanghai History

Science:  We are doing investigations about water vapor and will finish our Water unit this week.

I hope you all have a restful weekend.

Kind Regards,

Jeanie Merrill

November 14, 2008

 Dear Parents,

 I hope you had a great week enjoying this beautiful weather. 

 Upcoming Events:

*Friday (today) students had an opportunity to hear the APAC Orchestra.  What a great experience!

*House Road Race - Monday Nov 17 8:15 - 9:00am  All  students will run for House competition Wear your House shirt

*Pearl Tower - Shanghai History Museum   Monday Nov. 24th - Bring a snack and sack lunch or order a sack lunch from Eurest

*Thanksgiving Holiday Party: November 27^th – details coming

 A look at what we did this week:

Reading:  Students finished up work with “Finding the Titanic.”  Students continue to read “just right books”  and have had homework writing in their reading journals “the part I read today was about…..and it made me think about”

 Math:  Adding and Subtracting Decimals

 Science:  Water density, Water vapor and evaporation

 Social Studies:  Start unit on Asian Geography

 Writing: Students continued working on their second personal narrative.  We focused on main idea and details and deciding which details are most important

 We created a small city with our 4PK Buddies.  As preparation, students discussed what a good community needs and the best way to lay it out.  I am so proud of the way our students work with their Buddies. 

Giving Tree:  We need lots of donations for the four children assign to our class.  Items can be school supplies, toys, clothing, shoes, etc.  Items must be new.  The deadline is November 28^th. 

Have a great weekend.

Warm Regards,

Jeanie Merrill

November 2, 2008

Dear Parents,

What a fun and exciting week we had. Barbara Boyer treated the Grade 4’s to “spooky” story in the library on Monday followed by a brief rehearsal with Mrs. Denton for the assembly on Friday. Our Halloween parade, assembly, and party were a big success! It was a fun experience for all the fourth graders to bond and socialize. MANY THANKS to all the parents who helped make the day special for our kids! We also performed a short Halloween play for our PreK 4 Buddies.

We did manage to accomplish some academic pursuits as well.:)

Reading: Students picked a “just right” book to begin reading, and wrote reflections in their reading journals. In addition, we started reading a story about the raising of the Titanic. We started by discussing other shipwrecks that have been recovered. Students were amazed that we had the technology to find these ships way back in the “old days”, the 80’s.

Writing: Students are working on their second personal narrative piece. They have been writing ideas in their journals and this week will be starting to draft. We also did a fun writing activity, writing a fiction story by looking at a mysterious picture.

Math: We started Unit 4 which covers decimals.

Science: Students set up an observation with ice which we will be observing this week.

Social Studies: We are wrapping up our work with land forms, by searching on Google Earth for examples of each of the land forms. Mr. Simon will help us finish this on Monday.

Report cards went home on Friday, and I look forward to meeting with all of you to discuss and celebrate your child’s progress on Thursday or Friday at the Parent – Teacher Conferences. If you have not yet returned your conformation, please do so, so that I can get you scheduled. Parent Talk was delivered a little late, so I wasn’t able to send that home on Friday, but your child will bring it home on Monday.

Tuesday is our day to go to the Book Fair! Students should bring money if they want to purchase books. The fair will also be open November 4^th – 7^th, 8:00am til 3:00pm.

Giving Tree is back. Students will have an opportunity to donate to a child who has so little. I will be sending home a specific list with details about each of the five children our class will sponsor.

Have a wonderful week!

Warmly,

Jeanie Merrill

Dear Parents,

I hope you all had a pleasant three-day weekend. We have had a very full and exciting week. We met with our Pre-K 4 “Buddies” on Monday, interviewing them and helping them write a paragraph about themselves. It was so much fun to watch our students connect. (See pictures) We also had an extensive lesson from Mr. Powers (Technology) on using Google Maps and Word Processing skills. This was to prepare the students for a project on Land Forms that they will be starting soon. In science we have been discovering attributes of water. We have started reading “Stone Fox” as a whole class read and are writing our first piece in Writer’s Workshop. We have been reviewing and reinforcing cursive that was taught last year. We had another special visitor, Mr. Woods, our school counselor. He will come to the class often to teach classes on different skills. This was a get acquainted time for the kids. Today, Friday we had a House Assembly. If your student is new, they will be bringing home their House shirt, and they should wear it on Monday. Don’t forget to mark down the Elementary School Back to School Night, Thursday, September 25th.

Warm Regards,

Jeanie Merrill

Welcome to a new school year! I hope you all had a restful and fun summer with your families. We are looking forward to an exciting year.
I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jeanie Merrill and this is my second year at SAS. I taught in Colorado for 10 years before coming to China. My experience has been in teaching K, 3, 4, and 6th grades. I have a Masters of Education in Guidance and Counseling. I have two sons, one just graduated from Baylor University in Texas and the other is a junior at Metro State College of Denver. My husband works in the SAS communications office editing Parent Talk. He is also an editor for a company in the US. We are thrilled to be living and working in China.
We will have an SAS Open House on September 25th and I will look forward to meeting you all then. This will be a time when I can give you in-depth information about your child’s education and daily routine. Please know that your child’s success is my first priority and to achieve this goal, I look forward to working with you as partners in that success.
Later, I will be sending home a more in-depth schedule, but for now I thought I would at least include the days your child will have PE so that they can be sure to have tennis shoes with them. PE will be Wednesday and Friday. Because of the way our scheduling is done for the year, this may not stay the same, but I will keep you informed of the changes. Also, I will be sending home some “homework” which involves getting some information from you, i.e. email address, phone, etc. I will be sending home a parent letter to you every other week, but if you need any information or have any questions, please feel free to email me any time.
Our lunch this year is at 12:15, so I think it will be very important for your child to bring a healthy snack. All supplies are provided by the school for classroom usage. So that students may complete their homework successfully, I encourage you to set up a special “Work Area” in your home that is quiet and supplied with basic school tools. Our regular routine with be for your child to have homework every night except Friday. I will talk more about this later.
So off we go. My motto is “Something Good is Going to Happen Today” and I will encourage your children to always believe this.

Kind regards

Mrs Merrill

jeanine.merrill@saschina.org