A HUGE Thank You!!

Dear Families,

Your support of your children's reading is AMAZING!! Research shows that children who are able to select their own books at their good fit reading levels enjoy reading more and become better readers. You purchased so many books through our monthly book orders that I was able to select 43 new books for our classroom library!!! I also earned coupons to order 6 free books with our next order!

There will not be a book order in October because the students will be able to purchase books at the Scholastic Book Fair during their library class on October 12. You can also come and visit the Book Fair on Tuesday, October 4 and Tuesday, October 11 from 6:30 - 8:30. I will try to be at the book fair both evenings to help you find good fit books for the kids.

Once again, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate how you are supporting your children's reading. I am looking forward to hearing about their new books and sharing all of the new additions to our classroom library when the order arrives.

Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. Bair

Our School Tour - By Group 4

We're team 4 the members are :Jordan,Alyssa,Brennen,Kody. Why don't you take a look at our photo's from Bear Creek? We thought that these would show you that Bear Creek is an interesting school. We hope you like our photos.

We hope you liked our tour!

Our School Tour by 2

Hello we are Alyssa Lexi Josh Seth Sarena and we want to welcome you to Bear Creek.Also these are some of the inportant pictures of Bear Creek.So we hope you enjoy the pictures.These are the most awesomest parts about Bear Creek.We hope you like Bear Creek.

feel free to write comments hope you like the pictures.thanks!

Our School Tour by Group 5

HI we are owen alexis Kristen Brianna this is what we did on our school world tour!!!! We took pictures of the gym the IMC and some other class rooms. Brianna's favorite pic is the IMC. Kristen's favorite picture is of the gym. Owen's favorite picture is of the brain in the Health room. Alexis's favorite picture is also the IMC!!!

I hope you liked our school world tour!!!!!
Typed by Kristen with help by Brianna!! The people that thought of the writing are Owen and Alexis!!!

Our School Tour by Group 3

Our names are Erin, Elise, Josh M, and Josh N. We are posting these pictures because we want you to see what our school looks like. We took a picture of a big 4 because we are in forth grade.We took pictures of our whole school.We hope you enjoy them.By the way this school was built last year.So we are the first kids in the school.Thanks for looking at the pictures.Hope you enjoy them.
Thanks again!

Our School Tour by Group 1

This is group 1. Here are the students in group 1 Aalijah, Elijah, Gabriella, Mason and Matthew. here are some important pictures of Bear Creek School because they show what Bear Creek's all about. Look below and see the pictures.

what is your favorite photo? Ask us any questions about Bear Creek.

Google Earth

Today some of our students started using Google Earth to become more familiar with the continents, oceans, latitude and longitude. This is an amazing tool to find places on Earth and learn more about them using pictures that people have added.

The best part about Google Earth is that it is FREE and can be downloaded for any laptop or desktop. There are also Google Earth apps for iPods and iPads. If you would like to give Google Earth a try you can visit the Google Earth website and download the application.

Once it's installed you can find any location by typing the address or name of that spot into the "fly to" box (see image) and clicking the magnifying glass next to the box.

Once Google Earth gets you to the location, you can zoom in or zoom out, you can see photos uploaded by people and you can also view the specific GPS location of that spot at the bottom of the page.

We hope that you'll give Google Earth a try at home! :)

4th Grade Parent Night Postponed

Due to the situation today at Bear Creek, Parent Night for 4th grade parents has been postponed until next Monday, October 3. The times will remain the same: the school wide presentation will be held from 6:45 - 7:15 in the school cafeteria and will cover important information about the school and PTO and our PTO fundraiser. Our classroom presentation will begin in the cafeteria immediately following the conclusion of the school wide presentation. After an overview of the 4th grade curriculum you'll have chance to visit the classrooms and meet with your child's teachers. We hope that you'll be able to join us.

One additional note for tomorrow: we will follow a Day 2 schedule.

Reminders for Monday

As you're looking ahead to next week, I just wanted to remind everybody that Monday evening, September 26, from 6:45 - 8:00 is 4th Grade Parent Night at Bear Creek. I hope that everybody will be able to come, meet us, and learn more about what your child is doing here at school each day.

Please also help your child remember that Monday is Day 1, and they will need to wear their sneakers for Phys Ed.

Have a great weekend!

Blogging and Commenting

The last two days we have talked a great deal about how to write blog posts and comments so that we can make connections with new friends in other schools.

Yesterday our class learned that blog posts:
1. Should not contain personal information
2. Should have good details so people understand what we're saying
3. Should show our best spelling, grammar and formal English (not chat / text writing)

It will take us some time to get up to speed, but you can already see how our posts are starting to change by clicking these links:

The Bair's Den AM Class
The Bair's Den PM Class

Today we learned the 3Cs of Writing Comments:
1. Should compliment and be positive - we tell others what they are doing well or what we like
2. Should clarify - we ask questions to learn more about the post or the blogger
3. Should connect - we share how we have something in common with the blogger

By following these 3Cs we'll be able to develop virtual friendships all over the world, and we can also start building a foundation of good digital citizenship that will follow us as we go through schooling and our adult lives.

We would love to have you comment on our posts so we can make more connections with you!

Developing Our Classroom Climate

This week we have been working very hard to make sure that each child in The Bair's Den is doing their job so our classroom is a place where everybody can learn. So far we have learned about three different Daily 5 activities and what each one looks like. It's very important for the students to be able to work independently on these activities so that the adults in the room can work with small groups and individual students to develop their reading and writing skills.

Here are the guidelines that we have learned so far and practiced to do these three activities:

You'll notice that none of the three require any special materials so you and your child could easily do them at home. Have your child explain each one and show you how they are done! This extra practice will ensure that everybody in our room is working appropriately so all children have the same opportunity to receive individual or small group attention from the adults.

There's More to Life than Tests

A lot of the focus at schools often ends up being about taking "The Test", but we all know that there is more to life than taking tests. As adults we use the skills we started learning in elementary schools to complete tasks every single day.

To remind the Bair's Den that we're learning these skills for something other that taking tests, we spent some time on Thursday talking about the places where adults and kids use our five main subjects in their every day lives. Here are the combined lists that the two classes developed:

We're going to make these lists into posters and hang them in our rooms to remind us that we're learning skills for more than just taking tests; we're learning skills that we need to do things every day in our real lives.

What else would YOU add to our lists?