Tok School's Fantastic 4th Graders

Weekly Greetings! I am pleased to say that all the district and state testing is completed for the year! Now, we can get back to a more normal routine for the remainder of the school year. Despite a four-day week, with two mornings committed to the PEAKS testing, the class was still able to experience some enriching activities last week. Starting with Tuesday afternoon, it was our monthly art activity with Ms. Shauna Lee. The students were able to begin a wind chime clay project. It was a great way to relax after our first morning of testing. The afternoon after our second day of testing, the students made a traditional Athabascan choker in our Alaska Studies class thanks to Helena Nelson. Some of the students wore their choker daily the rest of the week. Helena even pointed me to a youtube video of a Tannacross elder, Kenny Thomas, sharing a traditional story of how the Loon got its choker from a blind man. He went back and forth using his tradi...

 Weekly Greetings! This week will be starting off with parent meetings, and when the students return on Tuesday they will have another morning of PEAKS testing. Wednesday will be the same, so not only is our week short but it also leaves limited morning time for our regular reading routine. For that reason, I will not be sending home spelling words with homework this week. The PEAKS tests will be long, and take a lot of the student's concentration to complete. So, please remember that your child will need to be well rested and on time those two days. In the afternoon on Tuesday, the class will have there monthly art time with Ms. Shauna Lee, and on Thursday afternoon they will attend a special US Forestry presentation. Every Thursday, the class is signed up to use the STEAM room and they are looking forward to that time. They had a great time last week exploring cubelets with sensors, and creating structures with legos.   Later on Thursday, there was a bas...

Weekly Greetings, I want to start by thanking everyone that contributed and helped at the bake sale fundraiser on Saturday. We made exactly $500! That is twice the amount I thought we would make, and it is just enough to do the day trip to Fort Greely for swimming on May 10. Many people just gave us donations while we were selling goodies, and I am so thankful to live in such a generous community. There are two important things I need to cover before recapping some activities from last week. First, the fourth grade will be doing PEAKS testing for Science this Tuesday starting at 9:00am. Please  have your child at school on time and well rested. The following week they will have Language and Math on Tuesday and Wednesday starting at the same time each day. Also next Monday, May 9, there will not be any school, as we will be having Parent/Teacher Conferences. Please find the attached note with your assigned time that will be with your child's homework this Monday. Let me know i...