Here are some key pieces of information you should know:

• Book orders are due this coming Monday.  You can order online, or by sending in a check.  To order online, go to the special Scholastic website and enter our class code: GZD87
• Our classroom’s temperature has a tendency to shift to extremes.  In the afternoon, it can get a bit chilly, and during the winter, the heat can make the room quite warm.  Please plan accordingly and consider sending your child into school with a sweater or indoor jacket that he or she can keep in his or her locker.
• We have our first Spirit day this Friday!  Kids are encouraged to wear silly footwear for our Town Meeting at 2:30!  Remember, we will have an outdoor recess, so if your son or daughter needs to bring a spare pair of shoes for outside, he or she will have a chance to change.

Smile for the camera!  School picture day will be next Wednesday, October 7th. I haven’t heard anything about order forms, but when I get them, you’ll get them!

I found the photo on the right when I searched on Google Images for “old camera.”  Is it bad that I also stumbled upon a photo of my digital camera under the same search for OLD cameras?

• LAST call for any summer reading logs!  I’d love to see 100% participation!  Remember, all it takes is one book to be a participant, and the list can be written on any paper, not just the official log form.
• Students MUST bring in their summer memory item tomorrow (Friday).  We need them for a project that we are beginning tomorrow (Friday).
• Students are asked to bring in magazines or clippings for a personal reflection project next week.  (See flier.)
• Students have been assigned to bring in one (or more) non-perishable item for a class math activity.  The food will be donated to Gifts of Love (which is in dire need of non-perishable items as well as fresh vegetables).
• Parents, please complete and return the Parents as Partners information sheet about your son or daughter, even if you completed one for me last year.
• Parents, please return your child’s early dismissal plan to me, along with the blue emergency medical card.
• If your child walks or bikes home SOMETIMES, please be sure to send in a note on the days that he or she is doing so.  (This is in addition to the school-required release form.)  If he or she is a daily walker or biker, or if he or she follows a weekly schedule (that doesn’t change from week-to-week) for walking or biking, there is no need to send in a daily note.
• I have updated the “Policies” page on this website (see the link on the left sidebar).

I’m sure I’m forgetting something.  I’ll post a follow-up message if there is more!  Otherwise, have a great holiday weekend!

Mr. Moss with Suzy Kline, author of the Horrible Harry book series and the Herbie Jones series.

Hello! Welcome to the online home of PGS Room 209. During the school year, I will update this web site regularly with information about activities happening in Room 209, bulletins and news items, current events related to what we’re studying in social studies, online assignments, and much more.

This will be my sixth year teaching at Pine Grove School. I graduated from the University of Rhode Island summa cum laude in 2004 and have a degree in Elementary Education and Psychology. While at URI, I taught grades 3, 4, and 5. I have also taught kindergarten, first, and second grade summer school, and I have interned with an elementary school principal in East Hartford. I have a background in experimental research in the field of social psychology, so you’ll probably see my interest in research and statistics come through this year during math lessons!  I’m currently finishing classes for my Masters Degree in Educational Technology at Central Connecticut State University‘s Center for Innovation in Teaching and Technology.  I’ll be done in the spring (hopefully!) and am developing two programs for my final projects.  One is a program that’s designed to teach different strategies to help kids perform well on the Connecticut Mastery Tests, and the other is an interactive storybook that will help kids learn how to create short answer responses (SAR) to open-ended reading comprehension questions.  The Room 209 fourth graders will get to try out both programs this year.

In my spare time, I like to travel to Rhode Island, Boston, or New York City.  I also enjoy making movies on my Mac, working on home improvement projects (which took up most of my time this summer), or just relaxing by cooking, listening to old time radio shows from the 1940s and 50s, reading comic books, or watching the news. I collect old reel to-reel tapes of music, antique or unusual telephones, and all things related to Star Trek.  My wife and I have a wonderful dog named Rimley.  Rimley is about two-and-a-half years old, and he is a cockapoo (cocker spaniel and poodle mix).  I’m sure you’ll hear all about him during the year!  I enjoy tinkering with my computer and coming up with interesting ways in which I can use technology in the classroom. (You can definitely expect to use computers a lot in Room 209! I am the school’s lead technology teacher, and I enjoy using computers, our class’ SMART Board, and other technologies while teaching.) Of course, I also love watching my favorite sports team, the Boston Red Sox! (Don’t worry Yankees fans, I promise not to be mean!)

This summer has been an usually busy one.  Besides spending time moving classrooms and learning all about the great things that we’re going to do in fourth grade, I also spent a lot of time on projects around the house.  My wife and I have a baby due in December, so we’re having a lot of fun getting ready for him/her.  (We aren’t finding out whether it’s a boy or a girl; we want to be surprised!)  I also spent a lot of the summer working on our new class website, which you’re looking at right now.  Look at one of the following posts for information about why I made a new website and what some of the new features are.

It’s going to be a great year in fourth grade.  There are so many new things to learn, and there are some really interesting activities coming up!  I can’t wait for the new year to begin!

For more information about our class, click “Read the rest of the entry”.

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