Hello Everyone,
Thank you so much for a wonderful Student-Led Conference last week. I really enjoyed seeing all of you, and I need to reiterate that great students come from parents who care as much as all of you do. Thank you! One of the things that I noticed most is that some parents and their students could use a refresher on homework requirements. We often have Lexia time in class, because of my commitment to Administration that each student in my class would fulfill 4o mins. per week. Even if we have time in class with Lexia or Spelling City, students are still required to do 20 minutes of language arts homework at home. For each student that will be unique. If one child needs work on spelling, another will benefit from personal reading time. The same goes for ALEKS and Reflex. Both are very important, and even if we happen to have some time on either during our math block, I still want students to complete 15 mins./day at home. Thank you! In addition, each Monday the week's spelling will come home. The spelling words are also available on Spelling City for printing. I would encourage you to take a look at all of the features that Spelling City has to offer. One of the best tools, in my opinion, is the ability for each student to take a practice spelling and vocabulary test on Wednesday or Thursday. This test will be graded immediately and will show you what words need to be practiced. I'd love to see those spelling test scores improve for each student. Next week will be a good one. We are practicing multiplication and division in math, and in language arts, we will be focusing on story structure, author's purpose and drawing conclusions from context clues. The students will be finding a geocache in science, and we'll be having our first GAP art project this Wednesday. Thanks for reading all the way to the end. That was a lot of information. Have a great week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
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Hello Flyer Parents! This will be a 4 day week with Friday off and this Tuesday school uniform picture day. We will also be meeting this Wed. and Thurs. for Student-Led Conferences, so it'll be very full! I'm really looking forward to seeing you. I can't believe that we are already mid-term. Please let me know if you have been unable to schedule yourselves on our conference sign-up sheet. Click here if you'd like to take care of it. Our ch. 2 math test is tomorrow and we will be studying about prefixes and suffixes, as well as the cause-and-effect literary device for this week's reading selection. We will be doing a spelling and vocab test despite the short week, so please remind your student to work hard. :) If you'd like specifics about spelling lists and other info, please check out this week on the 4th grade's year-long-plan. Remember to check aspire for any missing homework ahead of conferences. I have a healthy pile of no-name work, as well, so if something's missing it could be there. Have a wonderful week, and I'll see you soon!
Hello! If you haven't responded to the google form field trip permission slip that I sent on Friday, you may click here . I must receive a form from each of you, or your student will not be able to attend. This is one of my favorite field trips of the year. When I taught English in Japan when I was younger, people would often ask me about the GSL, and I knew so little about it, I was embarrassed. We have some fun activities planned including instruction about Saltair, Oolitic Sand experiments, Brine Shrimp exploration, and some Salinity projects. All of the chaperone positions have been filled for those able to ride the bus with us, but parents can also come if they drive themselves. Just let me know. This week we'll be reading an expository text about Yosemite National Park. We'll be doing a Nearpod VR exploration tomorrow, so it may be something to ask your student about. Click here for more details about what we'll be learning this week. Last week, our Room Moms, Trina Peterson, Amy Dansie, and Jenessa Chaffin sent home a letter detailing the years' parties and other information. If you didn't receive the letter, you may click here to download. Lastly, school picture forms will be coming home tomorrow for picture day on 9/25. I want to tell you all how happy I am with this year's class. They are a cohesive group who care about our class mission statement and doing well in their studies. Thank you all for raising great kids who are becoming responsible leaders! Have a great week.
Hello Flyer Parents! This week is Leadership Week, and the entire school will be covered in kindness! This is fantastic ELA tradition that makes our school great. We want to ensure that each student here at our school feels loved and accepted, and we want it to be more than just a good idea! Our class, (with the help of Mrs. Dansie) will be decorating a door and hallway in the Jr. High, and Mrs. James' class from the Jr. High will be decorating for us. All week, we will be sharing messages and doing activities that foster the awareness that we can all be a leader and we can all be a friend to someone in need. The next item is so important, that I'm going to write it in red.
As a 4th grade team, we would like to make a few tweaks to the math and language arts homework. As you know I have asked for 20 mins./day for language arts and 15 mins./day for math. The time requirement will stay the same. However, the math grade for homework will now be based upon the completion of 10 topics per week in ALEKS (1 point per topic). This grade will be given weekly, from Friday to Saturday. I run a report each Saturday evening and will record the grades then. We will be doing Reflex for approximately 10 mins./day in class, but students may play it as much as they desire after school. It will only help them learn math facts, which will greatly improve their ability to do math. Now, for language arts. When the 4th grade decided to adopt Lexia, we agreed to use the program with fidelity. That means that, without fail, each student should be doing at least 40 minutes on Lexia each week. The data shows that Lexia will exponentially improve reading comprehension and test scores. As such, I will be grading students' language arts homework based on their completion of 40 minutes on Lexia. I will be giving 12 points total per week, 3 points for each 10 minutes. This shouldn't be difficult since we use the program in class. It's just up to each student to make sure that they have fulfilled their Lexia minutes in order to receive full points. Students should also be playing spelling and vocab. games each night on Spelling City, as well as doing the personal reading required to bring them up to 20 mins./day for the language arts homework requirement. I hope that's clear. Any questions, please let me know. That's all for this week. Thanks for reading through to the end. Have a great week! Welcome back to school! I hope you all had an excellent long weekend. Although this week will be shortened, it will not be short on learning. Please click on this link to see specifically what we'll be up to. On Wednesday, I will be assigning the first book report of the year for Term 1. All information can be found with that link. The 4th grade team would like to level the students in 4 different math classes according to the beginning-of-year benchmark test data, as well as the ch. 1 test data. We feel like this will provide the differentiated and targeted learning that ELA is known for, and will provide the opportunity for each student to learn as effectively as possible. I'm excited about this, and we'll begin at the end of this week or beginning of next, depending on when we have access to benchmark data. I'm really looking forward to next week since it's Leadership Week. Your students will have the opportunity to spread kindness as we decorate a hall in the Jr. High (and a class from the Jr. High will decorate our hall!). We will be learning about proactivity vs. reactivity and our circle of influence, among many other things. As always, if there are any comments or questions, feel free to email or Dojo me.
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