September 25

Book Reports

Yesterday in class we began talking about the Quarterly Book Report project. The kids all seem very eager to begin, which is great! I will be sending home a copy of the assignment sheet & rubric today, and you can always find an extra copy under the “Projects” link on the right hand side of this page.

I noticed many of you snapping photos of the picture I showed on Curriculum Night displaying the former student projects to show various ways projects could be presented. I wanted to post that here as well so that you may have a hopefully clearer image, and without myself standing in the way 🙂

I’m excited to see what they come up with this quarter!

September 24

Typical Reading Homework

With the exception of nightly math homework, most of the work that comes home this year will be work that we begin in class and whatever is unfinished is assigned to be completed at home for the next day. Reading homework, like Wordly Wise, follows this routine. We have begun our first official novel, Love That Dog, and accordingly our first week of typical reading homework. On Monday, the class was assigned a section of the novel to read and a corresponding response assignment. For this book, the assignment is a packet of comprehension and analysis questions. All students had class time on both Monday and Tuesday to work on this reading and packet assignment. Whatever your 4th grader has not yet finished will be coming home tonight and is due tomorrow. For some, the work is already complete, while others will be coming home with most of the questions needing to be answered. Whichever the case, it is a great opportunity to discuss work ethic with your child. Did you do your best work? Did you use your time wisely?

Most novels we read will follow the same assignment structure, so it is a great time to set expectations and goals!

September 20

Friday Folders

The first Friday Folders are coming home tonight. Please remember to review the work inside and the cover sheet with your 4th grader before signing and returning the folder to school on Monday. Items in the right hand pocket should be emptied and left at home, while the 1-2 items your child has selected and put in the left hand pocket (labeled with an *Important* note sticker) should be reviewed but placed back in the folder to be returned on Monday.

Any work with a “Redo” opportunity, can be completed at home and returned to class for half points back.

As mentioned at curriculum night, some work is also graded on a “plus, check, minus” basis. These items will be recorded as out of 5 or 10 points with corresponding percentages as follows:

+ 100%

√++ 95%

√+ 90%

√/√+ 85%

√ 80%

√/√- 75%

√- 70%

-/√- 65%

√ 60%

September 18

Curriculum Night

Looking forward to seeing many of you tonight at Curriculum Night. The evening will start at 6:30 pm in the auditorium with a presentation from administration. You will afterwards be dismissed upstairs to our classroom, Room 208.

If you are not able to attend, I will send home materials and have information available on the website.

September 16

*Real* Homework

Today your 4th grader is bringing home a planner full of more typical assignments. In addition to the nightly math homework, we begun our Wordly Wise vocabulary lessons. Each Monday, the kids begin working on exercises A-D in class and whatever they have left becomes homework due on Wednesday. Your child is also bringing home a poem focused on similes to finish writing. We are working though a mini-writing-unit on poetry that will supplement our first novel, Love That Dog.

September 11

Scholastic Orders

If you ever wish to place Scholastic Book orders for your 4th grader please feel free to do so! I will not be passing out paper orders, but the website will always be available. Please visit the website below. Click the “Get Started” button under “Parents” and enter our class code “NCHMF”. I will place orders the last Monday of each month. Please let me know of your order is time sensitive and I will be happy to get it shipped earlier!

https://clubs.scholastic.com/home

 

September 10

First Night of Homework

We’ve been working hard this week in Room 208 beginning many of our normal subject areas and routines. Your 4th grader will be bringing home their first piece of official homework tonight, math homework 1.1. You will notice the homework is very brief. This will generally be the case. I have hand selected problems from either the workbook, or an enrichment worksheet depending upon each lesson. Math homework will always be due the following day during which time I will check for completeness, and the class will go over the answers together. At this time students are responsible for correcting their work and asking any questions that will help them understand problems they may have missed. The class then will complete a “Quick Check” shorter than the homework but containing problems that are very similar. These “Quick Check”s are collected and graded as math assignments.

We will have our first Financial Literacy class tomorrow with Ms. Weindruch. If you have not yet returned the purple media consent form sent home specifically for Climb to Safety, please make sure this comes back to school tomorrow.

Keep sending in pictures for the library! Feel free to send physical photos or email me your files and I’ll be happy to print them.

September 3

First Day!

We finished a whirlwind first day of 4th grade! Thank you all for your support and participation in making it a success. Your children are coming home with many papers from the office and some information from myself, including a copy of their PALMS/BLAZE schedule. This will tell you what specials classes they have on which days. You can always check the Bell School calendar to see what day (B, L, A, Z, E) it is. If you have not done so already, please be sure to fill out the Student Information Survey asap. (link on previous post)

Dismissal is always my biggest worry during the first week, and it went off without a hitch! If your child normally rides a bus home but will not be on any particular day, please remember to send a “Bus Note” indicating as such.

Looking forward to day 2!