Sharing Artifacts and Subject Area Updates

Last week, the students each brought in an artifact from home for the class to study like historians. They made observations and asked "I wonder..." questions about each artifact. Each student got to answer the I wonder questions and share a bit of information.

A quick update on what we are working on in each subject area...

Social Studies- We are studying Wisconsin's glacial land formations and learning where we live in comparison to the rest of the world through maps.

Math- The final test for chapter one will be this Friday. The test will include adding and subtracting into the hundred thousands place, checking subtraction with addition, estimating, rounding, comparing, and solving multi-step word problems.

Reading- We are studying literacy elements and working on independent reading stamina.

Writing- The children are learning to develop a character's internal and external traits, as well as their struggles and motivations. They will learn to build realistic fiction stories off of these characters and plot arcs.

Many websites that we use at school can also be accessed from home. Children can continue to practice reading non-fiction text at their own level through newsela.com. They can also work on the adaptive math website frontrowed.com.

Save Fred!

We have been doing some team building activities during the first couple of weeks to get to know each other. One of the activities that the students participated in was called "Save Fred". The challenge was to save "Fred" (a gummy worm), whose ship (a cup) had capsized. They needed to get Fred into his life preserver (a gummy life saver), which was trapped under the boat. The catch was that students were not allowed to let Fred touch the water and they were not allowed to use their hands!

Welcome to 4th Grade!

Hello!

I am sorry I wasn't able to make it to the parent information night. I hope that all of you had a great evening. We are off to an AWESOME start to the school year! Here is some general information that I would normally go through on information night.

Schedule 

The daily schedule was sent home in the 4th-grade pamphlet last week. My class has Art and P.E. this trimester, Music and P.E. next trimester, and Tech. Ed. and P.E. third trimester.

Just for your information, Ms. Timmerman is the P.E. teacher. Ms. Malcolm is the Art teacher. Ms. Donaldson teaches music and Mr. Savagian teaches tech ed. Feel free to reach out to them at any time!

We fill out assignment notebooks together as a class at the end of the day. Students also have their snacks at the end of the day due to lunch being at 11:05.

Expectations

I like to focus on kindness, empathy, and teamwork in my classroom. I expect that students are safe and treat peers and adults with respect. I expect that all students try their best and keep a growth mindset. We set up our classroom rules together during the first week of school.

    1. Raise our hands
    2. Be respectful
    3. Be responsible
    4. Be a good listener
    5. Be safe

Management

I use classdojo.com in the classroom. Each student has an icon that is projected onto the Active Board throughout the day. Students can earn points for being kind, helping others, working hard, being responsible, and etc. There is an option to lose points as well, but I only use that for missing homework. The student/s with the top score on Friday will get to choose a reward from a list of many.

Homework

There will be math homework most nights. This year, I am only expecting the students to complete the homework side at home. They will complete the remembering side as a warm up during math class. We correct the remembering side together so that students can see where they are making mistakes.

Beginning next week, there will be a Daily Geography packet that will be homework each week. The students get the packet on Monday, and it is due on Friday.

Students are expected to read at least 20 minutes per night in the first trimester, 25 minutes per night in the second trimester, and 30 minutes per night in the third trimester.

There will be other miscellaneous homework assignments throughout the year as well.

Students who do not turn their homework in will lose a point from Class Dojo. If the missing assignment is not turned in by Friday, the student will need to stay in during the Friday bonus recess to complete the missing work.

Technology

I am excited to announce that we will be getting brand new Chromebooks to use in our classroom this week! The students will use these for different activities in all subject areas. We will also be using Google Classroom and Google Docs once everything is set up.

Have a great evening!