Week of October 30th

Thank you to all of you who came to conferences either in person, by phone, or email! I really enjoy being able to touch base with each of you. This class is full of truly great students and I love getting to share that with parents!

Pajama Day:

We will be having a school-wide pajama day on Wednesday, November 1st! This is to encourage attendance this week since it's the last big push that drives a lot of our funding. :) Please make sure your student is in school unless they are truly sick. 

ELA:

This week will be a typical week in ELA. We will have our normal quizzes on Thursday as well. Please help your student count up their total minutes read this month so that they can turn in their October Reading Calendar on Wednesday. 

Math:

We are taking our Topic 3&4 test today. Students will have the opportunity to make corrections tomorrow. Their homework for today and tomorrow should be working on any skills from Topic 3 or 4 that they haven't mastered yet. We will begin Topic 5 on Wednesday and this will be on division.

I am working on making a video for parents that explains the math strategies we are using and why we use them. I am hoping to have that up by the end of this week.

Book Celebration Party:

Our book party is tomorrow from 1:30-2:30. There are still items that need to be signed up for. If you haven't had a chance, please click HERE to see the sign-up sheet and sign up to send something in if you can. 

Students are invited to dress up tomorrow as long as it is a character from the book Alice in Wonderland. These do not have to be fancy costumes, have fun finding things that you already have around the house to make it work! Costumes should be dress code appropriate and no weapons. 

VCS Food Drive:

We are doing our annual food drive to help out Vision families during the holiday season! This will be going November 6-9 and the winning classes will get a juice and popcorn party!

VCS Holiday Bazaar

Each year our school puts on a Holiday Bazaar with booths from people in the community as well as teachers and students from our school! Please check out the flyer below for more information. 

Week of October 23rd

I hope you all had a lovely Fall Break! I spent most of it getting caught up at home after all of the crazy sickness and emergency surgery stuff that had been going on in the weeks leading up to it. Fingers crossed we are on track for some smoother waters. Thank you for your patience with me as I know I didn't respond to emails as quickly as I usually do. My youngest son had to have an appendectomy and it really rocked the boat a bit. It's like I told my class, I wish I could schedule these things instead of having them sprung on me! :)

ELA:

This week will be a normal week for ELA. We will continue working on our novel study as well as really working hard on some grammar rules in our Interactive Reading Journal. I am really proud of the progress my students have made so far!

This Thursday will be normal for quizzes and spelling tests. October Reading Calendars will be due next Wednesday, November 1st. Those can be turned in on the calendar or through an email from the parents letting me know how many minutes your student read in the month of October.

Math:

This week in math we will be finishing up our work on multiplication. Thursday we will spend time reviewing all of the concepts we have learned to be ready for our Topic 3&4 test that will be on Monday. Our next topic will begin working on division. Students will really struggle with this topic if they don't have a pretty firm grasp of their multiplication facts.

Parent/Teacher Conferences:

We will be doing conferences this Thursday from 3:30-7:00 (drop-in) and Friday from 8:00-12:00 (scheduled). I sent out invites to you through email for either one of those options depending on your student's progress. If you would like to schedule a time on Friday, but did not get that invite, please let me know! The drop-in time on Thursday will be student-led conferences and I will be here to help and answer any questions or concerns you may have. If you are coming on Friday, I am fine with you bringing your student with you to that as well. I really like to encourage students to start being a part of the team when it comes to learning at this age!

 Book Celebration Party:

Next Tuesday the 31st we will be having our Book Celebration party from 1:30-2:30! Students are invited to dress up as long as it is a character from our book Alice in Wonderland. Mrs. Blanchard and Mrs. DeForest have been working hard to plan our party and have put together a SignUp Genius for parents to sign up to help as well as send in supplies for the party. Please click HERE to sign up to help. I really appreciate all of the help with party planning!!

Week of October 9th

 Welcome to the 1st week of the 2nd Quarter! I feel like this year is flying by already. I am really starting to see some amazing growth in my students and I am excited about where we are headed! 

ELA:

This week in ELA we are going to be adding to our ReadWorks activities. We will continue doing the Article a Day each day, but we are going to be adding a non-fiction article on Mondays that has a vocabulary activity along with 5 multiple-choice comprehension questions. This really narrows in on those comprehension skills that students sometimes struggle with. After this quarter we will begin adding in short answer responses and then eventually paired texts.

This week we have our normal quizzes on Thursday. 

Math:

Last week we finished up with Topic 3 and are beginning Topic 4 this week. Topic 4 is a continuation of the skills we started in Topic 3. Instead of multiplying a 1-digit factor by a multi-digit factor, we will be multiplying 2 multi-digit factors. We will test all of those multiplication skills at the end of Topic 4. Please continue practicing multiplication facts with your student at home. I already have students who have passed their multiplication facts through 10s and have moved on to division! This is so exciting!

We will have all of our normal quizzes this week as well. 

Parent/Teacher Conferences:

For 4th-grade conferences, I will email you to schedule a time to meet on Friday the 27th from 8:00-12:00 if I have specific concerns I would like to address with you about your student. I will send out a different email inviting you to a drop-in time for you to bring your student in for a student-led conference on Thursday the 26th from 3:30-7:00. If you get the email for the drop-in student-led conference but you would prefer to schedule a time on Friday, please let me know and I will get you scheduled during that time if I have any available. Those emails will be going out this week.

Fall Break Extra Credit Opportunity:

Next week is Fall Break! I am offering extra credit for both ELA and math. Students can earn up to 10 points of extra credit in both subjects by working on assigned skills in those subjects on IXL. They will get 1 point per 10 minutes of work. This means there is no homework grade for math during Fall Break as those minutes completed will count towards extra credit.

**Please Note: If your student is not with me during one of those subjects, they will work on Recommended Skills on IXL for those subjects rather than the assigned skills. 

October Book Celebration:

4th Grade at Vision Charter School will be reading Alice in Wonderland for our classic book this month. We will have our book celebration party on Tuesday, October 31st from 1:30-2:30. Students are invited to dress up like a character from the book if they would like to on that day. Please don't feel like you need to go out and buy anything for this costume, let your student be creative and come up with their costume from things you already have at home!

Wahooz Fit for Fun:

I sent home a page last week for the Wahooz Fit for Fun program. If that page did not make it home or it got lost, you can click HERE to print a new one. These are due back to the school by Thursday, November 30th. 

Week of October 1st

 I am sorry that I did not post last week. I ended up being home sick all week. I am so thankful to be back this week! I missed my students so much!

End of Quarter 1:

This is the last week of the 1st quarter. That means that any missing assignments can be turned in until 3:15 this Thursday the 5th. After that, they cannot be turned in and will be part of the grade for this quarter. Grades for quarters 1 and 2 are averaged for the semester grade. 

ELA:

This week in ELA we will continue reading Because of Winn-Dixie. We did take our first comprehension test over chapters 1-5 today, but that will not go in the grade book until next week to allow for retakes if they are needed. There will NOT be a Morning Warm Up quiz or spelling test this week since it is the last week of the quarter. Students did take a pretest last week on List G and they will take that final test on October 12th (next week). 

Septemeber Reading Calendars were due today. If your student did not get theirs turned in, please help them fill it out tonight to get it turned in tomorrow. 

Math:

This week in math we will continue working on multiplication. We will also begin Topic 4 this week. I don't give a test on Topic 3 because we are continuing our work with multiplication in Topic 4, so they will take a test at the end of that topic. There will NOT be a Math 4 Today quiz this week because of the end of the quarter.

I talked to my students about math homework on IXL this week. I am going to start requiring them to work on the assigned math skills that correspond to the lesson we did in class that day. I will not count the time spent on other skills unless they have gotten an 80 Smart Score on the assigned skills and need more time. We talked about this in class so they are aware of it as well. The only exception to this is if your student doesn't stay with me for math, then they do the Recommended Skills for their total 80 minutes. 

Picture Retakes:

Picture retakes are this Thursday the 5th. If your student wasn't here or would like to retake their pictures, please plan for that day. If you purchased pictures and want your student to retake them, please send your student's picture packet back with them that day. 

October Book Celebration:

Here at Vision Charter we do a book celebration the month of October. We will be reading a book together here at school and then they are invited to dress up like a character from that book on Tuesday the 31st for our Book Celebration Party. In 4th-Grade we read Alice in Wonderland. We will also watch this performed as a ballet and may get to watch the movie as well.

Parent Volunteers:

I apologize for not getting the volunteer schedule out this week. I did not plan on being sick last week and it has set me back a little in my planning. If you have not emailed me about wanting to volunteer in the classroom weekly or bi-weekly or helping with class parties, please do that this week so I can get that set up. :)