Week of November 27th

 Welcome back from Thanksgiving Break! I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and loved ones. We spent some time this morning talking about our breaks and what went well and what didn't go so well. I really missed my students and was excited to get back to school today!

ELA:

This week will be a typical week in ELA. We have all of our normal quizzes and activities. We are going to be really working hard on the first type of essay that we learn to write in 4th-grade, the informative or explanatory essay. We will hopefully have our rough draft done by the end of the week. :)

November Reading Calendars are due next Monday, December 4th. If your student has misplaced theirs it's no biggie! Just write it on another piece of paper or shoot me an email letting me know the total number of minutes your student read for the month. 

Starting next week we are going to be learning about how different countries around the world celebrate the holidays! I always enjoy this unit with my students. This year our Christmas Party will be trying out traditional foods from those countries so be on the lookout for that signup. :)

Math:

This week in math we are picking up where we left off with long division and moving on to 3-digit dividends. Keep practicing multiplication facts at home with your student, they really do need those!

Math homework this week will be on the assigned skills from Topic 5 and some other assigned skills that your student can locate in just the 4th-grade math section rather than the skill plans. 

Cold Weather Clothing:

As the weather is getting colder, please make sure your student is dressed for the weather. Coats, hats, and gloves are needed. Students go outside every day unless it is below 19*. I feel strongly that students need recess and that time outside so I try really hard not to keep them in during their recess. If your student needs a coat, hat, or gloves please let me know and I will make sure they have what they need! I know things can be tight this time of year, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me to get your student what they need! If I notice a student repeatedly coming to school without warm clothing, I will often send things home with them. Please know that this is not meant to be an insult to you, I just want to help out where I can. :)

Enrichment Clubs:

Just a reminder that every Monday from now until Christmas Break we will have Enrichment Clubs from 1:00-1:50. Students who have chronic missing assignments who aren't making every effort to get those assignments turned in, will have to miss out and spend that time working on missing work. 

Week of November 13th

 Welcome back to the last week before Thanksgiving Break! I can't believe how quickly this year is flying by!

ELA:

This week in ELA it will be a very typical week. We have our Morning Warm-Up Quiz and Spelling Test on List K this Thursday. We are also beginning our work on informative writing. 

Math:

This week in math we will continue working on long division. This is tricky and is even trickier if your student does not know their multiplication facts. We will have a Math 4 Today Quiz this Thursday.

The quiz we took last week stumped most of my students and they did not do well on it. We took time today to go over it in class and if students showed all of their work to correct their mistakes, they could raise their grade to 70%. If they were missing parts, it would have kept them from raising their grade to a passing grade. I really feel that what tripped them up was that they didn't slow down and read through the directions for each problem. This is an important skill in math in 4th grade. 

Parent Resources:

I wanted to remind you all about the Parent Resources portion of my virtual class. Please check there if you are struggling with anything school-related with your student. As a mom and teacher, I try to make school as accessible to my parents as it is to my students. :)

Extra Credit:

Your student will have the opportunity to get extra credit over Thanksgiving Break. If they complete 80 minutes of assigned skills for ELA and 80 minutes for assigned skills in math, they can get up to 8 extra credit points.

Enrichment:

Today was our first day of enrichment. I let all of my students go today so that they understood what it is since they have not gotten to do this yet. Next time (November 27th), students with missing assignments will not get to attend enrichment. It would be a good idea for students to work on missing assignments over break. If they open the assignment marked missing, it should have directions (and links if applicable) on what they need to do to complete the assignment. Remember, for math, they must show work for all problems. 

Wahooz Fit For Fun:

These are due back to Mrs. Nickels by Thursday the 30th. If your student lost their copy, they can click HERE to print a new one. 

Week of November 6th

 We have a really busy week planned this week! Please make every effort to have your student to school every day on time. We start learning as soon as the bell rings. It's so important that your student is here and ready to learn from the start.

ELA:

This week will be a typical week in ELA. We will have our spelling test on Thursday along with our Morning Warm Up quiz. Please help your student study spelling words at home. Your student will also be taking a comprehension test over chapters 6-10 in Because of Winn Dixie. They are allowed to use the book and their packet for the test, if they don't complete that work then it isn't much help to them. :)

October Reading Calendars were due last week. If your student hasn't turned theirs in yet, please help them get that in. You are also welcome to send me an email letting me know how many minutes your student read for the month. 

Math:

This week in math we will continue working on division. Please make sure you are practicing multiplication facts at home with your student to help them work through division easier. If your student failed the Topic 3&4 math test, they are welcome to study and retake it. I will allow retakes for this until next Thursday the 16th. 

Parent Resources:

I have been working really hard to get videos recorded for parents as well as making digital versions of our Math and ELA Interactive Journals. You can find those in the "Parent Resources" section of my virtual class. You can go to my virtual class by clicking on the bitmoji that is in the signature of all of my emails. 

It looks like this: 

I linked my virtual class to that image as well so you should be able to click on it to get to my virtual class. :)

Social Studies:

This week in Social Studies we will be learning about Veterans Day. We have a special guest speaker coming in on Thursday that your student won't want to miss! We have been creating an agamograph and will be writing about it as well.