Week of December 9th and 16th

 Hello, I am sorry for the late blog post this week. I am going to use this post to cover this week and next week. I know this time of year is so busy so a two for one may be a good idea. :)

ELA:

We are continuing our study of Holidays Around the World. After today we only have four more countries to learn about! 

This IS a quiz week and your student will have a Morning Warm Up quiz tomorrow. They are bringing home their daily work today to use as a study guide for tomorrow's quiz. 

Math:

This week we have been working really hard on long division working our way up to 4 digit dividends. I did a check in pop quiz yesterday to gauge how my students were doing and overall I was pleased with how they did! I will put it in the grade book as "Daily Work" with a max of 5 points possible so that you can see how they did as well. 

We will be taking our Topic 5 Celebration of Learning next Wednesday the 18th. This will NOT go into the gradebook this quarter. I will put it in for Quarter 3 that way students who need to retake it may do that. :)

Christmas Party:

Our Christmas party is next Thursday the 19th at 2:10. I emailed  a link to a Sign Up Genius yesterday for parents to sign up to bring in food from a country that we have studied. There are still some slots available to sign up for and you can find that by clicking HERE. We also need parents who are able to come in for that time to help serve food and clean up between "courses". 

Dress Up Fun:

Next week our school is doing different dress up days. Your student is welcome to participate or not as it works for your family! Please see the flyer below for details.

Week of December 2nd

 I cannot believe we are already in the month of December! This is one of my favorite times to be a teacher! I am so excited for all of the fun things we have planned. 

ELA:

November Reading Calendars were due today. Please help your student get that totaled up and turned in tomorrow if they forgot. Since this was due the day after a break, I am going to still offer full credit to calendars turned in tomorrow. :)

We started our "Holidays Around the World" study today. We are going to be learning about different countries and how they celebrate this time of year. It's always so much fun! We will end this unit by enjoying foods from those countries, so please be on the lookout for a sign up to send in one of the food items if you are able. 

Math:

We will be taking a break from our normal curriculum in math starting today. I don't feel that it offers enough time for students to practice long division so I have put together a packet of pages for students to work on over the next several weeks. I will assign about 3 pages each day and students will need to complete those at home if they are not finished during class time, this is no different from before. 

Giving Opportunity:

I have put together a Donor's Choose grant to get some supplies for our classroom. Tomorrow, December 3rd, Donor's Choose is offering a matching donation for Giving Tuesday. If you would like to give and are able, please click HERE to give tomorrow. Each new donation will receive a 1.5x match. That means that a $40 donation will become a $60 donation while funding remains. We are so close to having what we need to get these supplies! Thank you so much to those of you who have already donated!

Missing Work and Extra December Activities:

I do plan extra activities and fun things for the month of December. However, I let my students know this morning and wanted to make sure that I let parents know as well that students who have missing work won't be able to participate in these things. Please help your student get caught up on missing work. There are only 3 weeks left in this quarter for students to be able to get caught up. 

Week of November 18th

 Happy Thanksgiving a little early! This is the last week before we are off for Thanksgiving next week. After that, we only have 3 weeks left for Quarter2/Semester 1. If your student needs to retake Topic 4 math test, please be working with them to be able to do that by the end of this week. 

ELA:

This week in ELA we are going to be reading articles about Thanksgiving to learn about how it all started in our country. We are going to be discussing things like main idea, drawing conclusions, and comparing and contrasting. 

November Reading Calendars are due when we come back from Thanksgiving Break so please take a moment to look over that with your student to make sure that they are ready to turn those in on time.

Math:

This week in math we are going to continue to work on long division. We are going to be taking a break from our regular curriculum to be able to practice division a little longer than what is in that curriculum. 

I have SIX students who have mastered their multiplication facts! I am so proud of them!! Keep up the good work kiddos!

Absences:

With the cold and flu season upon us, I wanted to remind you that if your student is absent, they are responsible for making up any work that is missed. Per school policy they have two school days to get work in without being docked points. After that typical late work scoring applies. Your student can access most missed work from the Google Class. I encourage students to get these done at home if they are able to the day they are out sick. That way they can pick up when they come back without missing a beat. 

House Thursdays:

Just a reminder that your student is welcome to wear their house color on Thursdays. We only have a few more weeks to earn House Points to determine our winner for Semester 1! Encourage your kiddo to share if they have earned House Points, or practice the Essential 44 at home to help them be in the habit to earn points at school too. :)

Week of November 11th

 I would like to start this week's post off by saying "Thank you!" to any of you that are veterans! We had a wonderful Veterans' Day assembly today and my class was so wonderful through the whole thing!

ELA:

This week we are continuing to work on our morphemes. We are going to be finishing up our prefixes and adding those to our Morpheme Lexicons. 

This week we are also beginning our final essay type, the opinion essay! 

Math:

I just want to keep encouraging my students to work on their math facts at home each evening on Xtramath. I have FIVE students who have mastered all of their math facts and don't have this as homework anymore. I am so proud of them! I have about another 10 students who are about 15% or less away from mastering their multiplication facts!! Keep up the good work!

We are working on division this week. This is a tricky concept and I will be adding in extra activities and lessons to help students better understand division. I feel like our curriculum moves through it pretty quickly so I want to give more time for mastery.

Missing Work:

Please take a moment with your student today and look at their grades and missing assignments. I have several students who have many missing assignments and this is greatly impacting their grades. Any work not finished in class should be completed at home as homework and turned in the next school day. 

Family Movie Night:

Wahooz Fit for Fun:

Your student should have brought home a page to color as they are active. They can turn this in for a free ticket to Wahooz! Click HERE to watch a video about it. 

K-8 VCS Food Drive:

Guardian Gala:

 

Week of November 4th

 I cannot believe we are already in November. This year is FLYING way too fast! We have a full week this week and I am excited to get rolling. 

ELA:

This week in ELA we will be continuing to work on nouns, specifically common, proper, concrete, and abstract nouns. We will also be reading a couple of articles on ReadWorks about Veterans Day to prepare for next week. 

Your student is bring home their November Reading Calendar today and their October Reading Calendar was also due today.

Math:

I have a couple of students who need to finish up their Topic 4 Celebration of Learning today. We will be creating our long division pages in our Interactive Math Journal today as well to help us get ready for starting Topic 5 which is all about division. 

I have THREE students who mastered all of their multiplication facts 1-12 last week! I am so proud of the hard work my students are putting in to master these! Those three students no longer have Xtramath as homework for the rest of the year, but are now working on division facts as part of their Must Dos. :)

Family Movie Night:

Wahooz Fit for Fun:

Your student should have brought home a page to color as they are active. They can turn this in for a free ticket to Wahooz! Click HERE to watch a video about it. 

K-8 VCS Food Drive:

Guardian Gala:

Week of October 28th

This week is a very busy week here in 4th Grade!

ELA:

This week is a quiz week, so we will have a Morning Warm Up quiz on Thursday. This is also the last week to get reading minutes in for the October Reading Calendar. That will be due on Monday, November 4th. 

We are also finishing up our Informative Writing essay and I am so excited about how well my class is doing with writing! We will be starting another essay next week, they are really doing well!

Math:

This week we are finishing up Topic 4. That means we will be taking our end of topic Celebration of Learning on Thursday of this week! I am excited for the kids to share what they have learned! We also have a Math 4 Today quiz on Thursday, I hate when they line up like that, but sometimes it happens. :)

Please remember to have your student practice Xtramath at home at least 4 days a week. This is homework until your student passes them. I do have several students who are super close to passing!!

Book Celebration Party:

Our party is this Thursday at 2:00. We have been reading Alice in Wonderland as a class and your student is invited to dress up like a character from the book on Thursday if they would like to! We have lots of fun things planned for this day!

If your student wants to dress up, costumes need to follow the dress code and no pretend weapons are allowed. :)

Family Movie Night:

Wahooz Fit for Fun:

Your student should have brought home a page to color as they are active. They can turn this in for a free ticket to Wahooz! Click HERE to watch a video about it. 

Week of October 21st

 Welcome back from Fall Break! I hope you all had a wonderful break with family! I spent my time just being with my kids and resting up. :)

ELA:

This week we are working at getting back in the routine. We will be working hard this week to finish up our SECOND essay which is an informative essay. I am so proud of my students for their hard work on these essays!

We will be working this week on various ReadWorks articles using the tools online to help us annotate as we read online. 

Math:

This week will we will begin working on multiplying multi-digit by multi-digit numbers. Please remind your student to continue working on their multiplication facts each week. I have several students who are so close to mastering all of them! I am so proud of them!!

October Book Celebration:

If you are new to Vision Charter School, you may not be aware of our October Book Celebration. Each grade level has a dedicated classic book that they read for the month of October, in 4th Grade we read Alice in Wonderland. Then on the 31st, students are invited to dress up like a character from that book. This is optional and should be fun. I always encourage my students to be creative and find and create their costume with things they already have at home! We will have a Book Celebration party that day and I will be contacting parents who indicated they want to help with parties to get that planned. If you would like to help, but didn't fill out a volunteer form at Meet the Teacher, please let me know and I will send one  home with your student. 

Week of October 7th

 Welcome to the first week of Quarter 2! This year is just flying right on by and I can't even believe it! We have a pretty full week this week before conferences this Thursday and Friday. There will also be extra credit opportunities during Fall Break so be sure to read on for that! 

ELA:

This week we finished up Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing and the packet for that was due on Monday. We will spend this week wrapping up things so that we are ready for Fall Break next week. 

Your student can earn up to 20 extra credit points over Fall Break by working on IXL skills. I want them to focus on assigned IXL skills first. If they run out of those, they can work on Recommended Skills based on their diagnostic. Students will earn 1 point of extra credit for every 10 minutes they spend on IXL. IXL tracks "active minutes" and times out if students take too long to answer a question or move away from that tab. 200 minutes on IXL Language Arts will get them the full 20 points of extra credit! 

Math:

This week in math we began working on multiplication in Topic 3. We are laying the foundation for students to be able to use their strategies to multiply multi-digit numbers. This will feel unfamiliar to you as a parent because you haven't had to think about multiplication in this way since you were in 4th grade. 

I encourage you to come to my Math Night this Thursday after conferences from 7:00-7:30. I will be walking parents through the initial concepts of how to help your student at home with math. I will be offering this bi-monthly and every other one will be in the AUX Gym. Be on the lookout for more information about this in the school newsletter and my blog. 

Parent/Teacher Conferences:

This Thursday and Friday I will be doing conferences. I am so excited for you all to attend this Thursday to get a glimpse into "A Day in the Life of a 4th Grader". You will be able to participate in class as a 4th grader and see what your student does every day here with me. Just a reminder that if you are late for the session you signed up for, it's ok, just come to the next one! I will be locking the door 5 minutes after the session starts to limit interruptions. If you haven't signed up for a time on Thursday, you can click HERE to do that. 

I have emailed you specifically if I want to meet with you about your student's progress on Friday. This is hopefully in addition to you coming in on Thursday. I think seeing how things are in the class on Thursday will help you, your student, and myself come up with a plan to help them reach their full potential in 4th grade. 

Attendance:

Please make every effort to have your student at school every day. This not only greatly impacts the money that the school gets from the state to be able to run the school, but it affects the learning that your student is getting. It is so difficult for your student to make up work and learning that was missed due to being gone. Unless your student is sick, please make every effort to have them in class every day. 

House Winner for Quarter 1: ISIBINDI!!:

We have been tracking House Points for all the classes that are participating in the House System here at Vision Charter and our winner for Quarter 1 is ISIBINDI! We will be celebrating our winning house this Thursday with everyone being invited to wear the color, GREEN. Your student does NOT need to dress in all green. Just a ribbon worn as a bracelet is good enough. Since this is my house, I will be going all out so be prepared to see a leprechaun for conferences lol. 

I have been so encouraged with how much this has changed the culture of my class. My students are encouraging one another and cheering each other on in ways I haven't seen before. I hope you are seeing the same at home! If you are, please share those with me so I can give shout outs to my students in class! 

Week of September 30th

 I can't believe the first week of October is already here! This year is already flying by! We have a full week this week so please read through the blog so that you know all of the things that are going on!

ELA:

This week in ELA we are continuing our work with morphemes and reading comprehension. One thing that we are working heavily on is answering all questions in complete sentences using part of the question in the answer. You can help your student improve on this skill by having them answer your questions the same way! For example, if you ask your student "What did you learn at school today?", they should respond with "Today I learned..." or something like that. Giving them prompts is helpful at first. 

September Reading Calendars were due today. Late rules apply to homework as well. Students lose 25% of their score for each day that it is late.

This is a quiz week so your student will have a Morning Warm Up quiz on Thursday. They will bring home their practice work on Wednesday that we have been working on throughout the week. Help them study by recreating any of the problems that they had to correct with their correcting pen in class.

Math:

This week we are continuing our work on addition and subtraction. Because this topic is really review, I will not have them do a Celebration of Learning (Topic Test) at the end of the topic. We will just move on into Topic 3. 

This is a quiz week so we will have a Math 4 Today quiz on Thursday. Your student will bring home their practice work on Wednesday and you can help them study by going over any that they had to correct with their correcting pen. 

Xtramath is still homework for all students, although I do have a few getting so close to mastering them all!!I have a little gauge at the back of my room so that students can track their progress! Each student has been assigned an image and no one else but the two of us know whose is whose. That way students can remain anonymous while still being able to see how they are doing. 

Thursday House Colors:

If you student would like to dress in their house colors on Thursday, or even just VCS colors, they are encouraged to! There is no reward if they do, it's just fun! It's ok if they can't as well. We talk in class about asking parents about it, and then what an appropriate response would be if parents say it won't work out. You should hear something like "Bummer, maybe next time!" :)

Parent/Teacher Conferences:

Parent/Teacher Conferences will be next week on October 10th and 11th. On October 10th, I will be offering 3 sessions that you will have the opportunity to sign up for. If I have specific concerns I want to address with you about your student, I will send you a separate email to schedule a time on the morning of the 11th. Everyone is invited to sign up for a session on the 10th (even if you have one scheduled for the 11th) and I am so excited for these as we will be doing "A Day in the Life of a 4th Grader" and we will be doing a condensed day in our classroom with our parents! Please mark your calendars and plan to attend, I think it's going to be so much fun! I will be sending out more information this week, so be on the lookout for that!

Volunteering:

Now that we have had a chance to settle into our routines and classroom expectations, I would like to get a meeting scheduled with those of you who want to volunteer in the classroom. I will be sending out an email this week explaining that more. If you would like to volunteer and didn't fill out the purple volunteer page at Meet the Teacher, please send me an email so I can get you on that list. :)

October Book Celebration:

If you are new to Vision Charter School, you may not be aware of our October Book Celebration. Each grade level has a dedicated classic book that they read for the month of October, in 4th Grade we read Alice in Wonderland. Then on the 31st, students are invited to dress up like a character from that book. This is optional and should be fun. I always encourage my students to be creative and find and create their costume with things they already have at home! We will have a Book Celebration party that day and I will be contacting parents who indicated they want to help with parties to get that planned. If you would like to help, but didn't fill out a volunteer form at Meet the Teacher, please let me know and I will send one  home with your student. 

Week of September 23rd

 Welcome back to another great week in 4th grade! Last week was packed full of amazing learning and this week is going to be the same. I am so excited about what we have learned so far this year. I know I keep saying that, but it really has been so awesome!

ELA:

This week in English Language Arts we are going to continue learning about subjects and predicates. Their assigned IXL skills will be practicing this as well. We will also be continuing our work on morphemes and improving our reading comprehension by annotating as we read. 

This is NOT a quiz week so students will have the opportunity to study to retake a quiz from last week if they scored below a 70%. The quiz from last week will come home today.

Reading Calendars for September will be due next Tuesday. It may be a good idea to sit down with your student this week to go over how many minutes they have read so far so that they can plan accordingly.

Math:

This week we will begin working on Topic 2 which is all about adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers. We will be learning the properties of addition along with practicing mental math and estimating. 

Your student will be bring home their "Topic 1 Celebration of Learning" today. This is what we call our tests because truly, they should be a celebration of all of the learning we have done. I am so pleased with how the majority of my students have done on this. They took the online version of the assessment and had to show their work on a piece of notebook paper just like they do for an assignment. Each problem was worth at least 2 points (depending on how many parts it had). One point was for the correct answer and one point was for showing their work. 

I do this because when a student missed a problem, I was able to refer back to their work and look at how they answered it on the computer to see if they struggled with the skill or the format. So many of my students seem to understand the skill, they are struggling with which part is the answer. This goes along with the idea of taking the concepts they have learned and then going deeper with them and asking students to answer in a more complex way. 

We will be going over these tests today in class so that students can see what they did wrong to make sure they are studying the correct thing. 

Vision Charter Fall Festival:

Our amazing PFSA is putting on our annual Fall Festival on this Friday, September from 5:00-8:00 pm. This is a phenomenal time for families and a wonderful fundraiser for our PFSA. They use that money to help fund things like Wagons Ho for 4th grade among so many other things. We are so beyond thankful that they do this for us! There will be games, food trucks, a dunk tank (that I may be in at 6:30), and live and silent auctions with amazing items that you won't want to miss out on! 

The PFSA is in need of volunteers to help run the games and donate candy. If you would like to help run one of the games please click HERE to sign up. If you are able to donate candy please click HERE to sign up for that. At the very least, please put this on your calendars and plan to come have a wonderful time with your friends and families and support our school at the same time!

Parent/Teacher Conferences:

Parent/Teacher Conferences will be on October 10th and 11th. On October 10th, both 4th grade classes will be offering 3 sessions that you will have the opportunity to sign up for. If I have specific concerns I want to address with you about your student, I will send you a separate email to schedule a time on the morning of the 11th. Everyone is invited to sign up for a session on the 10th (even if you have one scheduled for the 11th) and I am so excited for these as we will be doing "A Day in the Life of a 4th Grader" and we will be doing a condensed day in our classroom with our parents! Please mark your calendars and plan to attend, I think it's going to be so much fun! I will be sending out more information as we get closer, but I wanted to give you a heads up as well as I know that calendars fill up quickly. :)

October Book Celebration:

If you are new to Vision Charter School, you may not be aware of our October Book Celebration. Each grade level has a dedicated classic book that they read for the month of October, in 4th Grade we read Alice in Wonderland. Then on the 31st, students are invited to dress up like a character from that book. This is optional and should be fun. I always encourage my students to be creative and find and create their costume with things they already have at home! We will have a Book Celebration party that day and I will be contacting parents who indicated they want to help with parties to get that planned. If you would like to help, but didn't fill out a volunteer form at Meet the Teacher, please let me know and I will send one  home with your student. 

Week of September 16th

 I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready to go for another amazing week! I am so excited about all the growth I have seen already in my students and I am just so proud of how hard they have been working. You should feel proud of your student, and yourself! Fourth grade can be a difficult adjustment but I have watched each of my students and their families approach it with tenacity and excitement!

English Language Arts:

This week we will be finishing up our first essay of the year!  I am not usually able to say that until the second quarter and we just finished week 5! When I say I am impressed with this class, I mean it! I am excited to see what my students have written and be able to send them home for you to enjoy as well.

We are working on learning how to annotate as we read to help improve our reading comprehension. We will be doing this with various non-fiction articles from ReadWorks. For now I am printing them off for my students so that we can annotate with pencils and highlighters while we are learning how to annotate. After a while, we will move to reading them online and using the tools online to annotate. 

This Thursday we will have our first Morning Warm Up quiz. Each day we do what is called a Morning Warm Up. This practices various ELA skills as a quick warm up in the morning before we start our lesson. Every other week I will give students a quiz over these skills. If your student scores below a 70% on a quiz, they may student and retake it with in a week of taking the quiz. If a student wants to do this, they have to come and let me know that they have studied and are ready to retake the quiz. The highest score allowed on a retake is a 70%, even if they get a 100% on the retake. I want to encourage my students to study for tests and quizzes the first time, but I also want to encourage them to keep trying if they don't succeed the first time. :)

Math:

This Tuesday we will be taking our first test this week on Topic 1. This will be testing all the things we reviewed on place value. Test retake procedures are the same for this as mentioned above. 

We will be taking our first Math 4 Today quiz on Thursday. These quizzes will be every other week like the Morning Warm Up quizzes. They have the same test retake procedure as well.

We will be starting Topic 2 on Wednesday. This Topic is all about adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers. I was sharing with my class on Thursday that pretty much all of 4th grade math is not new for students as the concepts have been introduced in K-3. We then take those skills and dig deeper with them. 

Xtramath practice is still homework for all of my students. Although I do have a couple of kiddos that are getting really close to mastering all of their multiplication facts!! Students need to complete 4 days worth of lessons and they have Monday through Sunday to do this. This allows you to make it work with your schedule as I know evenings can be busy. Any assignment not completed in class must be done that day as homework, however. Almost all of my students have been doing a great job of doing this! My hope is that students will realize that they really don't want to have to do this at home, so they will work extra hard to stay on task to get it done here at school. :)

Just a reminder, that each math lesson assignment is worth 10 points. For students get full credit they must get a 70%+ on the online part, and turn in their paper that shows ALL of their work. I spend a significant amount of time each day modeling how I want them to show their work before I release them to complete the assignment. My page that shows how to show their work then stays projected up on the board for them to refer back to. Showing their work is an expectation and half of their grade for tests and quizzes as well. This is true for 5th grade, middle school, and high school. I keep reminding my students that the sooner they accept that and comply, the easier math will be for them. :)

Vision Charter Fall Festival:

Our amazing PFSA is putting on our annual Fall Festival on Friday, September from 5:00-8:00 pm. This is a phenomenal time for families and a wonderful fundraiser for our PFSA. They use that money to help fund things like Wagons Ho for 4th grade among so many other things. We are so beyond thankful that they do this for us! There will be games, food trucks, a dunk tank (that I may be in at 6:30), and live and silent auctions with amazing items that you won't want to miss out on! 

The PFSA is in need of volunteers to help run the games and donate candy. If you would like to help run one of the games please click HERE to sign up. If you are able to donate candy please click HERE to sign up for that. At the very least, please put this on your calendars and plan to come have a wonderful time with your friends and families and support our school at the same time!

Parent/Teacher Conferences:

Parent/Teacher Conferences will be on October 10th and 11th. On October 10th, both 4th grade classes will be offering 3 sessions that you will have the opportunity to sign up for. If I have specific concerns I want to address with you about your student, I will send you a separate email to schedule a time on the morning of the 11th. Everyone is invited to sign up for a session on the 10th (even if you have one schedule for the 11th) and I am so excited for these as we will be doing "A Day in the Life of a 4th Grader" and we will be doing a condensed day in our classroom with our parents! Please mark your calendars and plan to attend, I think it's going to be so much fun! I will be sending out more information as we get closer, but I wanted to give you a heads up as well as I know that calendars fill up quickly. :)

October Book Celebration:

If you are new to Vision Charter School, you may not be aware of our October Book Celebration. Each grade level has a dedicated classic book that they read for the month of October, in 4th Grade we read Alice in Wonderland. Then on the 31st, students are invited to dress up like a character from that book. This is optional and should be fun. I always encourage my students to be creative and find and create their costume with things they already have at home! We will have a Book Celebration party that day and I will be contacting parents who indicated they want to help with parties to get that planned. If you would like to help, but didn't fill out a volunteer form at Meet the Teacher, please let me know and I will send one  home with your student. 

Week of September 9th

 I am so sorry for getting this out to you a day late. I spent quite a bit of time getting my digital interactive notebooks caught up after school yesterday so that students would be able to access them if they needed to complete their own. The pages that have flaps take me quite a bit longer to put together. :) I linked the Parts of Speech Rap in the digital notebook so that students can listen to it while they are practicing their assigned IXL skills which cover nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. 

ELA:

This week we have hit the ball rolling! We have started digging into our morphemes and creating our Morpheme Lexicon and our Morpheme Deck. We will use these to help improve our reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and improve our spelling! We are really working on knowing these well as they are replacing our weekly spelling lists! Can I get an "OH YEAH!" :) I have included the Morpheme Lexicon in our Interactive Reading Journal so there are pages in the digital version as well. 

Math:

This week in math we are really working on understanding place value and the relationships between the place values. Students need to understand that for a digit to move to the next place value, it is multiplied by 10. I have included the page from our interactive notebook to help students if they are working on assignments at home. 

Just a reminder that Xtramath is homework until your student masters their multiplication facts. I have a few students who are getting close! Once they are mastered, this is no longer daily homework. If your student does not complete their daily assignment in class, that is homework and needs to be completed and turned in the next morning. 

Must Do/May Do:

When a student in my class finishes an assignment before it is time to move on to the next thing, they are responsible for being independent learners and beginning work on their Must Dos. On the board in my class I have listed Must Dos that are in read and numbered. That is because Must Dos must be done and the must be done in that order. When a student has completed their Must Dos, they will show me and are then free to do May Dos. May Dos are still academic in nature, but are more "fun". 

Each week I will assign IXL skills for both Language Arts and Math. These are related to what we are doing in class. Students need to get a Smart Score of 80 or higher to have mastered that skill. Once all of them are mastered they don't have to worry about that Must Do for the rest of the week. This is not homework, but students may want to do them at home so that they can have Thirsty Thursday. 

On Thursday, we have what we call "Thirsty Thursday" (named by one of my students last year since we couldn't do Fun Friday anymore :) ). Students who have the first three Must Do's completed for the week, get 10 minutes of extra recess. Those students who do not have those completed will work in the class quietly on getting them done. 

Snack and Track:

Every day at 1:55 my students have Snack and Track. They run a lap and then have free time outside for the next 15 minutes while they eat a snack to tide them over for the rest of the day. Please help your student remember to bring a healthy snack, not a treat like candy. One of our 4th Grade Essential 44 Rules is #44 "Bring a snack, not a treat, for Snack and Track. We want to fuel our brains, not rot our teeth."

I give students the option of running their lap and then coming in to finish their snack if they have unfinished work that they would like to work on in the class while I am there to help them. This is optional and up to your student, I don't like to take away recess time from students unless I have no other option.

Agendas and Home Folders:

This is the first year we have had agendas provided by the school for 4th grade. Thank you to Mrs. Burton for making that happen for us! We are still getting into the routine of filling these out throughout the day as we get new assignments. Students are told to put a check by it once it is completed. This let's them know what needs to be completed at home as homework. They are supposed to show you when they are done and ask you to sign the top of each day next to the star when they have completed everything. Each morning they put out their Home Folder and agenda open to the previous school day and I check them off. They get 3 points per day in their Study Skills grade. 1 point is for their Home Folder, 1 point is for bringing their agenda, and 1 point is for having a parent sign it. 

Your student has their Login Card taped to the inside of their Home Folder so that they have access to anything we use at school. 

Because we are a college prep school as part of our charter, we are working to instill those good study habits that will benefit them in their academic career for the rest of their lives. Thank you so much for helping reinforce this at home!

Homework is easier if your student is logged into a Chromebook using their school account. The school has older Chromebooks that have been retired that are available to students on a first come, first serve basis. They are "as is" and no tech support is offered for them, but if you would like your student to have one, please email me and let me know! I have to have an email from a parent before I can send one home with a student. 

Attendance:

Please make every effort to have your student here at school on time every day. We hit the ground running right at 8:00 am with our learning. If your student misses a day, not only is it overwhelming to make up all that work, they aren't getting the same quality of education since they are missing all direct instruction. 

Aside from that, being a charter school means we are not eligible for bonds or levies like regular public schools. The bulk of our funding from the state for the year is based on ATTENDANCE, not enrollment, from the first day of school to the beginning of November. Please make every effort to make appointments and schedule vacations during our days off. That is part of why the decision was made to go to 4 day weeks so that students could go to the doctor etc. on those days. 

Even more important, I love my students and I miss them when they are not here! This is an INCREDIBLE group of 4th graders and I am loving every day with them. 

Thank you!

I also wanted to say THANK YOU to you, the parents and guardians of my students. You have been so amazing to work with so far this year. Thank you for your emails seeking clarification and being so involved in your child's education. Please know that your emails asking questions, seeking clarification, or just sharing information about your student makes my job so much easier and more enjoyable! I can totally see why this group of kids is so amazing after just a few weeks of working with you all! Keep it up!

Week of September 3rd

 I hope you all had a lovely long weekend despite all the smoke! This week is just a three day week since we have moved to a "no Friday" calendar (with the exception of the last week of school that is a five day week).

ELA:

This week we are going to be creating a commercial for different products. This is our first group project and it is a fun way to set the expectations and practice working collaboratively in a group. We have also begun working on narrative writing. We talked about the different parts that make up a narrative writing and practiced identifying them in different short videos to help us plan and figure out what may be missing or what we would change if we were the author. 

September Reading Calendars went home last Thursday. They should stay in the back pocket of their Home Folder. That way they always know where it is and can fill it out if they get their reading done at school. This will be due on Tuesday, October 1st. 

Math:

This week we are going to continue working on place value concepts. We are doing this by creating pages in our Interactive Math Journals and we will hopefully be starting lessons in Savvas which is our math curriculum. 

Math homework is still on xtramath.com until my students have mastered their multiplication facts by being able to consistently answer them in under 3 seconds. Once students have mastered this, they no longer have to do xtramath as a homework assignment!

After they have done that, the only math homework they will have is if they do not finish a math assignment in class. They will be able to access this at home from the Google Class as long as they are logged into their school email account, which is through Gmail. 

Home Folder and Agenda:

We are working on getting into the routine of filling out our Agenda book as we go throughout the day with each assignment that is given. If they finish the assignment in class, they are supposed to put a check mark next to it indicating it is done. If they don't finish it, they are supposed to put that on the "Back to School/Unfinished Work" side of their Home Folder so that they can finish it at home. They are supposed to be showing this to you each day when they get home to show you what is done and what is not. One parent had a good idea to have them write a behavior update at the bottom so I had my students do this last Thursday. They should write "no name on board, name on board, or incident report" on the line depending on how their day went. This is one more way to communicate with parents on how our day is going.

Four Houses - One Family:

You may have heard your student talking about being sorted into houses here at school. We are joining schools around the world by bringing the House System to our school. Students will be randomly placed into one of four houses today. The houses focus on different cultures, but most importantly really embody and reinforce the character traits that Vision has adopted. Once a student is placed in a house (or team) they are there for the whole time they are at Vision! This is across grade levels to help foster mentorship relationships and provide leadership opportunities. Schools who have implemented this have seem improvement in student's academics, behavior, and social emotional well-being. I have already seen so much of this in my class already and I am so excited to see where we go!

The four houses are Rêveur (French - The House of Dreamers), Isibindi (South African - The House of Courage), Amistad (Mexico - The House of Friendship), and Altruismo (Brazil - The House of Givers). The main idea is that we may be in four different houses, but we are still  one Vision Charter family. We talk about how we want to uplift others because when one of us does well, we all do well! We want to foster healthy competition while still rooting for everyone. This may sound like "My house is the best!" rather than "Your house is not as good as my house!"

Students will be able to earn points for their house. We are working on getting the House App set up and when that happens I will let you all  know. You will get a notification if your student earns a point and why. Points have to be earned though! They are not confetti so students really have to go above and beyond to get a point, so if your student isn't getting points every day, that's ok! We are setting the bar high and watching our students rise to it! In the app you can see how your student's points are contributing to their house here at the school, but also to their house globally! 

Parents at other schools have really gotten into this and dress in their student's house colors and have even come up with names for themselves, like Ami-Mommies. :) I have seen pictures of parents who have kids in different houses so they have cut apart shirts and sewn them back together to represent both houses. Feel free to get involved with your kids and make it FUN! 

I will post pictures of our sorting sometime this week! :)

Week of August 26th

 This week is going to be jam packed full of good stuff! I am excited to hit the ground running this week! 

4th Grade Essential 44:

The last two weeks we have been focusing our learning on how to be a 4th grade student at Vision Charter School. We have gone over our 4th Grade Essential 44 and you can see what those are by clicking HERE. While we have loosely called these "rules" we are really using them as guidelines or a code of conduct for how we act and interact with others while at school (and in life). You will notice that some of them have been copied straight from the Student Handbook while others are focusing on the character traits that Vision Charter has adopted. We feel all of them will help our students to be respectful, citizen leaders. :) I would encourage you to have them practice these at home as well if they apply. 

ELA:

This week in ELA we will begin our first novel study with the book Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing. This book is really funny and since it was written a while ago, students get to learn about things that were more common when we were in 4th grade. ;)

We will also begin learning about writing a narrative essay. Students will be learning to write 5 paragraph essays for narrative, informative, and opinion essays this year. 

Math:

This week we will start talking about place value in math. Students should still be practicing their multiplication facts on xtramath.com at home. They will be expected to do one lesson four days a week for full credit. However, if they want to master them faster so that they don't have to worry about doing this every evening, they are more than welcome to! Xtramath is nice because when they are done with a lesson it will kick them out and say something like "You are done for today" or something like that. 

Week of August 19th

 We had an amazing first week of school! I went home exhausted every day (I am sure my students did too), but it was a good tired. I am so excited about my class this year and all the growth we are going to make together. You all have such wonderful kids and you should feel so proud of them and the way you have raised them!

ELA:

This week in ELA we will continue to review vocabulary procedures as well as review our 4th Grade Essential 44. We are also learning about the importance of getting a good night's sleep and reading articles about that while we practice annotating as we read to help with reading comprehension. 

Math:

This week in math we will continue working on our multiplication facts. We have been using a fun Multiplication Mashup that puts multiplication facts to music. The kids have really been enjoying it and you can find that by clicking HERE. 

Your student will begin math homework this week practicing their multiplication facts on Xtramath.com. This will be daily math homework each school day until they have mastered their math facts. You will know that they have mastered them when they bring home a certificate that was signed by me. :)

Agendas and Home Folders:

Your student will be getting a monthly grade in Study Skills for bringing their agenda and home folder back to school each day. Their agenda should be shown to you each evening and you should sign it. They get 3 points per day; 1 point for their home folder, 1 point for their agenda, and 1 point for showing their agenda to you and having you sign it. We are working really hard on instilling responsibility in our students this year and making sure they are keeping track of their assignments and whether or not they have completed them. 

Wall of Fame:

A new addition to the classroom this year is our "Wall of Fame" I took a picture of each of my students to add to the frame on the back wall. They turned out so cute! If you would like a copy of your student's picture, email me and I will send it to you. :)

Class Pet:

I sent home an email last week about Squeaks, our class pet. No one emailed me letting me know they thought their student would be too distraught if/when he were to die this year. :) I sent home a Class Pet Waiver with your student last week to ensure no one has an allergy. I have to have that signed and returned from every student before I am allowed to bring Squeaks in. I am still missing this from a few students so hopefully Squeaks will get to come in soon. 

Welcome to 4th Grade!

 Hello! I am so excited for this year, we have so many fun and exciting new things planned. If you have had another child in my class before, please know that things will be different this year. I am going to outline some of those here.

Homework:

One of the biggest changes is how we are handling homework. Your student will still have a reading calendar each month. We will start these in September. They will need to read 500 minutes each month for full credit. This is part of their ELA grade.

Math homework will consist of practicing multiplication facts on Xtramath.com each evening. Once they have mastered those 1-12 in 3 seconds or less, they don't have to do that at home anymore. Homework will be any part of their math assignment that they did not finish in class that day.

Late Work:

This year we will be sticking to the school policy for late work in 4th grade. This means that students will lose 25% of their score for each assignment per day that it is late. After 4 days, they will receive 0% for that assignment score, however they do still need to finish it to be able to do things like enrichment or the extra recess we do on Thursday for those students who don't have any missing assignments. This is a pretty big change from how we have done it in the past so please make sure you have the Infinite Campus Parent Portal access so that you are notified if something is marked missing.

This includes assignments that are turned in with no name on them. 

4th Grade Essential 44:

This year we don't have typical classroom rules. We have the Essential 44 that we feel will help our students rise to their full potential and set the expectation for school behavior and learning. I will be sharing all of those with you sometime this week, but ask your student about them too. :)

First Day Today!

Today has been amazing! Your kids have done such a good job of paying attention and working hard. I am so excited to see where we go this year, I have a feeling it is going to be one of the best years yet!