Week of January 8th

 Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Break with family. My family had a fantastic break. We surprised our kids with a trip to Disneyland and it was magical! It was so wonderful to come back this morning to see all of my students, I really missed them! 

It's hard to believe but today is the start of the last half of our school year together. I can't believe that this year is already halfway over. This is one of the best parts of 4th grade though. Now that we have mastered expectations and most of the new concepts introduced in 4th grade, we will really start applying them and going deeper with them. This is usually the time of year when I see the most growth in my students, and I think that's why it's my favorite.

ELA:

We will be finishing up Because of Winn-Dixie this week. We will also be taking a spelling test and a Morning Warm Up quiz on Thursday. After this week we will only be doing the Morning Warm Up quizzes every other week. 

December Reading Calendars were due today. If your student forgot, no biggie! Just have them bring it in tomorrow or send me an email letting me know how many minutes your student read for December. 

Math:

We are starting Topic 6 today. I really like it when everything lines up and we get to begin Topic 6 after Christmas Break. This topic is a review of all of the operations we have worked on so far. It's a great refresher to get our brains thinking about math again!

We will have a Math 4 Today quiz this Thursday, but this will also move to an every-other-week thing like the Morning Warm Up quizzes after this week. 

Students need to keep practicing those multiplication facts. They will really need them as we begin working with fractions, which is what is happening next after Topic 6. 

Study Skills:

You may have noticed your student is getting an actual letter grade for Study Skills now. This grade is based on your student bringing their Home Folder every day as well as keeping track of their supplies and materials. It has been something this class has struggled with as a whole and we have spent quite a bit of class time this year finding our things. I am hoping that since it is a letter grade, it will encourage my students to come prepared and put their supplies and materials away where they belong. This will also set them up for success as they continue in their academic journey. 

Children's Museum of Idaho:

We received the following email from the program director at the Children's Museum of Idaho. You can click HERE to see the flyer they included in the email. 

Hello,

We have received a grant from the Idaho STEM Action Center to offer camps to students who don't have school on Fridays. To qualify the student must attend public school and be 6-9yrs old. These are drop-off camps at the museum and the kids are with me the entire time of camp.  Registration is at cmidaho.org. They will need to sign up for the class they want and pay $20 to hold their spot. After they attend the camp, the $20 is refunded. No-shows are not refunded. I know some of you are a distance from the museum, but I thought if a family was over our way, their student could join us for 2hrs. Would you please share this information with your communities?  Please call or email me if you have any questions. I have attached our flyer.

Thank you

Erin Brown

Program Director

Children's Museum of Idaho

208-345-1920