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 August, although they only need to read 300 minutes for full credit this month. They will  typically 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.

We will update our student agendas the end of each school day so that students know what they need to complete at home if there was anything they did not finish in class. 

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 2 days, they will receive 50% of the earned score 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. :)

House System:

Vision is heading into it's second year with the house system! We loved the community that it built last year and are so excited to keep the momentum going! Vision uses the four main houses from the Ron Clark Academy. These are used around the world and it's  fun to see how students feel a sense of community even with other schools because of this. Each house has a core value that aligns with our Character Traits. Isibindi is the House of Courage. Amistad is the House of Friendship. Rêveur is the House of Dreamers. And Altruismo is the House of Givers. Be on the lookout for more information about this!

AMISTAD 2025-2026  HOUSE WINNER!!

Last year Amistad had the most points for the year! We are going to celebrate them this Wednesday with a couple fun things throughout the day. We also want everyone to wear their color, RED to celebrate them! This doesn't mean you need to go out and buy anything, it can be as simple as a red ribbon in their hair or tied on their wrist as a bracelet. 

House Wednesdays and Spirit Day Thursday:

Last year, we had House Thursdays where students were encouraged to wear their house color and could earn points for that. We are going to move that to Wednesdays this year and Thursdays will be our Spirit Day where students can wear school colors if they want to. :) This is meant to be fun and not cause any stress so feel free to let your student be creative in how they participate as long as it follows dress code rules. :)