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.