Week of January 26th

We are cruising right along and making great progress this year! You should be so proud of your student and how hard they are working, I know I am! This is a great group of kids and I am enjoying my time in class with them each day. :)

IXL Assigned Skills:

The biggest thing that we have going on this week is that those IXL skills  that I have been assigning and using as extra credit will now no longer be extra credit. These are critical skills that I want my students to be practicing and becoming proficient with. Starting this week I will be assigning 4 language arts skills and 4 math skills that tie in to what we are learning in class. Students will have from Monday to Sunday to get those skills completed with an 80 Smart Score. This will be a grade in Infinite Campus and I will link each skill to the assignment in IC to make it easier for my students to find them. I am offering a House Point to students who get each of the assigned skills to a 100 Smart Score for the week! 

ELA:

This week we are starting our new novel study on the book Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing. We will continue to work on our reading comprehension strategies and answering short answer questions as we read this funny book. We will also continue to have a ReadWorks assignment about 1 time per week. This allows us to read a non-fiction text at grade level and answer questions about it. We are going to continue working towards being comfortable with those paired text assignments as well.

We finished up our opinion writing today on "Would you rather be a parrot or an octopus?" Your student created a "podcast" to come up with reasons to support their opinion and examples that supported their reasons. I am really proud of how well they did with this! We are going to move into an Informative Writing next. After that we will have covered all three essay types that your student will learn in 4th grade! We will keep practicing those different writing types as the year goes on so that students are really comfortable with all three types.

Math:

This week we will be finishing up Topic 8 which is our introductory unit for fractions. We will spend this week finishing up Topic 8 and then we will take the Topic 8 Celebration of Learning next week. I am really please with how well my students are doing with fractions! This can be tricky because it is such an abstract concept but I have seen my students really persevere and keep trying! I love that!

Valentine's Day:

It's hard to believe that Valentine's Day is right around the corner! We talked in class a bit about it last week and I reminded my students that in 4th grade we celebrate this holiday as a day of friendship. We do a small Valentine's Party that is mostly students passing out and enjoying their Valentines from each other. If your student would like to bring Valentines, but you are unable to get them any, please let me know and I will provide them! I will send home a list of names for your student today as well as posting it HERE. 

We do not make anything to keep Valentines in here at school. If your student would like to make something at home, that's great! Please do not let them bring it in until Thursday, February 12th because we do not have space to safely store them all and I would hate to see their hard work be damaged accidentally. These do need to be small enough to fit on top of their desks, I know some of these kids are ultra creative, but we just don't have space for anything bigger. :)

On Thursday, February 12th we will have a normal day until the end of the day. Students will take time to pass out their Valentines and we thought it would be fun to watch "Because of Winn Dixie" since we have finished reading it and it is a story all about friendship! It is rated PG so if you do NOT want your student to watch it, please let me know and I will provide an alternative activity for them to do during that time. If students would like to bring a healthy treat to share with the class, they are welcome to! Since so many Valentines come with candy, and I know the kids are going to want to enjoy some of that, I would prefer non sugary treats be brought in. :)

Week of January 12th

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We had an excellent first week back after break. I was so proud of my students with how they came back excited and ready to go! I enjoyed being in class with them all again, I missed them over break!

ELA:

This week in ELA we are going to be reading some articles on ReadWorks to learn about MLK Day. We read an article last week called "Honoring King". Today we read and answered questions about an article called "Walking Tall". Tomorrow we will do what is called a paired text assignment but it will involve both articles we have already read. This is where two texts that have similar themes or content are read together and then the students are asked to answer questions about one article, the other, or both articles by comparing or contrasting the information. This can be tricky for students, so I like to ease them in by using this strategy of reading each article individually and then reading them as a paired text. :)

Math:

This week in math we will do an overview of Topic 7. Both Topics 6 and 7 are built in to be more of a review of skills as we progress towards fractions and how those skills will be used when learning about fractions. I was really pleased with my students' skills and perseverance last week in practicing those multi-step work problems. They did such a fantastic job! 

RAD Performance:

You will have seen those permission slips going home for your student to sign up for a lead role in the 4th and 5th grade RAD Program. This is a HUGE program that Mrs. Ellis puts on with our 4th and 5th grade students and so much work goes into it. She mentioned that she forgot to put the time and date on the permission slips and asked us to share that with you all. That program will be on Tuesday, March 17th at 6:00pm. I am impressed each year with our students, you won't want to miss it!

Week of January 5th

Welcome back from break! I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends. We stayed in town this year so it was a pretty low key break in the Martindale home. :) I am so excited for our second half of the year, it seems like this is when all of the foundational knowledge we have been working on really comes together!

English Language Arts:

This week in ELA we are going to be wrapping up our novel, Because of Winn Dixie. We won't be starting our next novel right away though. We are going to spend some time in ReadWorks working on thoroughly answering short answer questions. We are also going to begin working on our first opinion writing by creating a podcast! I love this unit, the kids always come up with some really creative ways to share their opinions!

I will be sending home your student's January Reading Calendar today. December Reading Calendars were due today as well. If your student forgot, no worries! I won't count it late until next week. :)

Math:

This week in math we are going to hit the ground running with Topic 6. This is a great unit to start with coming back from break because it is a great review of things we learned before break. 

If your student did not pass the Topic 5 Celebration of Learning before break, they have until Thursday of this week to retake that test. It will be similar to that test, but the numbers will be different. Your student needs to tell me when they are ready to retake the test, I won't give it to them until they do because I want to make sure they feel confident when they retake it. :)

House Points for On Time Work:

I am going to be offering a house point to each house that all members get their work turned in each day on time. Because this is one of our Essential 44, I really want to reinforce these habits. This is also an expectation from here on out at Vision Charter School. My own kids are now in high school here and it is something that they are expected to do and are held to. I want to help my students be successful, not just this year, but in life and this is one of those things that will help them do that. :) 

Please remember, your student should be in school on time every day. We start right at 8:00 in the morning and we have jam packed days. If your student is absent, it is their responsibility to get their work caught up. Even if they do the work, they are still missing out on the instruction, and there is no way to make that up. So please help your student be here every day. :)