Dear Parents,
Happy New Year! A big thank you to Mrs. Stankes and Mrs. Blackley for ending 2018 with a fabulous party and making our holiday so bright! Now it is on to 2019 with new learning discoveries and the start of a wonderful semester. This is traditionally the most challenging semester in fourth grade. I appreciate your assistance in getting your child to bed at an appropriate time, reinforcing good study habits at home, and helping your child understand that effort is related to quality work.
School Supplies
This is also a great time to refresh your child’s supply of glue sticks, colored pencils, and sharpened pencils. Many students have misplaced some colored pencils, and most of them have used up their pencils and the eraser on their pencils! Please put your child’s name on their supplies.
Night Writes
Night Writes are beginning this month. We have designed a Night Write packet that came home this week in your child’s homework folder. PLEASE help your child keep track of this The first Night Write is due on January 29th. HOW IT WORKS -- Each month will begin with a choice menu of prompts. They are to circle one prompt that they would like to take to final copy. They then must work through all steps of the writing process. Each step has a page in their booklet as well as some pointers and a given time frame to help with pacing. Please feel free to use this a a tool to help work with your child on the development of their ideas, grammar, spelling, word choice, organization, etc. In doing so, though, we still ask that the piece remains authentic to them. As a parent, you could conference with them about their idea to make sure they are on the right track and again with the revising and editing. Please try not to over help and rewrite the composition for them. Believe me -- I know it is hard to resist at times! Thank you again for your support with their writing. Your work with them, as always, is invaluable. We will stress in class that pacing is important. Your child should “chunk” the various steps of the writing process so their final composition will be thoughtful and the very best work possible. A composition written in two days in not quality work!
Reading Log
We began our new class book study this week. While we continue reading There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom in class, your child will complete an assignment in Google Classroom each week as homework. This past week was a summary sheet. Next week there will be a character trait assignment. My expectation is for students to write complete and thoughtful answers for each assignment. The reading log (Google Classroom assignment) will be due on Friday mornings.
Character
Our character word for January is “helpful”!
UPCOMING DATES
January 21 - MLK Day, no schcool
January 22 - Report cards go home
January 24 - STEAM Night - 6pm - 7pm
January 29 - Night Write due
UNITS OF STUDY
Reading - Traditional Literature
Writing - Expository writing; There, Their, They’re
Spelling - Week 12 homework due Thursday, test on Friday
Math - Fractions
Texas History - Texas Revolution
Thank you for reading my newsletter. Communication is key!
Kelly
