(Photos from a Christmas activity with our bus-buddies!)
Hi Everyone!
Just a quick update since we have returned from holiday break. We had a great day yesterday with our technology/game day! Students did such a good job following our game time parameters and they really took good care of their expensive devices that they were allowed to bring to school. Thanks parents for trusting your fourth graders. They were very responsible.
We are currently working on writing personal/persuasive essays. Your student may be coming home with topics that are fresh and interesting to them. I have been using some debate prompts that make them think about what they think and feel about these subjects. They are being encouraged here to write their opinions about them. Please encourage them to talk with you about some of these topics (they will know what they are hopefully!) to get your opinion as well.
In math we are working on story problems and determining what operation to use when solving them. Now, we are using all four operations (+,-,/,x) and it can be tricky to decide what the problem is asking you to do to solve it. Please have a look at your student’s homework when they are finished to see how they are doing. Often reading the story problem out loud to them and discussing it, helps to determine what operation to use.
I also want to remind students (and parents too) that they should be reading for at least 15-20 minutes every night out of a chapter book or nonfiction book and recording it on their book log. I took a look at those (book logs) recently and found that many students were not recording their books and/or their times any more. Some students have 0 books recorded. Please encourage your readers to stay organized and focused on keeping track of their reading.
Finally, our Valentine’s Party will be Friday, February 13th, from 2-3 pm. Remember, if you are helping with the party, you may attend. Someone should be contacting you soon with what to bring or help with. If you did not put your name on the party sign-up sheet on Open House night and want to help, let me know and I will put you in touch with the Mom who is our lead parent for the party.
Thanks for a great bunch of kids and for all you do to keep our classroom going!