4th Grade Weekly Newsletter August 15, 2016

We hope you find these weekly emails helpful. Please direct any questions or concerns to your child’s classroom teacher.

Upcoming Dates and Notes:

·  Aug. 20th Back to School Bash (picnic)

·  Aug. 23rd 4th grade Open House

·  Aug. 31st College T-shirt Day

·  Sept. 5th NO SCHOOL (Labor Day)

Curriculum Focus This Week

Math -- This week will include the following topics of study: Place Value, Rounding and Place Value Concepts. Students are working on being good note takers and getting started in their math notebooks. There will progress checks on most Fridays. When they are graded and returned to you, we encourage you to work on any problems that they missed at home for extra practice.

**Please note that we as teachers maintain flexibility in the schedule of our math curriculum within our classrooms in order to differentiate to meet the needs of all students, both with extension and remediation.

Literacy Connections: Students will be focusing on managing their Literacy Block. This is a rotation of independent activities that have connections to all areas in the classroom. Students will also be writing their autobiography for their portfolios this week and exploring the Elements of Fiction. Our class read aloud to kick-start the year is Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.

**Please be aware that we will start F & P testing soon as well as the WTW assessment.

IB Unit of Inquiry

Trans. Theme: How We Express Ourselves

Central Idea: Creativity Enhances Diversity

Lines of Inquiry: Expressing our personal experiences, appreciating diversity and cultural characteristics

Students will begin to familiarize themselves with our first unit of inquiry. We will be working with key concepts, teacher questions and creating our Learner Profiles. We will also be diving in the unit starting with our provocation on Wed. Please encourage good communication with your child about the happenings in the classroom during our inquiry time.

Homework – Please check your student’s yellow folder for the current homework sheet.

The intent of homework is to be another means of communication with parents. It’s another look into what is going on in the classrooms. Students should not be spending more then an hour each day on homework and should not work to a point of frustration. Teachers ask that parents assist students in pacing themselves throughout the week.

**The Everyday Math link below in the HW section is the link you will need to find the Home Link pages to print for your child’s HW. For example: After clicking on the link, scroll over to Unit 1 and click, then find the home links that are listed on the HW page and find corresponding number. Click and print.

Fourth Grade Website and Homework

Please visit the 4th Grade Website. Homework, weekly emails and other important information are posted here. You can access the website by going to the general Meridian Website (http://www.mwschool.org/) and following the tabs: Academics -- >Primary --> Fourth Grade or by using the direct link below.

http://www.mwschool.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=171389&type=d

http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents/4th-grade/em4-at-home/

Miscellaneous: Please be sure your child has a book with them every morning for the 7:30-8:00 am time-frame.

Thank you,

The 4th Grade Team