Saturday, August 6, 2016

First week of school and open house

Good evening parents,
We have made  it through the first week of school and I can already tell we have a wonderful group of kiddos in room 302! Each day they are getting back into the swing of school, and learning how to be independent fourth graders who are taking responsibility for their actions. With that being said, we still have a long way to go in order to be the best role models at Teasley. Please talk with your children about the importance of listening to the oral and written directions.  This is an area that many of us struggled with this week, and an area that everyone can improve upon. Remind your child that when the teacher is talking, it is imperative that they listen because it  may be important directions or procedures. With that, it is important to note that if students are talking over me while I give directions, I will not repeat my directions for them. I will only repeat directions if students have a hard time understanding them, and they were respectfully and actively listening the whole time.  They must be listening at all times.

Fourth grade is a big jump from third grade in many ways. It is important for students to build their independence. Please help your child at home by slowly reminding them less and less to do their HW. our hope is for them to remember on their own. This will help with making sure that students are completing their class work and assignments without reminder because I will not be able to remind students individually each day.  It is important for students to explain and justify answers and be able to tell why something is reasonable. Their math journal will have AWESOME resources for this that you can use at home.

Homework is another area that is greatly increased in amount and intensity. With that being said, I do not want the students to be spending hours on end doing homework, they are kids after all! One way to help ensure that student s are not spending hours on homework is by making a login cheat sheet for them to place next to or on their HW device.  We slowly add a new internet site, or two, each week for students to use for homework and practice. At first assignments will be for me to make sure that students know how to log in and find tools, as you may have noticed with our Edmodo assignments this week. Next week, I hope to add moby max and then front row towards the end of the week. These are both math sites that we will use daily, in class and for Homework.

This is a huge adjustment for the students, but I have also noticed over the past three years that it might be an even bigger adjustment for parents. (It's always so hard when they get older, isn't it?) This year is the first year your child will be receiving cumulative percentage grades instead of a 1, 2, or 3, on a standard. Please keep in mind that standards based grades DO NOT TRANSLATE TO PERCENTAGES. If your child received all 3's last year, that does not mean that they will necessarily make all A's and B's In class. Our grades test not only the content, but also the independence level of students, and their ability to follow directions for any given assignment. Also, there will be an opportunity for students have 1 make up test opportunity, per test taken. This will only be under certain circumstances, which I will explain more at Open House on Tuesday, I hope to see you there!

Our agenda for open house includes the following
* About Ms. Kraftschik
* Contact information (magnets!!!!)
* Behavior (clip chart) mega bucks/check books
* Expectations of incoming fourth grade students
* 4th grade requirements
* Supplies
* Snack/lunch
* Birthday treats
* Schedule
* Grades/parenVUE (this is soooooooooo important!!!)
* How your child will qualify for a retake exam (NBT.1 example?)
* 2025 Facebook group(thank you AMAZING parents for putting this together, it's great!)
* BYOD
* Weekly jobs ( community of respect/ responsibility)
* Question from you to me

I hope to see you all on Tuesday for a wonderful and informative open house 😀

No comments:

Post a Comment