Monday Memo
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Dear Parents,
I hope everyone had a
great, long, (hot) weekend!! We made it through the first full week of fourth
grade! They are a great group. They are starting to settle down and aren’t
quite as chatty as they were at first. They are starting to realize they need to
listen in school and not daydream… It was a rough week without recess, however,
last week. I have to hand it to the kids, they really handled not getting
outside for recess. That was tough for all of us. They handled it without
complaining. They knew there wasn’t anything they could do about it, so they
just accepted it. I really appreciate that! Most of them are realizing that
they need to use the time given to get their work done or it will be homework.
They are also doing a great job, for the most part, of having any work they
needed to do at home, turned in. They are very responsible!! I really
appreciate how the planner has been signed every night letting me know that
they read the night before!
This week we are going to
start a story entitled Grandfather’s
Journey. Our first unit is entitled Journeys and each story is about a
journey made by someone. It is quite entertaining! This story is about a girl
who was born in Japan but came to the United States later in life. While in the
United States, she missed Japan and while in Japan she was homesick for the
United States. Some of the skills we will be working on this week include: Comprehension, Vocabulary, working with words
ending in y and ly, improving our writing, and reading through some Haiku poems.
Down the road, we will be writing some. Our grammar this week is over subject
and predicates. Our spelling words will be over words with the long and short i
and o sounds. The list is attached to this memo. Today we tested over our first
story entitled Akiak. The students
know their scores and be sure to ask them. I will be keeping the tests until
our first parent/teacher conferences and I will share them all with you at that
time.
Our first two units in math
are the most difficult. They really give them a good foundation for the rest of
the chapters. We are working this week on comparing and ordering numbers,
rounding numbers, the size of numbers, and we will be doing some problems
solving as well. We do a daily review each day which reviews previous concepts
to keep those fresh in their thinking. They require some thinking, but they
have been exposed to all of the concepts on them. To begin the year, they will
do half a page a day. Once they get going, they will be completing the whole
page each day. Please continue to work on the multiplication facts at home each
night for at least 5 minutes. We do times sheets each day, with our timed tests
being on Fridays. They are doing better, but some really need to keep working
on them at home, possibly a little longer each night. It will truly benefit
their future school years in math to have those memorized!
We are beginning the year
with Social Studies. Our beginning chapters are over different types of maps,
globes, landforms, and this week we will work on reviewing our constitution and
government in the United States, our economy, and using a prometheon board game
to identify the different states in the United States. Once we complete this
unit, we will do a unit in Science and then alternate with Social Studies. Our
first unit in Science is over classification and we will be working on the
regions of the United States when we return to Social Studies.
We have all passed the Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing book.
YEAH! They will be reading a library RC book of their choice that needs to be
tested on by Sept. 15. At that time, I will be assigning their next RC book.
Thanks for having them read each night!! SO IMPORTANT!!
When you add their daily
computer program, specials and listening to a story each day, you can see that
your child has a busy day!! Thanks for all you do to support their learning.
I hope everyone has a great
week! As always, please feel free to call me with questions/concerns.
Sincerely,
Chris Mallen
Phone: 444-3093 (Home) 444-4300 ext. 336 (School)
Email: chris.mallen@bkcsd.org
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