Greetings Families,
It was great getting to see many of you at the social. If I missed you, I apologize. I ended up spending all of my time inside where it was cool and then as I left I found that I had not seen some of you.
The first week was a great week and I am excited to see what we will accomplish as we pursue intellectual and moral virtue together. As we begin week two, students can expect things to start to ramp up quickly. Fourth grade is a new and wonderful challenge, with many changes from third grade. The greatest different is the expectation of individual responsibility. That works out well as responsibility is the virtue of the month. The greatest challenge students can expect to face is being expected to always pay attention well, as we will have quizzes (low stakes assessments) that do not have study guides. They are planned and will be announced in advance to the students. For example, in science, students can expect a quiz every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless a test happens the day of, before, or after one those days. These will be short quizzes and usually multiple choice or fill in the blank.
The purpose of these are for me to determine student learning and comprehension and for students to be more responsible for their learning. Plus, as a book the staff was required to read over the summer, Make It Stick, the use of regular low stakes quizzes helps students learn far better as they are forced to remember something from their longterm memory as compared to their short term memory (which can be thought of as cramming). In third grade, students could largely check-out of class instruction and discussions because a study guide would be provided later. Many times these study guides were the same as the tests or with very little differences. This year, expect students to struggle more and to have lower grades at first. Study guides for test will usually be the notes they take during the unit. Join me in encouraging your child to have a growth mindset, which celebrates struggle as an opportunity to grow intellectually and in perseverance, and to be more concerned with longterm learning than with impressive marks on assessments and report cards.
Below are the lessons for the week in which we aim to know truth, goodness, and beauty.
Language Arts: Spalding phonics continues and students will have thirty words to review. In grammar, students will master the noun and verb, and begin classifying and diagramming sentences. In literature, they go deeper into the mines with Curdie and Princess Irene in The Princess and the Goblin. Furthermore, students will discuss point of view. Students will also be looking at three Greek roots: photos, graph, and tele.
Math: In math, students will be looking at rounding this week and reviewing place value. By now, students are expected to be able to read a number up to the hundred millions. In addition, they should be able to write it out in words, including appropriate commas and hyphens. If you would like to check your child's learning, write a number out and have them say it and write it correctly. It is also recommended that you glance over your child's homework each night. In class, we check it for completion and have students check their work against the right answers, but we do not check each problem. Students are encouraged to ask questions if they are confused, but some may not. We will have our first assessment on Friday.
History: This week in history we will continue our study of maps with hemispheres, time zones, coordinates, and wrap up our unit on maps with a test on Friday.
Science: Students will continue to look at chemistry during the second week of school. The content will build up to a discussion on the periodic table. On Friday, students were able to observe matter and looked at concepts like mass, volume, and density. This week, we will take concepts from the lab and apply the vocabulary terms to them. With that knowledge, we will be able to discuss what elements are at the atomic level, which will enable us to understand how the periodic table was created. Students are encouraged to study their notes by making notecards on main points of information.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me. If you would like to talk, I am happy to set up an appointment for a phone call or in person meeting. I hope you have a great week.
Best,
Michael Naaktgeboren
It was great getting to see many of you at the social. If I missed you, I apologize. I ended up spending all of my time inside where it was cool and then as I left I found that I had not seen some of you.
The first week was a great week and I am excited to see what we will accomplish as we pursue intellectual and moral virtue together. As we begin week two, students can expect things to start to ramp up quickly. Fourth grade is a new and wonderful challenge, with many changes from third grade. The greatest different is the expectation of individual responsibility. That works out well as responsibility is the virtue of the month. The greatest challenge students can expect to face is being expected to always pay attention well, as we will have quizzes (low stakes assessments) that do not have study guides. They are planned and will be announced in advance to the students. For example, in science, students can expect a quiz every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless a test happens the day of, before, or after one those days. These will be short quizzes and usually multiple choice or fill in the blank.
The purpose of these are for me to determine student learning and comprehension and for students to be more responsible for their learning. Plus, as a book the staff was required to read over the summer, Make It Stick, the use of regular low stakes quizzes helps students learn far better as they are forced to remember something from their longterm memory as compared to their short term memory (which can be thought of as cramming). In third grade, students could largely check-out of class instruction and discussions because a study guide would be provided later. Many times these study guides were the same as the tests or with very little differences. This year, expect students to struggle more and to have lower grades at first. Study guides for test will usually be the notes they take during the unit. Join me in encouraging your child to have a growth mindset, which celebrates struggle as an opportunity to grow intellectually and in perseverance, and to be more concerned with longterm learning than with impressive marks on assessments and report cards.
Below are the lessons for the week in which we aim to know truth, goodness, and beauty.
Lessons
Language Arts: Spalding phonics continues and students will have thirty words to review. In grammar, students will master the noun and verb, and begin classifying and diagramming sentences. In literature, they go deeper into the mines with Curdie and Princess Irene in The Princess and the Goblin. Furthermore, students will discuss point of view. Students will also be looking at three Greek roots: photos, graph, and tele.
Math: In math, students will be looking at rounding this week and reviewing place value. By now, students are expected to be able to read a number up to the hundred millions. In addition, they should be able to write it out in words, including appropriate commas and hyphens. If you would like to check your child's learning, write a number out and have them say it and write it correctly. It is also recommended that you glance over your child's homework each night. In class, we check it for completion and have students check their work against the right answers, but we do not check each problem. Students are encouraged to ask questions if they are confused, but some may not. We will have our first assessment on Friday.
History: This week in history we will continue our study of maps with hemispheres, time zones, coordinates, and wrap up our unit on maps with a test on Friday.
Science: Students will continue to look at chemistry during the second week of school. The content will build up to a discussion on the periodic table. On Friday, students were able to observe matter and looked at concepts like mass, volume, and density. This week, we will take concepts from the lab and apply the vocabulary terms to them. With that knowledge, we will be able to discuss what elements are at the atomic level, which will enable us to understand how the periodic table was created. Students are encouraged to study their notes by making notecards on main points of information.
Assessments at a Glance
Thursday: Phonograms
Friday: History, Math, Spalding, & Grammar
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me. If you would like to talk, I am happy to set up an appointment for a phone call or in person meeting. I hope you have a great week.
Best,
Michael Naaktgeboren