Naaktgeboren's Class Blog

Greetings, Below you will find a letter from Mr. Posner explaining the Europe Winter Project. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Tonight, your child should be picking their top five options for the country they will research. Each student will have their own country, so students may not get the country they want. I will do my best to give preference to students who have the best reasons (parents were born there or I visited there). When this is not the case, selection will be random. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren Later this week you will receive information for a project on countries of Europe. This is an extensive project that will require many hours to complete. It consists of six parts- a poster board, a project packet, a 3 paragraph essay, the 3-5 minute presentation, a visual aid, and a reflection paragraph. It has been tradition, at other academies, to assign this as a "Winter Break" project, normally assigned the Friday bef...

Greetings Families, I hope everyone was able to enjoy their Thanksgiving break and day. There are many reasons for us to give thanks. Though the official day of thanks has passed, you may find this beneficial to read and to read with your family. With Thanksgiving break concluding, we now enter three solid weeks with no days off. This is a time when many students start to slack because winter break is impending. I ask that you encourage your child to give their best effort each day and to finish strong. Below are the lessons for the week, a note about the history test sent home last week, and upcoming assessments dates. Lessons Literature : In literature, students will discuss whether or not they feel Robin Hood is a hero. This is the precursor to a larger discussion next week after the book is completed. In grammar, there is an assessment on chapter 7, and then students will write a personal narrative essay. In Spalding, there are more words and more markings. Science ...

Greetings Families,  The math test that was originally scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday, "Fractions of a Set and a Whole Number Times a Fraction," has been rescheduled for Friday, December 2. This is due to the spreading out of the Unit 3 Chapter 3, 4, and 5 tests over three days and the retaking of the Unit 3 Chapter 4 test. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, A number of items are going home tonight. Please review these items with your child this weekend. Subject: Category - Title (Class Average) Math: Test - U3Ch3 (87%) Math: Test - U3Ch4 (68%) Math: Test - U3Ch4 Retake (80.7%) Math: Test - U3Ch5 (92% Grammar: HW - Ch5 Checkup 22A (68.8%) Grammar: Test - Chapter 5 Test A (86.8%) History: Test - Middle Ages 17-21 (75%) Science: Quiz - Q2W5 Monday (67.1%) Science: Quiz - Q2W5 Thursday (71.5%) Science: Project - Arizona Biome/Ecosystem (96.8%) Spalding: Test - Q2W4 (93.3%) Spalding: 50 Word Grade Level Assessment (34/50 = 6.4 Grade Level) This does not count towards the students' grade.  Thank you for your support. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, The students studied today by helping me complete the Quizlet you can find here . Please ensure students are studying for this test over the weekend. Many students did poorly on the last test, and when comparing that test to previous ones, I suspect it is due to a lack of preparation. Thank you for your support in making sure your child is ready to demonstrate their learning. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, I hope you were able to enjoy your Veterans Days and long weekend. I look forward to a full week of school this week before a short week for Thanksgiving. Due to the short week, this week's update will be for the next two weeks. Lessons Language Arts : Over the next two weeks, students will continue reading about Robin Hood, his merry men, and the adventures they encounter. Is Maid Marian his true love? We will find out. In grammar, students will master pronouns, and the understood you. Spalding will bring more words and more markings. Science : Over the next two weeks, students will begin their study of meteorology. They will begin by learning about the water cycle. Then students will consider how limited earth's drinkable water is considering the globe's surface is mostly water. The student's study will then transition to clouds, which will include a demonstration on how clouds formulate and a foldable about the different types of clouds...

Greetings Families, I've created a Quizlet to help students study for Monday's history test. The note cards are a little long this time as many of the questions are essay style questions. As students study this weekend, remind them that correct, but insufficient answers, will not receive full credit. I will be looking for well written, robust, 4th-grade answers. You can find the Quizlet here . Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, Today, students completed the first round of the spelling bee. Today, they took the 25-word spelling test. These should be graded by Monday afternoon and the top spellers will be notified of who will compete in the oral bee next Friday. The oral bee will use the same 25 words that the students were tested on today. If more than one student successfully spells all of those words, we will move to the larger list. You can find that list here . I will also place it below. Words will be picked randomly from the list. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren smirk  destiny monkeys  studio nifty  janitor  pottery  wonderful  square  belief  contract  anteater  pouring  lantern  subtracting  portable  twine  estate  umbrella  timidly observe  trance elderly  liquid  deadli...

Greetings Families, Today, I am sending home some items your child completed last Friday or this week. You should be seeing a weekly participation report from last week, a history quiz from Monday, and today's science test. - The class average for the history quiz was an 81%. - The class average for the science test was an 87%. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, Originally, we were supposed to take a math test tomorrow covering chapters 3, 4 and 5 of Unit 3. That would have resulted in a great deal of homework tonight and a very long math test tomorrow. What I've decided to do is test each chapter over the next three days. Thus, tonight, they have a practice test to review for Unit 3, chapter 3. Tomorrow they will take the Unit 3, Chapter 3 test. Tomorrow night, for the weekend, they will have a practice test for Unit 3, chapter 4. On Monday, they will take the Unit 3, chapter 4 test. On Monday night, they will have a practice test for Unit 3, chapter 5. On Tuesday, they will have a test on Unit 3, chapter 5. The goal of this is that each night, they will practice more specific skills on which they will be assessed the next day. Hopefully, it will allow for greater mastery. It will also spread the homework over more nights. Lastly, it will make the testing less stressful, as it will be much shorter. Tonight, if yo...

Greetings Archway Arete Parents and Guardians, I hope this busy fall season finds you well. Believe it or not, the third annual Archway Arete Winter Concert is fast approaching. This year, the concerts will be held on Wednesday, November 16th at the Higley Center for the Performing Arts located at 4132 E. Pecos Road Gilbert, AZ 85295. The K-2 concert will begin at 5:30 p.m. with Kindergarten students arriving promptly at 4:45 p.m. and 1st and 2nd grade students arriving promptly at 5:00 p.m. The 3-5 concert will begin at 7:00 p.m. with students arriving at 6:30 p.m. The attire for concerts will be as follows: Boys: Black pants, white dress shirt, black dress shoes, and black socks. Hair should be combed neatly. Girls: Black skirt, white top, black tights, and black dress shoes. Hair should be pulled away from the face with no distracting adornment. Please follow the Archway Arete dress code for guidelines on jewelry. Working with your children is a delight and privilege. We ...

Greetings Archway Arete Parents and Guardians, I hope this busy fall season finds you well. Believe it or not, the third annual Archway Arete Winter Concert is fast approaching. This year, the concerts will be held on Wednesday, November 16th at the Higley Center for the Performing Arts located at 4132 E. Pecos Road Gilbert, AZ 85295. The K-2 concert will begin at 5:30 p.m. with Kindergarten students arriving promptly at 4:45 p.m. and 1st and 2nd grade students arriving promptly at 5:00 p.m. The 3-5 concert will begin at 7:00 p.m. with students arriving at 6:30 p.m. The attire for concerts will be as follows: Boys: Black pants, white dress shirt, black dress shoes, and black socks. Hair should be combed neatly. Girls: Black skirt, white top, black tights, and black dress shoes. Hair should be pulled away from the face with no distracting adornment. Please follow the Archway Arete dress code for guidelines on jewelry. Working with your children is a delight and privilege. We ...

Greetings Families, I have finished the life science Quizlet and you can find it here . Best, Michael Naaktgeboren

Greetings Families, First, thank you to those who completed the homework survey. This information is very helpful to the fourth grade team as we consider what homework should look like. I do not have all the data for the whole team, but I do have what was contributed by you. First, here is a chart that shows how much time families are spending on homework each night. From this chart, most families are spending the amount of time on homework that the school has said is correct, 1 to 1.5 hours. One family said it is taking them longer than that. If this data reflects our class at large, that would mean 2 to 3 families are spending more than 90 minutes a night on homework. If that is the case for your family, please reach out to me for a way to remedy this problem. From the data provided to me, it appears that the majority of our families are working on homework with their children about half the time or less, with more trending towards less. This is how it should be in fourth ...

Greetings Families, Hopefully many of your children have already began working on their Arizona Show Box Ecosystem. I have already received questions about the project, so I expect there are others with questions who haven't asked them yet or who will in the future. If you haven't see the form yet, that you and your child were to sign by Friday, please find it here . Ms. Maguire was collecting these to ensure that all students have submitted these, but I'm not sure who completed that task and who has not. First, let me give you an example of what the box and inside should look like. This is a simple example (remember it has to be an Arizona ecosystem). The inside of the box should have a 3D model of what they talk about on the outside of the box. Now, as the direction say, the box should be covered in some sort of paper, tissue or construction is fine. They will then write out or type the information requested on the document and format it to fit on the appropr...

Greetings Families, I hope you are enjoying your weekend. After enjoying my daughters 8 a.m. soccer game, I was able to enjoy the rest of my day reading for and taking a quiz. Though, I did have some time to watch football, so that was relaxing. Don't forget that this is a short week, as Friday is Veteran's Day. Also, I will be a little short handed this week, so please forgive me if I fall behind in grading. Ms. Maguire has been asked to teach 5B as Ms. Stapleton will be out all week for professional development. I should have some support from the other 4th grade assistances, but most of the work will be on my hands this week. If there are any parents who would like to help me cover lunch or recess, feel free to email me. However, don't be alarmed. I have a great class and I don't expect there to be any real challenges other than things not being graded as quickly. Here are the lessons for this week. Lessons Language Arts : This week in language arts, stud...

Greetings Families, Today during science, the students learned about Arizona regions and biomes. This information will be very important as they begin to work on their Arizona Shoebox Project. The students were supposed to take a blank map and fill it in using the information provided to them in a chart. This activity proved very time consuming and no student was able to completely finish the activity. Therefore, I am providing the key to the map they were supposed to color. Please allow them to use this for their homework assignment over the weekend and for their class project. Thank you for your support. Best, Michael Naaktgeboren