St. Mary's Catholic School

I am absolutely thrilled to announce 3 (yes, 3!!) new Math masters! Spencer, Maria, and Max joined our other two Math Masters last week!! They can now challenge themselves to beat my time and earn themselves a pizza lunch at the end of third quarter. Congratulations, Spencer, Maria, and Max!!

As Fourth Grade begins quarter three, we are finding ourselves with a shortage of a few items. If you can send in any of these items, it would be tremendously helpful!

Pencils (Since I purchased an electric sharpener a few months ago, we no longer need Ticonderoga pencils only. However, since other pencils are poorly made and last only a day or two, Ticonderoga is made to stay sharper longer, and can last a week or longer, these are still the best value for the money spent).

Sarah Cannon has agreed to coordinate our auction project, assisted by Bob and Jeanette Benson. My sincere thanks to all of you go out, and I am looking forward to working with you!

Our chapter in multiplication is underway. We will be having a test on this chapter next Monday, February 13th. This chapter (and therefore, test) proves especially challenging to students who have not yet mastered their multiplication facts. We are working with using the multiplication algorithm on multi-digit multiplication, using the acronym MAMA (She's always right!) to help us. This helps students to remember to start at the RIGHT side of the problem. Then, they need to Multiply the first two digits on the right, go Across (left) to the next number, Multiply the next number, and Add, if they have done any regrouping (carrying). If your child is struggling with this math concept, see if a reminder of this algorithm helps!

For fact practice, students may choose to use our newest resource, www.sumdog.com. Students all have a log-in and password that I have given them, and I am offering them weekly challenges there. It is a fun way, and since the site is able to 'learn' what the student has mastered and what they are still challenged by, it always works them where they need working. This would be an excellent way for students to do their daily fact attack.

Fact Master Update: At this time, I am proud to announce that we have 5 students who hold the title of Fact Master, having mastered addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts! 20 students have mastered their addition facts and 13 students have mastered their subtraction facts (both tests require correctly completing 100 facts in 3:30 or less). The subtraction masters have gone on to multiplication, and will need to complete 100 problems in 4:00 or less. If your student has not completed mastery of addition, please work these addition facts each night, during your fact attack, as they will not be able to move along in their mastery until this is completed.

Our next pizza party opportunity for those students who have mastered all three tests, and are challenging themselves to beat my best times will come at the end of the second quarter. If your student masters all three sets of math facts, and is motivated to try to earn a pizza lunch on me, they currently must beat 1:31 seconds for 100 addition facts, 2:00 for 100 subtraction facts, and 2:21 for 100 multiplication facts. This is a big challenge, but it can be and has been done before!

We are finishing up the final pieces of our pronoun study, and will be having a test on Thursday, February 9th. We will do review in class to prepare for this test, but students should also do some stuyding/practicing at home. I will be supplying an optional review packet for students who wish to take the opportunity to do some extra, structured review.

Our current unit is a study of the Southeastern region of the United States.

Students have begun, both in the classroom and in the lab, research for their state projects. Each student is researching two states in the United States. Students will choose one of these states to use for a PowerPoint presentation. This will be put together in technology lab. For their other researched state, students have a list of options for projects. They will choose two of these options for their state, and perform the given tasks. We will then compile these projects into a classroom museum, and invite in our families and other classes, to see our hard work.

Research for this project will take place at school and at home. So that no one loses track of the project objectives, please stick to the research guide and projects that students may choose from. This will help students achieve success on what will actually be graded, and not get wrapped up in many 'extras' that take up their valuable work time.

Here is a website that students may find helpful:

www.mrsrenz.net/states/statesresearch.htm

Mrs. Renz is a fourth grade teacher in Oregon who gives educators permission to link to her webpages. The link provided is a wonderful set of links for doing state research. I am having some issues with creating live links right now, but at least students will be able to copy and paste this address to get to the site.

We have wrapped up our study on geology processes and spent Friday and today reviewing concepts in class. Tomorrow, students will be tested on this learning. After this, students will take some time to begin studying specific types of rocks and minerals. We will then use the information we've learned in this to complete our geology unit by studying Earth's natural resources.

Students are conducting a study of The Ten Commandments.

Our monthly word study currently covers the following words: deodorize, different, employee, international, invasion, prehistoric, signature. This week, we are looking at the de- prefix and the -ent suffix.

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Upcoming Dates and Events

I will be uploading third quarter grades at the end of this week. This hopefully gives you some time to do grade analysis if you have not yet had a chance to log on and do so. It can be helpful to take a look and see where improvement can be made, and if the possible problems are homework-related, test-related, or simply due to late turn-in deductions.

As always, when you look at your child's grade, I strongly encourage you to NOT focus solely on the letter grade. See the grade as an outer reflection, and a summary picture of your child's knowledge, effort, and responsibility. Grades in Fourth Grade don't always reflect student abilities. Rather, grades often reflect what was handed in to the teacher in a timely manner, and was able to be graded. I never let grades define my opinion of a student's abilities, and I would encourage you to take the same road.

Next week is our Valentine's Day celebration. Information about our class party came home today with your child. Each student has been asked to bring in $4 to cover party costs. If this presents a financial hardship for your family, please let me know and we will work it out.

Each student may make a holder for Valentines at home to bring in. This can be a box, bag, or anything else they are inspired to create. These can be as complicated or as simple as you like - even a colored paper lunch bag would do the trick nicely! These may be brought in before or on next Tuesday.

If students choose to participate in Valentines exchanging, they must bring in a Valentine for each classmate. Each Valentine and/or Valentine treat must be just like or very similar to all of the others the student has brought (in other words, no fancy candy or big Valentines for certain friends, while other people get less of a Valentine or treat). Please guide your child to helping each student feel included and respected on what should be a very fun day in fourth grade!

Please remember that class rosters can be found on the parent section of the website, under Grade 4, if you need a list of names.

All Cursive, All the Time has finally arrived! From now until the end of the school year, with the exception of spelling words, sentences, and tests, your child will be writing everything, from in class assignments to homework, in cursive. This is a big leap, and will really help develop your child's hand strength and control to help them prepare for the rapid writing of notetaking and multi-paragraph essay answers in the coming years.

When your child would like to improve his or her learning and grade, I offer them the opportunity to redo the assignment (or write corrections, in the case of a test). This earns them back up to half of their lost points on assignments, and will earn them a few extra credit points for test corrections. In order for your child to receive credit, the redo or corrections MUST be stapled to the original assignment or test. They can then be turned in and I will take care of the grading and gradebook portion.

Second quarter grades are posted online. Log in on the school webpage, and you will see a button to access your child's grades. This will be a very valuable tool to you in keeping up with missing assignments, assignments that need corrections done by your child, and for general grade knowledge.

Your child must fill out the Home Copy of their Reading Log each night with their required 15 - 20 minutes of reading time. I will be collecting reading logs, since part of your child's reading requirements are 15 - 20 minutes of reading each night, and are therefore part of their reading grade determiner. Please remind your child to record their home reading, as I can only grade based on what is logged.

Please sign your child's assignment book and review their reading log every night, as this is your chance to review exactly what was done, both in school and at home. It is also your certification that all homework has been carefully done, math facts have been practiced, and that required reading has been completed.

I will be checking Assignment Books weekly, and if your child has completed all homework entries and obtaied a parent signature for each day, they will be a member of the Assignment Book Club, which comes with a special treat or privilege each week.

Since much of our work is practice toward skill mastery, I do not record grades for every piece of work. Instead, I record grades for predetermined assignments each week. All assignments, regardless of whether or not the grade is recorded, are corrected and collected. I review them all to check learning and understanding, and can then teach, based on what students are understanding and what needs review.

Spelling sentences are due each Thursday. All assigned classwork is due the day after it is assigned, unless otherwise noted.

Your child's binder contains a Homework Guide, which gives guidelines for the reading, math fact practice, and spelling assignments that are the same each week. All other additional work will be noted in a student's assignment book.

Some of our work is graded for content, and mastery of learning concepts. Other work is for practice and experience, and is not graded for content. Some work that is not graded for content is graded on the following rubric:

All directions followed.
Neatly written. (All Cursive All the Time, after initial cursive review at the beginning of the school year - watch this space for when ACAT will take effect!)
Fully completed, with attention given to detail.
Completed accurately, to the best of a student's ability, with all basic fourth grade level words spelled correctly.
Correctly headed, with student number, name, assignment, and date.