Welcome to the 4th Grade Fourth Grade Class

2009-2010

Laurus Academy

Classroom Information

Welcome to fourth grade! We are off to a busy and excellent start this year and we look forward to the weeks and months ahead with your student! We appreciate how busy you are, and want to thank

you for taking the time to come to Curriculum Night. Please know that you are truly welcome at any

time in our classroom. You may wish to observe, teach a lesson in which you have great interest,

share a travel experience, read a story, or just hang out. If you have any questions or concerns, please remember that the door is always open. The key to a successful year is continual, open communication between student/teacher/parent. We all need each other! We are excited about all the possibilities and

experiences this year has to offer us all.

Discipline Policy: In order to provide an optimal learning environment, each student is expected to abide by the Social Contract. I use the “How's Your Day” monitoring system, which is included in this slide show.

Assignment Book: Every fourth grader is expected to keep and use a weekly assignment sheet. This is your student’s most important tool for keeping track of homework and important information. Assignments are written on the board, as well as orally reviewed each day. It is the responsibility of the student to copy ALL information neatly. We will initial the assignment book if the student has flipped their card. Once homework is completed, you are to initial the paper. This needs to be done nightly. (students get a sticker for their homework folder if this is done nightly) Please feel free to write us any notes ion the assignment sheet. This is a great way to communicate with us, since we look at it daily. Also each day student write s the color they earned. Look for this.

Homework Folders/Friday Folder: Please check your student’s homework folder daily. Students will place homework assignments in the folder throughout the day in the unfinished side. Once homework is completed, students place the homework in the finished side. Students use a Friday folder to take home any graded work on Fridays. This folder will be used for any important notes from the school. Both of these folders should be emptied and returned with only the work that is to be turned in.

Homework: Students are responsible for regular homework assignments along with assignment they did not finish in class. Homework is always due the next day in class, unless otherwise stated. Homework is turned into labeled bins. Homework that in not turned in on time will be marked “Late” and will be marked down, students will also flip their cards (as a reminder to students and a notice to parents). Recess will be lost for that day. Late work will need a late work slip, and will be turned into the Late Work Bin.

Poor Quality Work: Poor quality work will not be accepted and will be returned to the student to redo. As your student’s teacher, I encourage them to strive for excellence in all they do. Only by putting forth consistent, quality efforts will they meet the success they are certainly capable of achieving.

Redoing Work: Clearly my hope is that students will be successful in their initial attempt at an assignment. Carefully following directions, listening in class, asking questions to clarify, will almost guarantee that success. In the unlikely event that your student does receive a low grade on an assignment, they may redo the assignment. This maybe required to be done by a certain date. As the teacher, I reserve the right to limit this practice. It is the student’s responsibility to see that both assignments are turned in to the redo bin for a corrected grade. I will average the two grades. I recommend all assignments that are a C or below to be redone for a higher grade.

Progress Reports: Progress reports go home every two weeks. They are to be signed by the parent and returned on Monday. Students who do not bring back the progress report on time will miss out of fun activities and will flip their card. Parents will be notified if progress reports do not come back signed.

Specials: Our specials are P.E, Music, Art. We have media on once a week this year. Students go to one special each day on a rotating schedule. These classes are graded (and lots of fun!) Make sure gym shoes are brought on A day’s. Students may store gym shoes in the classroom.

DEAR: All students are require to have a pleasure reading book with them at all times in the classroom, assembly, and during testing. Students are given time to read when they finish assignments. We also have DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) after lunch. Please encourage your student to read by visiting a library or bookstore on a regular basis.

• Our goal is that all students will become lifelong readers and learners through participation in the program. I do have a classroom library that students may borrow books from. (these books don’t go home) Donated books, magazines, and news papers would be greatly appreciated. Student who read every night will find class work and assignments easier. Please encourage nightly reading.

Birthdays: Students may bring in treats to share with the class on birthdays. This is not a requirement. If your child does not celebrate a birthday during the school year, ½ birthdays can also be celebrated. We will celebrate during the last 10 minutes of the day. Advance noticed is appreciated. We have 28 students in our class this year.

Absences: Missed work will be assignment upon return of an absence. For a prolonged absence, work may be prepared for the student to work on at home. Please notify me in advance of a prolonged absence due to sickness or vacation. That way I can prepare adequate work. Students have how ever many days they where absent to make up the work.

Tardy Policy: School starts at 8:00 am. Please have your student here on time. The doors open at 7:30am. You may drop your student off between 7:30 and 7:55 to insure they are here and ready to learn. 8:0lam is considered tardy. When students are tardy they are missing out on VERY important class work. The first 15 minutes of the day are spent going over a review of lessons taught in class. On Fridays students take a quiz over this information. Quizzes are collected by 8:30am. If a student is tardy they might not have enough time to complete this quiz.

• We know the parking lot is a mess, arriving early will insure you get your child in on time.

School Supplies: Please make sure your student has a pencil and a pen with them EVERYDAY. Also students need to have a pencil sharpener, this will cut down on classroom disturbances. Kleenex will be needed every few months. Any donations will be gratefully accepted.

Communication: Good communication between school and

home is essential to your child’s progress and success. Therefore there are several

vehicles for communication available. Assignment books provide an overview of

the day’s learning, a place to write messages, and to indicate the color earned for the day. Weekly classroom newsletters inform you of upcoming events, curriculum, and announcements. The work students

bring home on Fridays in their Friday Folder shows graded student work. Progress

reports notify you of your child’s academic progress. Notes, emails, and phone calls,

either from school or to school are encouraged. The best way to communicate

with us is by email.

54.kdebored@heritageacademies.com54.smazur@heritageacademies.com54.kwagner@heritageacademies.com

Here’s to a great year!

4th Grade Team

• Grade 4

Social Studies

• Units

• Geography

• Maps &Globes

• 5 Themes of Geography

• Economics

• US Regions

• Michigan History

   

• 4th grade

 

• Science 

• UNIT: INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE

• UNIT: SPECIES OVER TIME

• UNIT: ECOSYSTEMS

• UNIT: PROPERTIES OF MATERIALS

• UNIT: ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM

• UNIT: STATES OF MATTER

• UNIT: ENERGY

• UNIT: CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Fourth Grade Writing Overview

Taught by Ms. Mazur

• Launching the Writing Workshop

• Raising the Quality of Narrative Writing

• Breathing Life into Essays

• Writing Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions

• Literary Essays: Writing about Reading

• Memoir: The Art of Writing Well

Launching the Writing Workshop

In our classroom, the writing workshop lasts for approximately an hour each day. It begins with a 10-minute writing lesson (which we call a minilesson) in which I explicitly teach the skills of good writing. I gather all of the writers for this large group direct instruction, and I teach them a strategy or method that they can use to make their writing stronger, clearer, and more correct. After the minilesson, the children work on their own writing for 25-30 minutes. As the students work, I meet with small groups of writers who share the same instructional needs. I also confer with individuals. After the students work on their writing, I gather them again for a teaching share time. This gives me an opportunity for further instruction and gives children an opportunity show each other what they’ve accomplished.

Raising the Quality of Narrative Writing

• Your child will again be writing focused personal narratives, but this time we’re emphasizing the importance of craftsmanship and revision. Your child will study exemplar texts by other authors, notice the use of precise words and telling details, and your child will try to write likewise. Your child will say things like, “I notice that she uses flashbacks to help us really understand her feelings for her grandma.” Or “The lead to this story really hooked me because the way the author started with exciting action made me want to know what happened next.”

Breathing Life into Essays• As your children move through this unit, they’ll learn how

essayists take an idea, an observation, or a question, and grow ideas about it. They will learn how to turn an idea they have into a thesis, of sorts, and then how to present evidence to support their claims about that thesis. My experience tells me that it may be difficult, at first, for young writers to switch gears toward essay writing, especially because they’ve gotten so strong at writing personal narratives. A large part of the energy in this unit will be dedicated to familiarizing students with the genre of essay, to learning to think and organize thoughts like an essayist, and to crafting an essay that moves smoothly from the thesis statement to the supporting evidence. We will move quickly through the writing process, and we will revisit essay-writing again later in the year.

Writing Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions

• Your child will be working to write a realistic fiction short story. Children will mine the stories of their lives for an idea on which to grow a short story. They’ll spend several days developing characters for their stories. They’ll study traditional story structure and then will map plot lines for their stories. In those stories, the main characters will move toward a goal while facing difficulty or resistance along the way. As children write short fiction, they’ll also read it. They’ll read as insiders, learning techniques for writing fiction from their favorite authors.

Literary Essays: Writing about Reading

• In this unit, children will learn how to do the important work of developing ideas about a text into a thesis statement and then creating an outline for supporting the thesis with evidence. I will also encourage children to think of a story as containing an external as well as an internal storyline, and to write an essay which highlights the internal (and therefore, sometimes the overlooked) story. Your child will learn how to do research to support the thesis he or she has developed, and then your child will learn how to angle his or her writing so that the evidence directly supports the ideas he or she is trying to convey.

Memoir: The Art of Writing Well

• In this unit, children will read great literature because it can be “an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us,” as Kafka has written. Literature calls us from our hiding places, helping us bring ourselves to the page. Of any quality of good writing, the one which matters the most may be voice. We write with voice when we allow the imprint of our personalities to come through in our texts.