Just a quick note about homework coming home with your children.
Now that we are well underway with our fourth grade year, I just wanted to give all of the parents a heads-up with what your children are working on both in class and in school. As expected, we are all working hard in class and much of the work I assign to your children may be getting done in class. On the other hand, I know that some students may rush through the work in order to avoid having to bring work home to reinforce the concepts and skills that we have been working out. Nonetheless, I will outline some things to talk with your child about at home.
***Reader's Notebook: Please sit down with your child and read through my letters to them, as well as their letters to me. Talk about the content of each letter so your child can start verbalizing their thoughts about their reading before they turn it into print in their notebooks.
***Book Club Jobs/Reading Strategies: We will be discussing questioning, visualizing, connecting, summarizing, predicting, and describing characters as a means to comprehending the text we read in the beginning of the year. As your child to see the "job sheet" on colored paper to verbally discuss these crucial comprehension strategies.
***Reading Check-Offs: Encourage your child to remember to get your initials and turn in the quarter-sheet of paper every Friday. These are meant to encourage reading each night AND develop a sense of responsibility.
***Writing Process: We are working on a short story about one aspect of our lives based on the autobiography of Eric Carle. We are working through the entire writing process (Brainstorming, Outlining, Rough Draft, Peer Editing, Final Draft, and Publishing). Ask your child to bring home his/her writing progress. Talking about ideas for writing will help your child include more interesting/sophisticated ideas when he/she sits down to write.
***Math: Ask to look over your child's math homework sheet. We are currently learning new algorithms for adding/subtracting. Ask your child about the Partial-Sums/Differences method. While very different from the traditional columns algorithms, it is very neat to see how there is more than one way to add/subtract/etc. Also ask your child if he/she has corrections in math. There is a half-sheet for you to sign after you have reviewed the corrections with your child.
While I do encourage and see the value in a strong home-school connection, please make sure that you are allowing your child enough freedom to take on the responsibility of doing well in school. Have a watchful eye on your child's work and progress, but as I mentioned at Back-to-School Night, let them make some mistakes and learn what it feels like to succeed after hard work.
Thank you, and look for your child's work coming home in their backpack this (and every Friday)!
