Dear 4th Grade Famlies,
It’s hard to believe that we’ve only been back in school for 7 days. We have hit the ground running! I wanted to touch base with you and share some information about our curriculum and some 4thgrade logistics.
Readers’ Workshop
At the beginning of the year our focus will be on reading for meaning. We are working to help students be able to identify if they are reading an easy, just right, or challenging book. Our goal is for students to be reading just right books that allow them to successfully be applying many reading skills and strategies. We have had lots of great discussions about how you know you are an effective reader and are asking the students to write and prove that they are using these strategies. We expect the children to be reading the same book at home and at school. This is an important consistency to establish at this point in the year. Please remind your child to not leave his or her book on that bedside table!
Math
We are beginning our math journey with the Investigations unit “Landmarks and Large Numbers: Addition, Subtraction, and the Number System.” We will be focusing on the base-ten number system, computational fluency, and whole number operations. I have talked with the students about how important it is for mathematicians to have all the tools they need for success: one incredibly important tool is mastery of addition and subtraction facts. We will have timed math tests each Monday and Friday to help the students track their progress in this area. We talked about how there are many fun way to practice facts. Here’s the helpful list of suggestions our class came up with:
- Make and use flash cards
- Have someone call them out to you
- Online games (freerice.com; mathfactspro.com; funbrain.com, funmathgames.com; coolmathgames.com)
- Math fact aps…of course, there’s an ap for that!
- Take a practice test
- Make up a game
- Make and use triangle fact-family flash cards
Miscellaneous
Our first trip to ImaginOn will be on Tuesday, August 30. We ask that new students bring in their PLCMC library cards that day. We are working on our class website and will let you know when it is up and running. Ask your students about the scientific observations they made with play-doh and about our first word sort in Word Study. Please see the attachments that include our daily class schedule and the Investigation parent letters.
We treasure the letters you wrote to us communicating your hopes and dreams for your child. Thank you for sharing such personal information with us, and thank you for entrusting us with your children. We’re enjoying getting to know them! Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.
Best,
Mandy and Alex
