Welcome back!  Our Big Idea this quarter is "Growth."  Students will be exploring this in LifeSkills classes and content area classes as well.

Important Dates:

January 18 - Upper Division Science Fair

January 21 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - No School

February 7 - 12 - Jump Rope for Heart

February 13 - 15 - Third Grade Reading TCAP

February 18 - President's Day - No School

February 19 -21  - Third Grade Reading TCAP Makeups

Conferences and the "Effort" Dilemma

Thank you so much for taking time to meet with us on Friday and Monday for our goal setting conferences.  We appreciate having the opportunity to speak with each of you to review your child's progress and goals for this quarter.  

It has been noted that there was a recurring dilemma with the idea of "effort."  While many letter grades were fine, the scores for effort were low, which troubled both us and you.  The nice thing about our report cards is that effort is now an entirely separate entity, rather than figuring into a letter grade.  While it was great when a student earned a "B" in a class, the question became how the "B" was earned--was it because the material was easy and the student was able to breeze through without much thought?  Or was it earned through hard work, perseverance, and resilience?  We wanted to address that, and thus the "effort" score was born.

For gifted and high-achieving students, the letter grade is important, and the effort score is even more so because for many, school has come easily to them for several years and they were able to easily achieve an "A" without much effort until now. Some are in the habit of giving up easily when things get difficult, and some still have the mindset that effort is not important.  Students have a copy of a matrix in their binders in the "life skills" section to help them rate progress, effort, and behavior. It is posted in each classroom and will be used by all teachers to facilitate a reflection at the end of each class period.  Please review it so that you are clear with what each rating means, and feel free to ask questions as needed. Note that behavior is a part of this reflection.  Each class period, whether they are in homeroom or with another teacher, students are to record the day's lesson objective upon arrival as part of their welcome work.  When lessons are introduced, this objective is stated and referred to throughout the lesson.  By the end of the lesson and that day's work, students should be able to "rate" themselves through both a letter grade AND an effort grade, as well as evaluate their behavior during class.  They will be required to write this in their planner and then will be able to discuss it with you each evening.  

We are beginning to place more responsibility on our students, particularly those going into Division IV, because they must learn to take on the responsibility of informing their families about what they are learning, what their assignments are, and what the expectations are regarding work needing to be done at home, projects, and upcoming events.  When students reach the upper divisions, the students will be your primary source of information, not their teachers.  They must learn to be responsible for their own work, projects, and learning.  The adults in their lives can facilitate this, but it is not up to us to ensure that their work, projects, and learning happens.  As teachers, regardless of grade level, we will always provide the information students need in order to complete assignments, projects, and be successful, however as they grow older, information will be given more and more to the student, rather than to their parents via email or other methods, in order to prepare students for the time when their work is solely the responsibility of the learner or worker.

Each evening, take 10 minutes to review your child's planner with them.  Ask what he or she learned learned, the level of mastery the child feels was attained, and what kind of effort was put into whatever assignment was given.  It is your opportunity to discuss what your child is learning with him or her.  Know that we review planners as well, though not in a conference scenario with your child.  We do assess both student's feelings on mastery of the lesson AND their effort, though it looks much different in the classroom than it will for you and your child across the dinner table.  

Science Fair  

The project itself will be due on the 25th of April.  The FAIR will be held in the gym during the day of the 26th.  As a reminder, the judging that is done by outside judges is NOT used for grading purposes -- our DIII rubric (which will come via email separately later this week) is completely different, as we are looking for different elements in our students' projects.  Understand that this project is not intended to be a "parent project."  All work should be completed by the student with facilitation as needed by an adult at home.  If the parent is facilitating (e.g. helping to locate information and research at the library, helping prepare the board to ensure neatness, assisting the student in creating graphs from the data collected using a computer program, etc.) that is fine.  At no time however, should the parent be the primary scientist or worker on the project. While we want the end result (board, scientist's journal, data tables, etc.) to be neat and free of errors, it must also be the work of a third or fourth grade student and that student must be able to discuss their experiment fully. 

Life Skills

In addition to learning to rate ourselves both for mastery as well as effort, we will be analyzing the idea of growth from a social standpoint, learning how to handle conflict, solve problems, demonstrate assertive behavior, and deal with bullying issues if they arise.  We will also investigate the FISH! Philosophy, Big 5 Leadership Skills, Habits of Mind, fallacies, and other thinking and social skills between now and the end of the school year.  

World of Math

Ms. Burns' class is working with fractions, decimals, and percents currently and will take the progress check next week. 

Dr. Ricotta's class has started Unit 6, which begins with an introduction to division. Using diagrams to help set up story problems slowly introduces the students

to the relationship of multiplication and division.  Family letter and study links were sent home on Tuesday of this week and can found in their binder.  Please note, study links are now mandatory!

Ms. Brown's class will spend the next two weeks learning strategies for learning multiplication and division facts.  Home Links and other information on this unit went home Friday in students' binders and by email.  

Art of Language

Dr. Ricotta's class is beginning this quarter with a CREATE A GAME project that will emphasize nonfiction writing skills and imagination. Students are to create their own title, objective, number of players, age appropriateness, contents, rules, and scoring.

Upon directions being completed, they are free to design and create the actual game. 

Choices are board games, dice games, card games, floor games, etc.  The only limitation is their imagination without violence.

Ms. Brown's class has started their study of Caesar's English, and are using English translations of Latin sayings and phrases as the basis for their four-level sentence analysis each day as they study the correlations between Latin, English, and some Spanish words as well!  Students have also begun an analysis of poetry, looking for patterns of change and growth.  Our first poem is "all ignorance tobaggans into know" by e.e. cummings.  Students had incredible connections to and analysis of this poet's metaphor for learning! We will finish up the literature web for this poem next week and begin a study figurative language using this poem, as well as "In the Windowsill" by Mary Pleiss.

In Art of Language, Ms. Burns' students will be starting their very first "Book Club," reading the book "Frindle" by Andrew Clements.  They will analyze vocabulary, create meaningful sentences, compose reflections about what they read, and discuss the story together in small groups periodically.

Scientific Inquiry

In your child's planner in the science section, you will find a Lab Report template we have been using this week (blank one also attached, to be used for the science fair or modified if the scientist wishes).  Please review it with your child for each experiment we have done in class.  We have done these experiments together as a whole class, in small groups, and in partners.  Our focus in science this quarter is the actual "write-up" of our use of the scientific method: the experiment, data, results, and conclusion, to ensure that all scientists can recreate our experiment to check its validity and to perhaps take our ideas further.  As the quarter progresses, we will do other in-class experiments as well with this same focus in mind.

Historical Inquiry

The primary standard for fourth grade social studies involves the exploration of Colorado History.  We will spend the majority of the third quarter learning about our beautiful state.  While the topic does not change, our approach to it must from  year to year.  This year we have chosen to use a workbook to facilitate our study in addition to research and other activities in class.  We are hoping to have a field trip relating to our study of Colorado before the end of the quarter or shortly thereafter.  We will keep you posted on where and when, as well as costs as we have that information available.  

Handwriting

Students who need to build foundational fine motor skills to improve their handwriting are working with Mrs. Burns two to three times per week.  Division III students who have not yet mastered cursive, using it as their primary handwriting, work with Dr. Ricotta to learn the basics of cursive handwriting.  Students who have demonstrated mastery (or close to it) of cursive handwriting are working with me to further develop this skill as well as learn calligraphy, the art of "beautiful writing."  Some will also begin typing practice during our handwriting time within the next few weeks.  This will continue through the end of the school year.