For your calendars:
August 28th: PTO Meeting 6:00 PM
August 31st: MAP Family Reports to Go Home *Look for more information to come via Parent Square to help understand the reports!
August 31st: WOISD Budget Public Meeting 5:00 PM
September 4th: Labor Day
September 14th: Fall Yearbook Pictures
This week we will begin giving the students spelling words. They will be compromised of high frequency words that many students struggle to use/spell appropriately as well as a particular spelling pattern. Your student will copy these words into the far right column of their planner weekly from their Google Classroom account first thing in class on the first day of each school week. Take a gander when you sign their planner!
Homework for spelling is NOT assigned, however, there are many ways that students may practice their spelling words at home. These include rainbow writing (writing each word once in a particular color then writing over them again in another color while spelling the word aloud), using letter tiles (such as Scrabble tiles) to spell their words, writing them multiple times each, or even creating pyramids on their papers with the words. The top of the pyramid would be the first letter of the word, then the next level of the pyramid would be the first two letters, and so on until the base of the pyramid spelled the word completely. Like this:
c
ch
cha
chat
My computer is a tad limiting spatially for the visual, but hopefully that gives you a better idea!
During these first few weeks, I have been administering whole class high frequency spelling word tests beginning with level 1. I have been doing my best to find all of the words that are unknown by our students that they see repeatedly in their reading and use in their writing as well. This is why they are called “high frequency” words.
These are NOT for any type of grade. The sole goal and purpose is for us to determine which high frequency words (of the first 400) your student needs to master to help them become an even stronger reader!
We still have a list and a half to complete, as you can imagine it is lengthy even with brain breaks. I hope to have them wrapped up this week. It will take me much longer to look at each one of them, since I’m trying to check 14,400 words in all. Once completed, my plan is to send home any lists with words that your student missed highlighted, and I’m asking for your partnership and assistance to support your student in mastering these words. Many of them are homophones– so discussing meaning is key!
I will also be touching on them in class, however, we have many more to learn and vocabulary is integral in fourth grade!
I know with your help, the diligence of your student, classroom reinforcement on spelling tests, and classroom exercises focusing on high frequency words, we are going to make huge gains!
Please be certain that your student is reading 30 minutes per day after school. Beginning Friday, we will send home the first reading log as well as cursive handwriting sheets. Both the daily reading log, and each of the daily cursive sheets will be due at once the following Thursday (just like the math homework from Mrs. Odom).
Each time a student completes both their entire reading log and all of their cursive homework for the week, and turns it in ON TIME at the beginning of the school day each Thursday, their name will be entered into a monthly CLASSROOM drawing. A reminder that while homework is NOT graded, completing it is beneficial and can be very rewarding in many ways! At the end of each month, I will randomly draw a ticket from their class bucket of all the tickets that have been earned that month. The winner will be sent to the school library to choose a book from the book vending machine.
The kids LOVE IT!
This week the school library will begin allowing fourth grade classes to check out books once every two weeks. Our day to attend is Thursday. The students are to check out both one fiction and one non fiction book every other Thursday. These school library books are to be kept in their backpacks and taken home to be read for their reading logs. They are to be brought to school daily, and we expect the students to be accountable for ensuring that they are on hand at school at all times. While they have books to read in my ELAR classroom, those books are to remain in their book bins for classroom independent reading time for their enjoyment so they’re never without reading material.
I would love to have a special independent reading time each week called “Flashlight Friday!”
I am hoping to secure a set of 30-40 small, battery operated handheld flashlights for use in our classroom by the students during this unique reading time on Fridays. My purpose in using them is to help encourage all readers and perhaps give a new twist to reading time for any less enthusiastic readers.
There are several types with batteries included on Amazon that average out to about $1 each plus tax at any given time. I will do my best to add our class Amazon wishlist on the blog/Parent Square if anyone would like to see what types of things I would like to implement in my classroom, or already am, to make this the most amazing school year ever for your student!
I hope that you have a wonderful week, and thank you for sharing your AMAZING kids with me!
Ms. Good