Quarter 4, At-Home Learning Week 6

Hello Families! 

I hope this week of online learning has gone well for you and your child! I feel like in our house, we are finally starting to find some sort of rhythm and balance to our days. I know many of you are also working from home, or out of the house, and trying to manage your child's learning as well-  this is no small task! I hope that each of you are finding balance and joy in these strange days. 

Blog Use

The fourth grades leads have made a joint decision to discontinue the weekly bog updates. Instead, going forward we will be utilizing the Stream feature in the Google Classroom home screen. 

Each week you can find the weekly goals by subject and the daily overview in the "Week __" topic posted each Friday afternoon. I will also send out emails when needed. 

Zoom Security

We will continue meeting twice a week for the remainder of the quarter. Our Monday meeting is focused community building, and our Thursday meeting is for math tutoring. 

I would like to let you know the security measures I have put in place to prevent unwanted visitors in our meetings. First, the Zoom links are not posted anywhere public, like this blog. The links will only be posted in our Google Classroom stream or sent out by email. 

Second, each meeting is password protected. Even if someone was able to hack into the meeting ID, they could not gain access without the password. It's worth noting that if you click on the direct link I send out, you will not need to enter the password. I have also enabled the waiting room so that I have to approve each meeting participant. Going forward, please be sure that your child's participant name is their first and last name. You can rename by opening the participant panel and right-clicking on your name. I will not admit any users with unfamiliar names, or names like i-Pad. Thank you for helping to keep our meetings safe! 

I have also disabled screen-share, chat, and recording for our meetings. To protect everyone's privacy, please do not allow your child to record any of the meetings using another device. 

Pass/Fail Grading

By now, everyone should have seen the 4-point grading rubric sent out by Mr. Gillingham. We will be using these guidelines to assess student work. 

There seems to be a lot of questions and confusion about the pass/fail grading for this quarter. I'd like to try to clarify this if I can.

Your child will not earn a grade for this quarter, I will simply assign the a "pass" or a "fail" at the end of the quarter. It IS possible for your child to fail the 4th quarter, if they score lower than 50% overall. However, this does not mean that they will fail the grade. No student will be eligible for retention based on their quarter 4 grades. 

It is important that your child complete the work with their best efforts to make sure they are prepared for 5th grade. If your child has not completed much work since spring break, when we return to school in the fall, they will struggle in 5th grade. The work we are giving is to prepare your child, the best we can under these conditions, so that they will excel next year. 

You can see your child's grades in you go into to Classwork - View Your Work. 

You can filter by Assigned, Returned With Grade, Missing.

Please let me know if you have any questions! 

Quarter 4, At-Home Learning Week 5

Hello Families! 

We have a full week of learning ahead! I hope that you are finding Google Classroom easy to navigate and are falling into a rhythm with the remote learning! As always, please reach out if you are struggling. I am here to support you! 

Grading Work

Mrs. Baugh and I have been hard at work to read through and grade the your child's work! At this point, we have returned all week 1 and week 2 packets that have been turned in to us. All work is returned with comments throughout. You can see returned work by logging into Google Classroom: Classwork - View Your Work - Filters - Return with Grade. 

We will have the work from week 3 completed by this Friday 4/24.

Zoom Meetings

We will continue meeting on Monday and Thursday afternoons at 4:30. Monday's meeting are community building, while Thursday's meetings are math tutoring focused. If your student is joining us for Math tutoring on Thursday, please ensure they are prepared with paper, pencil, and any questions they have about the math work. Meeting invites have been sent out by email. 

Quiet Hours

Teachers will be observing quiet email hours after 4 PM each day. You are still free to email us any time that is convenient to you, but if it is after 4 PM I will respond the next day. I will still be responding to all emails within 24 hours. 

XtraMath

We had 26 students logging in to XtraMath last week! Way to go 4A!

Here is our current leaderboard:
Addition: Charlie C 98, Jonathan S 96, Ariella D 94

Subtraction: Jakob K 99, Ethan M 93, Bryson 92

Multiplication: Zoe R 62, Sydney H 48, Aden M 41

Well done! 

Lessons

Math: Students will learn how to read and use a coordinate grid, as well as learning about changes in quantities. 

History: Students will complete the unit on the U.S. Constitution. We will then begin the study of America's early presidents. Students will learn about George Washington this week. 

Spalding: Students will learn and copy three new words each day, as well as practice ten phonograms each day. 

Literature: Students will continue reading The Wizard of Oz by reading chapters 8, 9, and 10 this week. Students will write 2 summaries that are 5-7 sentences long. 

XtraMath: Students should complete XtraMath once per day if possible. 

Independent Reading: Students will read a book of their choice for 20 minutes. History reading may count towards this time.

Quarter 4, At- Home Learning Week 4

Hello Families!

Welcome to week 4 of at-home learning! We have a full week of learning ahead! All work from this week will be due by Monday 4/20. 

Due Dates

If you have not yet uploaded your student work for weeks 1 & 2, please do so as soon as possible. 

Work from last week is due today, 4/14. Please ensure that work is uploaded by end of day today if possible. Be sure that you click "turn in" after you have uploaded student work. If you know that you will not have it uploaded or if you are having problems, please reach out and let me know. 

XtraMath

Great job logging in and completing XtraMath this week- 23 students! Congratulations to Ben C & Sylvie W  for leveling up in the past week!

Here is our leader-board:

Addition: Charlie C 95, Jonathan S 95, Elizabeth G 93

Subtraction: Zoe R 98, Aden M 97, Jakob K 94

Multiplication: Sydney H 55

Zoom Calls

We will have our Zoom tutoring session on Thursday at 1:30. This call is focused on helping students with math. Please ensure students are prepared by having their materials and questions ready. I will post the link in our Google Classroom and send it by email. 

Week 4 Lessons

Math: Students will learn how to apply dividing with decimals to word problems on

Tuesday and Wednesday. They will have a review of dividing with decimals on

Thursday. On Friday, students will have a review of prior content.

Science: Students will read about the circulatory system each day and complete an

assignment after the reading.

Grammar: Students will be introduced to new grammar content (relative pronouns and

relative adverbs, correlative conjunctions, quotes, and regular and irregular verbs).

Following each introduction, students will answer questions from the material

presented.

Spalding: Students will learn and copy three new words each day. They will then practice

ten phonograms each day.

Literature: Students will read independently or read along with audio of the assigned chapter of that day. Students will write a detailed summary of the chapter from the previous day (or

same day) noting important characters and events. Students should write a 5-7 sentence

summary.

Quarter 4, At-Home Learning Week 3

Hello Families!

We are now entering our third week of remote learning! I have so enjoyed getting to talk to your students on the phone and see their faces during our Zoom meetings! I hope that you all are finding a new normal and establishing new routines as a family.

Google Classroom

By now, you all should have received the email from the office with instructions for logging into Google Classroom. I expect there to be a learning curve with this new format- both for students and myself- so we have pared down the amount of content this week. Please let me know if you are having trouble accessing the site, or if you have any questions! We will be utilizing Google Classroom for the remainder of the year. 

Zoom Meetings

I have added an "assignment" for our Zoom meetings on Monday and Thursday next week. The login information can be found in the assignment. I will also be sending out the login information via email. 

R & R Weekend

April 10-13 is a well-earned long R&R Weekend! There will be no school or Zoom meetings scheduled for April 10th or 13th, so the next two weeks are only 4 day weeks. 

XtraMath

Great job to the following students for working hard on XtraMath this week! 

Ethan M, Zoe R, Aden M, Payton S, Payten A, Bryson F, Jonathan S, Sylvie W, Kayla B, Halle B

XtraMath Leaders:

Addition: Jonathan S 97, Sylvie W 97, Iris B 96

Subtraction: Landon A 94, Jakob K 92, Ethan M 91

Multiplication: Sydney H 52

Lessons

Math: Students will practice word problems and dividing with decimals. Students should complete XtraMath each day. If you have not yet enrolled your child, please do so at this at time. Let me know if you need the login information re-sent to you. 

History: Students will read selected chapters and answer questions. 

Science: There will be no science this week. 

Writing: Students will answer writing prompts from the history unit with a one-paragraph essay using proper grammar and spelling. 

Grammar: There will be no grammar this week. 

Spalding: Students will copy the words once with syllable breaks, rules, and markings while watching the video. They will then copy the words two more times with syllable breaks only. Then students will practice phonograms. 

Literature: Students will read chapter 5 this week- half a chapter each day. Students will also write a 5-7 sentence chapter summary, noting important events and characters.  

Free Reading: Students will read a book of their choice, independently for at least 20 minutes.