Week 14

Dear Parents,

I hope you all had a refreshing Veteran’s Day with an opportunity to thank some veterans for their service. I know the students and faculty alike enjoyed the break.

Thank you to all of you who put in extra effort to help your students dress up for literary and historic figure day. Everyone enjoyed seeing the different characters portrayed. The entire school had an assembly, and the fourth grade students stood out with the care and creativity of their costumes. We all had a lot of fun due to your efforts.

This week the special event is the book fair! Students have an opportunity to go to a book fair in the school library on Monday and purchase high-quality, engaging literature that will continue to expand their minds and open their hearts.  Students who participated in the Read-A-Thon will have the ability to use their vouchers at this time. Also on Wednesday, students who did not get a chance to purchase what they wanted on Monday will have another opportunity to do so.

As many of you already know, there is a science test on Monday. I have written and attached a study guide. The study guide may look long, but the concepts are simple, and they are ones that we have studied thoroughly in the last few weeks. We will also be continuously reviewing in science class this week.

In math this week, we continue our study of division. We will be examining multiple ways of understanding what it means to divide, using manipulatives to illustrate the concepts. We will be working on the formal names for parts of the division problem and also learn shortcuts to divide round numbers.

In both math and science classes, I am constantly looking for ways to better support my students. One thing that has troubled me is that I cannot always personally help students correct the mistakes they make on assignments. In order to learn, we must learn what our mistakes are and how to correct them. In order to motivate to students to correct their mistakes and learn from them, I am establishing a new procedure for my classes: When a student receives less than a 50% on an assignment, I will enter the grade in my gradebook. However, I will also return the assignment to the student with the words “Try again!” at the top and a checkmark next to items that need to be corrected. Students who return the corrected material will receive full credit for their corrected answers. The only assignments that will not be open for correction will be tests and assignments with true/false type questions where the correct answer is obvious. If a student should happen to receive a lower grade by attempting to correct the assignment, their original grade will stand. Also, the grades on work returned in Friday folders will be final. If an assignment appears in a Friday folder with less than 50%, it will normally be one that the student was given an opportunity to correct.

These are all the notes I have for you for the week! Please contact me with any questions, comments or concerns at rwycklendt@archwaytriviumeast.org.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Wycklendt