If your child is absent...
Please e-mail or call the office by 8:00. Work and books will be gathered and sent home if I know who to send it with. Students will typically have 1 day to turn in absent work for every day the student is ill.
If your child is going to be absent due to a trip...
Every effort will be made to gather work before the child leaves if I know about the absence at least a couple days in advance. Tests that will be given while the student is gone should be taken before leaving if possible. Please understand that as teachers we don't always know what we will be doing weeks - or even days - in advance. I do ask that if work is received before leaving that every effort be made to have that completed upon returning to school. Please let Mrs. Lowry and the office know about trips at least a day in advance.
Birthdays
Parents are welcome to send in birthday treats for their child's birthday. If your child has a summer birthday feel free to send in a treat on their half birthday or in May. To help make handing out treats a little easier please send in treats that are individually wrapped and ready to distribute. If you think the treat needs a napkin or plate send those in as well. There are 32 students in our classroom. Please refrain from sending any treats in with peanuts. Treats are generally distributed at the end of the school day.
Field Trips
We will go to the Mormon Trail Center in December.
We will also be going to Lincoln sometime in April or May. The date for this trip is not yet determined. Due to limited space I will ask for people interested in chaperoning when we're close to going. If more people volunteer than are needed, names will be drawn.
In order to be a chaperone on a field trip, you must be safe environment trained.
Math Facts
Fourth graders are expected to master addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts and be able to complete 40 in 1 minute. We use Rocket Math in our classroom to assess this.
Should I clean out my child's accordion file?
NO! Fourth graders are learning to be responsible for their own work. If I had a dollar for every student who blamed their parents for not having a homework assignment...well, I think you see where I'm going with this. There are some papers that students are supposed to keep for various reasons. Please help them learn this responsibility.
How much homework is expected in 4th grade?
How much homework a student has varies from child to child. A good rule of thumb is about 10 minutes per grade level, so 4th grade=40 minutes. This 40 minutes does not include studying for tests, practicing math facts, reading, or working on projects. You may find your child never has homework. I usually do not give actual homework. The work students come home with is the work they couldn't complete in the given class time. If you are finding your child has more than an hour every day and this is unusual for them, please contact me so we can discuss what is going on.