If you’re looking for ways to help your child improve his or her writing skills, I highly recommend a book called 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts, which you can purchase though Amazon.com.  Also, you can find wonderful resources at a local teacher store called The Chalkboard.  Located in West Hartford, this store has books, flash cards, learning games, manipulatives, and more.  The staff at The Chalkboard is very knowledgeable and can push you in the right direction!

Report cards will go home tomorrow (Wednesday)!  Everyone excited?  With the report cards, I will enclose my usual letter about how to interpret march report cards.  I’d like to take a moment to expand on two of the bulletpoints in the letter:

• The Developing grade represents a broad range of skills, ranging from early understanding to near mastery.  For this reason, it is important to realize that if your child remains at a “D” across multiple marking periods, they are maintaining consistent growth and are continuing to improve in their skills.  A Developing grade shows that your child is performing on grade level.
• In some skill areas, it is common for students to perform at a certain level during the first marking period, and for their grade to drop in the second.  That’s due to content becoming more challenging, particularly in the second marking period.  This is not out of the ordinary and, in many cases, shows that your child is being appropriately challenged in school.

I’ll be candid:  I dropped a lot of grades this marking period.  Most instances were when an S (Secure) changed to a D (Developing), but there were also instances when a D dropped to a B (Beginning).  I absolutely realize that this will be a distressing thing to see on a report card, so I want to explain why this generally happened.  Those of you who were with me last year may remember my comments that “Third grade is a big transitional year” and “Your child is now learning advanced skills that build upon older concepts.”  In fourth grade, this is even more true.  Third grade math took a lot of old concepts and added new layers to them.  While this is still the case in fourth grade, there are also brand new skills being introduced – particularly in the second marking period.  It is not uncommon for students to experience a challenge with the new material.  Remember, a challenge isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The same is the case with writing skills – my expectations have increased as we’ve learned new skills and practiced new applications of writing, so I am grading with a higher standard in mind.  A drop in grade does not mean that your child’s skills have worsened – just that he or she may not be excelling to the same extent that he or she had in the past.

Of course, each report card situation is unique, and students’ individual grades are based on his or her own performance, so my explanations here will not apply to each and every situation.  If you have questions or concerns, be sure to bring them up when we meet for our conference!

It’s been some time since I’ve had an opportunity to post an update on our site with news about some of the happenings in class, and I apologize for the delay.  What a busy few weeks!  CMTs will be completed in just about 12.5 hours from now, and the kids can all breathe a “sigh” of relief!  I commented to one parent that I’ve never seen a group of kids handle the unavoidable pressure so well.  The kids have approached the mastery tests with grace, composure, and (from what I can tell as an unobtrusive observer) with lots of effort.  I’ve come to expect no less from this group of kids, of course!

But then again, you probably want to hear about more exciting news – like the answer to the ubiquitous question: “Jon, who on earth is taking over for you when you leave in two-and-a-half weeks?!”  I can tell you that thanks are moving forward and that I hope to be able to share news with you in the coming week.  One of my priorities is that I want to meet with my long-term substitute BEFORE sharing the news with you.  This isn’t with the intention of delaying you from getting information.  But, candidly, I know that many of you will have questions about my successor, and I want to do my best to have answers ready for you, rather than giving you a canned response  – something which couldn’t do anything but lower your confidence in the transition process!  But please know that things are going well and that I am VERY confident that you have nothing to worry about!

Back to class news…  It’s interesting to see how the fourth grade team handles CMT preparation differently from what we did last year in third grade.  Not better, not worse – just a different approach.  This year, before each of the major CMT tests (…all of them!) the teachers reviewed general skills with the kids that they would be asked to apply the following day.  While the extra practice may have helped the kids scholastically (and I certainly hope it did), I think the extra review helped them to feel more confident in their own readiness to “attack” the CMTs.  I’m a firm believer in self-fulfilling prophecies, and I think that a student who BELIEVES that he or she will do well is more likely to achieve that goal.  These extra review sessions have pushed our usual curricular lessons to the side, in some instances, so we’ve moved a bit more slowly than we normally do.

Reading is one area where we’ve REALLY taken a break lately.  (I’m referring to specific reading lessons from our anthology program.  Reading SKILLS are, of course, taught throughout the school day.)  That’s why we haven’t had spelling words in two weeks.  We’re starting to return to the anthology and the kids learned some new vocabulary words this morning.

Writing has, in turn, come to the forefront in recent weeks.  It’s a skill the kids need to be able to apply with confidence and ability, and – let’s face it – it’s a skill kids need to apply in the overwhelming majority of the CMT tests (except, perhaps, the cloze-style DRP test, which the kids completed yesterday.)  Last week, we practiced a few writing scenarios based on the made up topic of “Imagine you found a wallet with $1,000,000 in it.  What would you do?”  This let us explore several writing scenarios and what an effective approach would look like.  We brainstormed a list of tips that we called “Moss’s Wisdom for Wonderful Writing.”  (Despite this sounding somewhat show-off-ish on my part, it was, in fact, a list that the kids generated, based on our lessons over the past two years.)  I’ve attached the list at the bottom of this article for those interested in reading it.  Just click on “Read the rest of this entry” and then scroll down.

We are also working on FINALLY finishing the “First Story” project – a wonderful tale that will be the first book I read to Charlie.  It’s several months past my expected “due date” of completion, but I can live with the delay since it’s a result of extra thought, revising, and learning.  I think it’s been a great learning experience for the kids.  Now I just need to get them to hurry up and finish the illustrations so we can be DONE!  (There’s a limit, after all!)

I’m particularly excited with our recent work in math.  In the week before the CMTs, the fourth grade teachers identified a common weakness among students:  probability and mathematical applications.  Math applications is the hardest area of math for the kids because it isn’t a skill unto itself.  Rather, it is a kind of mathematical thinking in which kids need to apply their skills from any of the different areas of math and USE their understanding to solve an elaborate, open-ended story problem.  Math application problems often have multiple steps and require that students keep their logic organized if they are to be successful.  As you can imagine, it’s hard to teach kids to appropriately solve a math problem that could use any skill in any form.  So I instead reviewed with the kids a series of strategies that they can use when working on a math application problem.

Working on probability has just been plain, ol’, fun for me!  It’s odd that I like probability so much since it is based so heavily in fractions, and the kids know that fractions were NEVER my friend growing up.  Perhaps my love of probability comes from the fact that it’s always applicable to a very REAL situation.  (Concrete skills are ALWAYS easier for kids than abstract or theorectical concepts.)  We spent a week talking about probability, and although it left us behind the other classes in beginning unit 7 in math, it let us race through the first several lessons in the new unit since unit 7 teaches (you guessed it!) fractions and probability!  We’re having a lot of fun working through the new skills!

While we’re talking about math units, please allow me to apologize for the excessive delay in getting you the results from the recent math unit assessments.  I got backlogged, and I never got around to sending the data home.  I’m sorry for the delay and will absolutely get you the results this week.  Since I may not be around for the unit 7 test, please know that all the grades at PGS are switching to a new score sheet that looks similar to the ones you receive unit by unit, but this new sheet will save paper by putting units 7-12 all on one page.  (Think back to the math profile sheets that you received last year.  It’s a return to that format, but with the new scoring rubrics that we’ve been using this year in math.)

Science and social studies have been on the back burner lately.  We’ll be resuming both next week.  Social studies isn’t often taught in discrete lessons and is instead integrated into other lessons in reading, writing, and math.  However, you’ll see a permission slip for a field trip going home tomorrow.  We’re going to the Noah Webster House, and the kids will be learning about this Connecticut hero in library class with Mrs. McCabe.

There’s probably more that I can share with you, but it’s getting late, Charlie will probably be up soon, and I have a staff meeting early tomorrow morning.  Have a good evening!

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we worked on two digit long division in which kids divided larger numbers by two digit divisors.  (For example, 12 into 387.)  This was a challenging application of long division, but I was impressed by how well the kids did with the advanced content.  Because the CMTs start tomorrow, I am not going to give an extra homework assignment to practice this skill, but I wanted to provide you with a resource to help your child if he or she seems to need it.  If you would like to review the process we used, this website summarizes the steps we follow.  Remember, we also use the phrase “Does McDonald’s sell cheese burgers?” to remember the steps involved: Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Check, Bring down, and Ask yourself (?).  Hope this helps!

I am sending home new book order catalogs today.  Orders are due by MONDAY, MARCH 8TH.  In addition to the usual Click and Arrow catalogs, I have added a HUMOR catalog.  We have been working on recognizing and analyzing an author’s use of humor lately.  (The graded HOT – higher order thinking – responses that I sent home yesterday about the Stormalong story were essays interpreting the author’s use of humor.)  This can be a great way for you to reinforce the skills we are working on in school.  You can user the HOT questions toward the bottom of the reading skill resources page.

To order online, visit this webpage.

This is a multi-week assignment, so you will have plenty of time!

When you chose your animal on the eNature website, you aught to have saved the Microsoft Word document that you typed your information in.  Look at the questions on the second page.  Go back top the eNature website and look up some information about your animal.  Use that information to answer the questions on the second page of the Word document.  Remember, make sure that you understand the information that you are planning to use to answer the questions. You do NOT need to use any other sources besides eNature; We will do more research in school.

Print out page 2 and bring it to school on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25th.  If you have trouble with this assignment, please see me IN ADVANCE (rather than waiting until the last minute!)  If you need the Microsoft Word document again, you can download it here.

Please be advised that all Jump Rope for Heart collection envelopes are due back to Mr. Feshler by THIS Friday.  If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Feshler directly, at tfeshler@avon.k12.ct.us

Please read this memo for information about our Valentine’s Day celebration on Friday.

Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras Celebration

We did not have time for a spelling pre-test today.  I will try to fit it in tomorrow. Here are this week’s spelling words.

For homework, please access the “Planning Worksheet” (below).  Here are the special directions.

1. Open the Planning Worksheet in Microsoft Word and enter your name, teacher, and room number.
2. Then, follow the directions on the page and choose your animal to research AFTER looking through several choices on the eNature website.
3. Make good choices!  Don’t just pick an animal without looking on the website.  In order to make an INFORMED decision, you need to look at several choices!
4. Save the document on your home computer, because you will need to continue working on it another time!
5. Print out the first page and bring it to school.

DUE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8th

Download the Planning Worksheet here: Planning Worksheet

Over the past few weeks, I have seen a big increase in student difficulty with timeliness – both in their timely completion of homework and in their timely arrival at school.  Please help your child to make sure that he or she is completing his or her homework every night and that the completed assignments make their way into school in the morning.  Click here for a reminder of the Gr. 4 policy on homework completion.  Homework should ALWAYS be recorded in the student’s homework planner.  If he or she has lost his or her planner, please consider buying him or her a new agenda from an office store so that he or she doesn’t need to write assignments on random sheets of paper.

It’s also VERY important that your child arrives to school ON TIME each morning. School starts promptly at 8:50 AM, and students who arrive late are marked tardy. Remember, our morning work is intended to be a review of recently learned material, or a preparation for new learning.  So when your child arrives to school late, he or she is missing important learning opportunities.