November 14, 2011

Science Fair Completion Schedule

This is your copy of due dates to post.

Please plan ahead to visit the Parish Hall on

March 8 to 10 to see you children’s project and celebrate their success.

November 8, 2010

Dear Parents,

It was great meeting with you and your children about their progress in fourth grade. I believe that when children have a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, they can set the goals and make choices to improve. It warmed my heart to see how supportive and caring you were with your children and how proud they were in sharing their progress with you. Your children are very lucky to have you.

In Math last week many of your children mastered their division math facts with 100% accuracy in three minutes. In the beginning of this week we will continue with division facts. The Chapter 6 test will be Wednesday. I am sending home Math textbooks tonight. Please use pages 136 and 137 and the practice test to help your child study.

The St. Joseph schoolwide Science Fair will be March 8 to 10. The thinking skills that your children develop while doing science projects are the same skills that they will use daily throughout their lives: to sense and clarify problems that exist and to find creative solutions to those problems.

The Science Fair Comic Book, an informative science fair story that your children have in their homework folders, summarizes the steps to planning, completing, and presenting a science fair project. We will be working in class to choose good questions, to write hypotheses, to control variables and to write procedures. The actual experiments will be done at home between December 3 and January 21. The display board will be put together at home also; by that time, your children will have already typed all the pieces of information that they will need to place on these boards. I will send these pieces home with directions so that you can help your children put their display boards together.

Behind this letter are the due dates for all of the pieces of this process. Remember that much of this work will be done in class. I will send pieces of the project home for you to discuss with your children, and to sign and return to school. Please guide them and give them the help that they need to do the project on their own.

Last week, we began working on our Science Fair projects by looking at what makes a good question. This week your child will choose their questions. Please help your child with this. Just remember that a good Science project question is one in which you must perform an experiment to find the answer. Later this week your children will have a homework assignment in which they choose their final question. Please sign this assignment if you agree with the question. If not, feel free to change it. It is important that you agree with the question since you will be working at home to help your child test it.

Fourth grade has been asked to help those in need with their Thanksgiving meal by donating canned vegetables. Your children are also asked to bring in a dollar of their own money to go toward the purchase of turkeys. This small action will help your children to truly “SPARCCL” in being Community Oriented.
For our school Thanksgiving celebration on Wednesday, November 24, your child should bring in three boxes of apple juice to share with the rest of the school.

The fourth grade Retreat will be this Friday, November 12 and its theme will be Reconciliation and Forgiveness. If you have not yet turned in your Retreat Letter, please do so TOMORROW. This is a very important part of the retreat and something that your child will cherish. Remember this letter should be about forgiveness for your child’s wrongdoing and/or sorrow for your own wrongdoing in your relationship with your child. Please send it in a sealed envelope with your child’s name to school by TOMORROW.

In order for your children to become more responsible for their homework, I will no longer be checking their assignment books each afternoon to make sure that they have written down all their homework and you no longer need to sign it each night. If you are unsure if your child has written all the homework down, you can always check it out on my website, sjcschool.org/blogs/grade4. Remember this is a tool for you, so please keep on insisting that your child write all of their assignments each day. Together, we can help your children be responsible for their assignment books and homework and be better prepared for 5th grade.

Now that we have reached the end of the quarter and your children have fallen into the rhythm of 4th grade, I would like your feedback regarding the amount of homework. Your child should be spending about an hour of concentrated study each night on homework. Please fill out the attached survey and return it to school with your child by Friday. Thank you for your feedback.

Remember, the second quarter goals that you received at our conference are due tomorrow. If you have any questions or concerns, please drop by, or e-mail me at triciaheis@aol.com.
Sincerely, Tricia Heissenbuttel

———————————————————————————————-

Please place an X on the line across the continuum indicating how you feel regarding the amount of homework that your child receives in fourth grade.

TOO LITTLE JUST RIGHT TOO MUCH

If you have any comments, please write them below.

___________________________________
Name (OPTIONAL)

Science Fair Completion Schedule

This is your copy of due dates to post.

Question (in class)- due Thursday, November 11
Hypothesis(in class)- due Wednesday, November 17
Variables (in class)- dues Tuesday, November 23
Procedure (in class)- due Friday, December 3
TESTING AT HOME (at home)- due December 3 to January 21
Results and Graphs (in class)- due Friday, February 11
Conclusion (in class)- due Wednesday, February 16
DISPLAY BOARD (at home)- due Friday, February 25 to Wednesday, March 2
Science Fair- March 8 to March 10

Please plan ahead to visit the Parish Hall
March 8 to 10 to see you children’s project and celebrate their success.

November 2, 2009

Dear Parents,

This week your children will be coming with you to the conference to talk about what they are proud of and what they think they need to work on to improve in fourth grade.  Your children worked hard last week to prepare themselves to lead this conference.  Each conference is scheduled for 20 minutes.  I hope that this will give all of us, your children, you and me, the time that we need to talk.  I have told your children that at the end of the conference I will ask you if there is anything that you would like to talk about privately.  For the far majority of the students, this will not be necessary, but since issues do arise that adults need to talk about without the children present, we will have the opportunity if need be.

We are continuing to learn about the Ten Commandments and Reconciliation in Religion. Reconciliation is the theme of our class retreat which is on Friday, November 13.  If you have not already sent your retreat letter to school, please do so by Friday. This letter should be about forgiveness for your child’s wrongdoing and/or sorrow for your own wrongdoing in your relationship with your child.  Please send it in a sealed envelope with your child’s name to school.  This is a very important part of the retreat and something that your child will cherish.  Since this is a bit of a surprise for your children and I cannot spoil it by having them write it in their assignment book, it is very important that you take care of this promptly.  Thank you very much.

Your child also has their permission slip for the retreat today.  Please return it by Friday.  We need six volunteers to lead small groups of 4^th graders through some activities, and we will need a few more parents to drive us to Wilson Park.  It is a very special day that I am sure many of you would enjoy being a part of so please considering volunteering.  Your children should wear their uniforms and bring a bag lunch to school this day.  Your child is also asked to bring a special, healthy treat to share with a secret buddy.

Last week in Religion your children finished learning about the last four Commandments.  The first three Commandments teach us how to strengthen our relationship with God, while the last seven Commandments teach us how to live in love and peace with each other.  This week we will continue to review and study them, and on Thursday we will have a test on them.  Your children will be expected to write all Ten Commandments from memory but will not have to spell all the words correctly.

The St. Joseph schoolwide Science Fair will be March 11 to 13.  The thinking skills that your children develop while doing science projects are the same skills that they will use daily throughout their lives: to sense and clarify problems that exist and to find creative solutions to those problems.

The Science Fair Comic Book, an informative science fair story that your children have in their homework folders, summarizes the steps to planning, completing, and presenting a science fair project.  We will be working in class to choose good questions, to write hypotheses, to control variables and to write procedures.  The actual experiments will be done at home between November 26 and January 30.  The display board will be put together at home also; by that time, your children will have already typed all the pieces of information that they will need to place on these boards.  I will send these pieces home with directions so that you can help your children put their display boards together.

Behind this letter are the due dates for all of the pieces of this process.  Remember that much of this work will be done in class.  I will send pieces of the project home for you to discuss with your children, and to sign and return to school. Please guide them and give them the help that they need to do the project on their own.

Last week almost all of your children reached their goal of mastering 80 division problems in 3 minutes.  If your child has not mastered these yet, please continue to work with him or her on division facts.  We will be learning how to solve double and triple digit multiplication and division problems in December and January, and these facts need to be automatic so that your children can master the more difficult skills involved in these problems. On Wednesday your children will have their chapter 7 Math test.  Please use pages 156 to 158 and the practice test to help your child study.

This week we will begin a new Math unit on Algebra and Functions.  There is a letter behind this one describing how you can help your child at home with these difficult concepts.  In Social Studies we learned about California’s earliest inhabitants.

If you have any questions please drop by the classroom, call me at school or email me at triciaheis@aol.com.  Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Tricia Heissenbuttel

Science Fair Completion Schedule

This is your copy of due dates to post.

Please plan ahead to visit the Parish Hall

March 9 to 11 to see you children’s project and celebrate their success.