Dear Parents,
Welcome to fourth grade! As your child’s teacher, I am looking forward to an exciting and rewarding year together. The first week of school can seem very hectic and eventful. Often children feel a bit apprehensive about starting a new grade, being in a new class and getting to know a new teacher. Please know these feelings will disappear as we get to know each other better. Reassure your child that this is a fun time of learning and discovery.
I hope you had a wonderful summer. I can’t wait to hear about all your family’s summer adventures. As for me, I spent the summer relaxing with family and friends, traveling to New York and South Carolina, hanging out with my two children at the beach, driving kids to the Norris Theatre Summer Camp, building forts, swimming, creating stop-motion movies, designing robots, repurposing cardboard boxes, swimming, and stepping on, er, I mean, playing with Legos! What more could a person want?
I feel very fortunate to be a part of the Cornerstone family, and I am looking forward to a wonderful school year.
A Bit about Me
I began my career in education as a substitute teacher in 1991. After graduate school, I taught 5th grade for nine years and 7th and 8th grade English and drama for the next two years. I have also worked at Claremont Graduate University as an advisor for new teachers. I have been teaching fourth grade at Cornerstone since 2004. I love this age! Before teaching, I worked at a newspaper and as a free-lance manuscript editor.
Teaching Parents
A clipboard with a list of to-dos will be on the parent table that is located near the side white board. Morning TPs will need to line up with students outside on their numbers to help get them quiet and ready to come in to the classroom before school and after recess or lunch. In class, I encourage active participation with students while they are working on assignments. This may require you to listen to the lesson and the directions I have given. Feel free to quietly redirect students to focus on the task-at-hand. I will discuss parent responsibilities in more detail at our first in-service in September.
Homework Expectations
I believe that homework needs to be meaningful and worthy of our valuable time. It has been my goal for the last few years to DECREASE homework for fourth grade students to allow for the myriad of after school activities, programs, and sports in our busy lives, not to mention time to relax, play, and spend time with family or friends.
This year, homework will consist of daily reading, instrument practice, unfinished class work, and, when needed, math practice. Students will also be given long-term projects, typing of written assignments, and occasional science, or social studies homework. At other times, we will offer optional math practice online on sites such as Think Central, Reflex Math as well as other activities.
Your child’s planner/agenda should be coming home nightly. At the end of every day we will write down our homework assignments in the planner/agenda and get anything we need out of our desks. There will be a designated spot in your child’s multi-pocket folder for all homework that needs to be returned the next day. In addition, each child is required to check Edlio (new website!) for assignments each Monday starting the second week of school.
Please help your child stay organized and check folders and backpacks often. If a student is absent, he or she is responsible for getting the missed assignments and turning them in to me. Please do not call or come in to get your child’s missing work. Leave that responsibility to your child.
Friday Folders
Your child’s weekly work and other important notices will be sent home in his or her Friday folder. Please review and discuss your child’s work with him or her. Please have your child return the empty folder on Mondays. Do not include notes to me in the Friday Folder.
Grading Marks
Writing assignments and projects will usually have a rubric (grading guide) to describe the strengths and needs of the completed work.
I will also use grading marks such as %, number correct, and/or these symbols:
++ = Above and beyond!
+ = Great! (Most or all correct)
√ = Average (Completed the work; many correct)
√- = Needs improvement (Did not understand the concept or directions; incomplete)
If you think there is a mistake on the work, discuss this with your child. Your child should be the one to have a conversation with me regarding any mistakes in grading.
My Philosophy
One of the most thoroughly researched findings in social psychology is that the more you reward someone for doing something, the less interest that person will tend to have in whatever he or she was rewarded to do. (Alfie Kohn’s books Beyond Discipline and Punished by Rewards explain many of these ideas.) I do my best not to give out rewards (candy, etc.) to entice students to behave properly. As a parent, I now realize how HARD it is to live up to that ideal. I also realize this may be difficult for some students, but as the year progresses it will get easier for them. Rather than students asking, "What do you want me to do, and what will I get for doing it?" I want them to ask "What kind of person do I want to be?" or "What kind of classroom do we want to have?"
In place of rewards, I try to implement the three C’s: content, community, and choice.
Content: The questions I ask myself are, “Am I using dynamic teaching methods that reach a variety of learning modalities?” "Has the child been given something to do worth learning?"
Community: I use cooperative learning techniques and try to help students feel part of a safe environment in which they feel free to ask for help, and in which they come to care about one another.
Choice: I try to make sure that students are asked to think about what they are doing and how and why. People learn to make good choices not by following directions but by actually making choices.
Class Climate
Class meetings will be utilized to deal with the challenges of growing up. I like to look at problems and mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning. This is a difficult attitude to cultivate, but it can be done if we are all modeling it. We will discuss this more at our first in-service.
Thank you for your time and cooperation. I hope that this answers many of your questions about fourth grade and our classroom. I look forward to seeing you in the classroom and at the first parent in-service. If you have any other questions please feel free to send a note or call me at (310) 378-0324 ext. 212, or send an email to .
Sincerely,
Stacy Upton