You’re in fourth grade now!
Being a bigger kid
comes with some increased responsibilities though. You need to be responsible
for your work and your actions. It’s important that you develop these
responsibilities because you will need them throughout your entire school
career. This packet will give you some important information that you will need
to make the year successful.
Assignment
Books Each day, before leaving school, you will be
responsible for writing all of your homework assignments in your assignment
book. You are also responsible for having one of your parents initial your
assignment book each night. If you forget your assignment book, you can write
down the work you did on a piece of paper and have that initialed. It will
count just the same!
Homework You
will receive homework almost every night. It is expected that it will be done.
If you make up your mind to concentrate and get it done, it shouldn’t take you
long. There will also be times during school where you might be able to get
some of your homework taken care of if you use your time wisely.
Rules We
will discuss our class rules during our first few days of school. You will be
expected to follow these rules and behave appropriately at school. Misbehaviors
will result in consequences, such as loss of recess, loss of tickets, writing
apologies, or filling out “think sheets”. Good behavior will be rewarded. In
real life, if people do what they need to do at their jobs, they receive paychecks,
rewards, and bonuses. School is your job. If you do a good job, you will earn a
reward. Which leads me to tickets…
Tickets You
will earn one ticket for each day you stay on green, and have your homework
completed. There are also opportunities to earn extra tickets. You may purchase items from me with your
tickets on reading test days; or you may choose to save your tickets for our quarterly
auction. Some of the items you can purchase include mechanical pencils, TY
Teenie Beanies, homework passes and more! But be warned, you can also lose
tickets. Just like in real life, where you can be fined for not obeying the
law, not following the rules can result in classroom fines payable with your tickets.
Tallies Along with tickets, our class can also earn
tallies. Tallies are a special reward earned as a class. You have several
chances to earn tallies each day. You can earn a tally each time the class
walks quietly in the hallway. You can also earn tallies by receiving good reports
from the teachers of your specials or a substitute teacher. If our class gets a
compliment in the hall for our good behavior, then you get double tallies!!
Tallies are important because they can be used to “buy back” any minutes lost
from recess. They accumulate, and will continue to grow until you decide to
cash them in as a class. They are saved towards special class rewards, such as
a “no shoes” afternoon, extra recess, or even a popcorn and movie party!
Newsletter You
will receive a weekly newsletter so that you can share with your parents what
you are doing in school that week. The newsletter will contain important dates
that you need to remember. The newsletter will also include your spelling and
vocabulary words-just in case you forget your list at school.
Snack: I will allow small mid- morning snacks
to be brought in. I will not be supplying snacks. We won’t be stopping our work
to have snack; your snack should be something that you can eat at your desk,
while you are working. It should not be anything messy; just a little something
to tide you over until lunch. Healthy snacks are encouraged.
Supplies: We
have some community glue sticks, markers, colored pencils, and scissors.
Everyone may use these. If you would like to bring your own in, that is OK too;
but we have limited desk space. If you would like to bring a box of colored
pencils or markers to contribute to our community supply, that would be great! I will loan each child a pencil box. I need these back at the end of the year, so you will need to take good care of them. If you would rather purchase your own, that is OK too.
The only items you
will absolutely need will be 3 book covers (If you decide to get the stretchy
fabric book covers, please make sure they are jumbo size), and 4 folders. One
folder will be for Reading/Language Arts, one for writing, one for Social
Studies, and one will be for Science.
Switching
Classes: You will have the
opportunity to work with other teachers too! Mrs. Lineman will teach you Social
Studies and Pennsylvania. I will teach Science to her class when you are with her. We also switch for math, but we won't be starting that right away.
We will be doing
so many fun things this year!
I’m very excited
to start the new school year! Together, we can make it wonderful!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Hook