I don't like assigning a lot of homework. I believe kids should have the chance to be kids! I also know from personal experience that trying to get your kids to do a lot of homework every evening can be more stressful for the parents than for the kids. That being said, there are two very important things I want students to do EVERY DAY:
First, I want them to read! I don't assign any certain number of minutes--it could be five minutes or five hours, and as long as they are reading because they enjoy it, great!
Second, they need to learn their math facts very well. They should be able to rattle them off very quickly. This will help the learning process go much more smoothly for them as they learn new math concepts. To that end, they should bring home a math facts practice sheet every day, and work on it for about ten minutes. If the ten minutes are up and they haven't finished the sheet, that's okay! They can continue working on it the next day.
Other than those two things, there shouldn't be a lot of homework they will have. We will have the occasional larger project we are working on, and if they don't finish it in class, they may need to take it home to finish it, but I don't anticipate that happening a lot during the year.
Most quizzes are scored on a proficiency scale. A score of 3 is the target, meaning a student has shown to be proficient in the skill or content in the quiz. If a student shows mastery above proficiency, they can receive up to a 4. Students not quite achieving proficiency might receive a 2, and students showing little or no proficiency may receive a 1.
Typically, scores received on classroom quizzes are not permanent; if a student would like to give a quiz a second try to improve their score, it is their responsibility to set up a time with me to retake the quiz. They can do this as many times as they want to before the term in which the quiz was assigned ends. Students may have to wait until after a "flex" time ends before retaking a quiz. Flex time is where students go to one of the other fourth grade teachers' classes for a quick review lesson on certain concepts, at the end of which time, quizzes are reassigned to everyone in the flex group.