Dear Families,
We (our entire 4th Grade team) are thrilled to welcome you and your child to 4th grade! We're looking forward to an exciting year of learning and growth. Your support at home is crucial for your child's success. We kindly ask that you encourage daily reading at home, ensure your child gets enough rest each night, and limit screen time.
Our teaching team is excited to announce that we will be departmentalized this year to best serve all our learners- meaning, your child will learn math guided by Ms. Turzinski, literacy with Ms. Higley, and science/social studies/literacy and math enrichment with Mrs. P. The 3 sections will rotate between classrooms- getting to experience a variety of learning environments. This structure is necessary in 4th grade due to the rigor of the content and materials-based lessons. Classroom blocks will rotate between teachers for 90 minutes each day (with regular breaks and movement opportunities within each block). Lessons will focus on growing learner engagement, personalized material, and mastering/extending/enriching our rich content. Mr. Ketterhagen (Mr. K to the kids) joins our team as a Special Education instructor, Mrs. Giesert as our Title math interventionist, and Mrs. Stefonek as our Title reading interventionist.
Homeroom teachers will still conduct morning meeting, host Monday extended homeroom time, and provide soft endings- which will focus on building strong, routine and procedure-based expectations for ALL learners. We have high expectations in 4th Grade and are so excited to help your child grow! Homeroom teachers will continue to be the primary source of contact for guardians. The weekly schedule will be available at Open House. All communication with teachers will be done through the ROOMS app due to district policy.
This is our 2nd year instructing Bridges in Mathematics. Bridges is a hands-on program that helps students understand math concepts deeply. It uses visual models and real-world problems to make math more engaging and meaningful for students. There will be games and optional practice sheets sent home for additional support and are an excellent opportunity to practice numeracy skills with your child!
Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) will once again be our literacy program and our team is SO EXCITED for your student to learn about topics such as Medieval Times and the American Revolution! Unit 1 includes our soft-landing into reading and writing Personal Narratives. Students will focus on telling a story using descriptive details. Please check out our programming tab to see this and other topics your child will study this year.
Project Lead The Way helps us instruct our students in thinking like engineers and experiencing the scientific inquiry process in hands on lessons that focus on 3 knowledge building activities, a culminating project, and a real-world problem. New this year is our "Energy Exploration" module. Geology, plate tectonics, and the rock cycle will be explored as well as the energy cycle, refraction and reflection of light and sound waves, and a coding module. Students will focus on developing math and literacy skills to enforce their inquiry process. Engineering notebooks (graph paper notebooks) will be used extensively.
Lastly, please remember to check your child's Orange Folder daily. This folder is our main way of communicating with you about school events, assignments, and your child's progress. Each week, there will be a reading passage for students to practice reading grade level text- please support them in practicing and growing their skills! These extra activities can help reinforce what we're learning in class and make learning fun at home!
Please use the Osseo Fairchild Thunder App to communicate using ROOMS. Call the office 715-597-3196 as a back up.
We're excited to partner with you this year to help your child grow and succeed in 4th grade. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
Your Teachers,
Ms. Higley, Mrs. P, and Ms. Turzinski,
