Alcorn School District Learning Goals 

Goal 1  Read with comprehension, write with skill, and communicate effectively and

           responsibly in a variety of ways and settings. 

 

 

Goal 2 Know and apply the core concepts and principles of mathematics; social,

          physical, and life sciences; civics and history; geography; arts; and health and

          fitness. 

 

 

Goal 3 Think analytically, logically, and creatively, and to integrate   experience and

           knowledge to form reasoned judgments and solve problems; and  

 

 

Goal 4 Understand the importance of work and how performance, effort, and decision

          directly affect educational and career opportunities. 

 

 

                What Parents Can Do To Support the Learning Process:

1. Prepare your children to learn. Let them know that school and learning are important and that parents are important partners.
2. Talk often about what is happening in school. Ask specific questions about schoolwork, teachers, and activities.
3. Attend events at your child’s school. Back-to-school events, parent/teacher conferences, and other activities give parents a chance to get know the teacher and to support their students.
4. Create a good learning environment at home. Support and reinforce what is being taught in the classroom. Ask questions that may have more than one answer. Provide supervision for the completion of homework assignments.
5. Visit community resources including libraries and museums. Explore cultural events. Take advantage of varied learning opportunities in the community.
6. Set high expectations and praise children often.
7. Limit television and video games.
8. Be involved in your school by volunteering or assisting teachers in other ways.
9. Allow your child to see you read, write, and use mathematics for pleasure as well as necessity.
10. Read with and to your child daily, no matter his/her age.

 

EXTRA HELPS FOR EACH GRADE:   (Click On the Grade Link Below)

 

Kindergarten            First Grade            Second Grade            Third Grade            Fourth Grade 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kindergarten 

                           Reading/Language Arts

 

Develop sight word recognition                                        Identify parts of a book

Left/Right Progression                                                    Classify (shape, color, size and number)

Identify upper and lower case letters                               Identify parts of a book

Associate letters with sound                                            Rhyme words

Recognize story elements                                               Sequence events

Identify parts of a book                                                  Develop speaking and listening skills 

 

 

Reading

Ways Parent can Help 
 

• Read to your child as often as you can.

·         Select books that use repetition to capture the rhythm of language, such as Dr. Seuss books, nursery rhymes and songs.

• Talk about books you read and the people, things, and animals in them.
• Make regular library visits a part of your family routine.

·         Encourage your child to choose the books you read together, and help your child to tell the story from pictures in the book.

·         Hold the book so the child can see the pictures and words.

·         Let your child see you and other members of the family enjoying reading regularly.

·         Talk together about books your child reads at school.

·         Provide a place for books in all rooms.

·         Respond enthusiastically to early attempts at reading.

·         Talk about everyday print, e.g., “We are going in here to get a hamburger. See the sign, it says…”

·         Play with magnetic letters, and help your child to identify letter names and words that begin with the sound the letter makes.

·         Ask your child if the events in a story could happen in real life.

·         Provide and read together a variety of children’s magazines or other nonfiction reading materials.

 

 

 

Writing-K 

We teach and assess the Six Traits of writing in our classrooms. 

The Traits are:

Ideas: Does the massage make sense and are there details?

Organization: Is there a beginning and ending? Does the sequencing make sense?

Voice: Does the writing have personality and pizzazz? Does it show individuality?

Word Choice: Are words used correctly? Are new words attempted? Are lively verbs used?

Sentence Fluency: Do the sentences hang together? Do they have a rhythm and flow?

Conventions: Are capitals, punctuation, and readable spelling used? These should be appropriate to the child’s developmental level, i.e., depending on whether she/he is a kindergartener or third grader. 

Writing

Ways Parents can Help 

·         Play with language by singing, pointing out signs, rhyming words, and talking about words/letters

·         Practice forming letters. Have your child write his/her (first and last) name as well as the names of some family and friends.

·         Have your child tell and illustrate a story. Make it into a book together.

·         Listen attentively as our child reads his/her own writing to you.

·         Encourage even the youngest writers to “read” their “writing” aloud, even if it is scribbles, drawings, or strings of letters. Talk together about the story.

·         Read, read, read with your child every day. The connection between reading and writing is powerful!

·         Share letters, greeting cards, and notes with your child.

·         Provide a print rich environment in your home with a variety of magazine subscriptions, books, maps, manuals, e-mail, and cookbooks.

·         Share different types of literature with your child, (fairy tales, poetry, family favorite, rhyming books), and other books that interest your child.

·         Encourage your child to “write” notes, letters, lists, etc., using pictures and words.

·         Plan a piece of writing together. Ask questions like, “How should we begin? What should we ay?”

·         Write a story together, then decide how to change it to make it better, add more details, etc., Use labels, sign, and captions.

·         Provide writing materials of all kinds, colors, textures, and sizes: pens, pencils, felt tip pens, calligraphy pens, post-its—whatever will invite the exploration of writing in original, colorful ways.

·         Point out capital letters at the beginnings of sentences and punctuation at the ends of sentences.

·         Encourage use of complete sentences.

·         Help your child use word lists or charts to find and check known words.

·         Talk about a piece of writing and what you each like about it; you an use stories, letters, or both when you read together.

 

Math-K 

Recognize and count numbers to 31                                             Math facts to 18; adding and subtracting

Number meaning and value                                                        Patterns    

Introduction of place value                                                          Shapes

Mathematical vocabulary                                                            Measuring

Graphing/reading a graph                                                           Tally

Money recognition and value                                                       Identify U.S. coins by name and value

Estimation                                                              

Ways Parents can Help 

• Demonstrate the relationship of addition and subtraction.
• Establish one to one correspondence in counting objects.
• Read together math boos, such as Anno’s Counting House by Mitsumasa Anno, and What Comes in 2’s, 3’, & 4’s, by Susanne Aker.
• Use the words ‘longer’, ‘shorter’, ‘heavier’, and ‘lighter’ to compare objects.
• Measure various objects by using non-standard units (hands, feet, pencil, pieces of cereal…not in inches, yards, etc.)
• Compare size of objects to parts of the body, (e.g., longer or shorter than our feet, wider or narrower than our hand span).
• Describe and compare vocabulary such as corners, curves, inside, outside, right, left, below, and above.
• Look for things in the home and environment that are shaped like a square, triangle, and circle.
• Recognize and copy patterns using sounds, objects and symbols.
• Play a “counting on” game with pennies. Place a pile of ten pennies beside an empty container. Put three pennies in the container, then one by one, add more pennies. Invite your child to count silently. Stop whenever you wish and ask questions like, “How many pennies are in the container now?” “How many if one is taken away?” Play again starting with a different number of pennies.
• Recognize patterns in everyday situations.
• Predict results.
• Recognize and copy patterns using sounds objects and symbols.
• Use physical objects and numbers to show equal and unequal.
• Organize information to solve a problem.
• Predict results.
• Play games together such as dominos and Chinese Checkers to assist in creating/using patterns.
• Create opportunities to work together to solve problems. Examples of situations are:

·         setting the table for the family plus 2 guests.

·         choosing the best sized bowl for the leftovers.

·         tidying up the cupboard by arranging all the boxes from tallest to shortest.

·         measuring baking or cooking ingredients.

• Sort and classify various objects.
• Recognize mathematical patterns in a variety of objects (leaves, trees, pictures, etc.).

 

 

 First Grade

Reading/Language Arts 

Phonics skills

- use letter/sound knowledge to decode written English  

- read words with several syllables

- read aloud with fluency and comprehension at grade level

-recognize features of a sentence (use of capitalization, end punctuation)

 Spelling

- recognize there are correct spellings for words

-use correct spelling of appropriate high-frequency words

Literature  

-elements of a story

-recognize common high frequency words by sight

           -sequencing

-make predictions

-basics of poetry  (rhyming/rhythm of language) 

Reading

Ways Parents can Help 

• Read to your child every day. Ask questions about the story as you read and discuss what you a re reading. Read fiction and non-fiction.
• When reading with your child, point to the words as you read in order to teach tracking skills.
• Select books that use repetition to capture the rhythm of language, such as Dr. Seuss books.
• Provide opportunities for your child to do word hunts: “How many things can you find in the story that begin with ‘b’”?
• Regularly spend time talking about the meaning of stories. Read and retell the story together.
• Challenge your child to make prediction comments about a book before beginning to read or during the story.
• Turn waiting time into reading time. While sitting in the doctor’s office or waiting for some other appointment, read a book to you child.
• Provide a place for books in all rooms for your child to freely explore different types of books. Challenge your child to find and read with you a different type of book every day. Create a home library for your child.
• Leave notes around the house, under your child’s pillow, or in his/her lunch box for him/her to see different uses of printed words in everyday life.
• Provide and read children’s magazines and other nonfiction reading materials together (e.g., Sesame Street, Lady Bug, Highlights, Ranger Rick.)
• Make regular library visits a part of your family routine and discuss with your child why he/she chose a particular book.
• Reinforce the importance of reading by letting your child see you and other members of the family enjoy reading on a regular basis.
• Provide opportunities for your child to play rhyming games and have conversations with you to build his/her language skills.
• Encourage your child to help you with grocery lists, thank you cards, and entering names in address books.
• While grocery shopping, ask you child to find familiar words on signs and products displays. Discuss unfamiliar words.
• Remember, when a child is reading, if he/she stumbles over five or more words on a page, the book may be too hard to read alone.
• Make or purchase cards with the 26 letters of the alphabet written on them and encourage your child to form words and also make sentences to read.
• Make notes of maps and diagrams in his or her books.
• Encourage your child to explain information on the cover, title page, and in the glossary.

 

Writing-1^st  

We teach and assess the Six Traits of Writing in our classrooms. See the kindergarten list for an explanation of the Six Traits. 

Writes simple accounts with some elaboration                                          Writes legibly

Sequences two or three events or items of information                              Forms letters correctly

Shows attention to beginning middle, and end                               Writes independently

Writes in complete sentences                                                                  Writes in a variety of forms

Makes some revisions to own work                                                         Shows interest in improving skills 

Ways Parents can Help 

• Encourage your child to create a photo album or scrapbook representing “A Year in the Life of…” dictated by your child.
• When receiving letters and notes from friends and family members share them with your child and encourage him/her to guess who wrote them.
• Provide an alphabet strip with upper and lower case letters for your child to use when writing. This could be made or bought at a children’s book store.
• Encourage writing by letting your child see you write regularly with enjoyment and for communication with others.
• Regularly play word games with your child, such as find words that mean the same, rhyming games, opposites, or “I spy” (“I spy something huge”).
• Provide different types of writing for your child to explore such as songs, rhymes, letters, question and answer texts, greeting cards, instructions, etc.
• Challenge your child to write a story with you. Your child can help you write as you both dictate the story.
• Encourage your child to “read” his/her “writing” aloud, even if it is scribbles, drawings, or strings of letters and words. Provide a journal for your child to regularly write in and talk about the stories together.
• When you are working with a child on his/her writing, focus on his/her ideas and content first, saving the editing until the ideas are clear, complete and focused.
• Discuss with your child a piece of writing and what you both liked and disliked about it. Such writings could be stories, letters, and books you have read together.
• In your child’s writings, you should always look for what is done well and encourage your child to write by praising his/her writing. Focus on what your child can do and celebrate those early steps to encourage positive writing skills.

 
 

Math 1^st  

Addition/subtraction facts 0-20                                        Introduce addition/subtraction of tens, ones

Introduce fractions                                                                     Measurement

Sample geometry                                                                       Money Concepts

Patterns                                                                                    Time 

Math

Ways Parents can Help 

• Pick a number and have you child find different pairs of numbers that can be added or subtracted from the number you picked. “How many ways can we make 9?” (5+4, 7+2, 6+3, 10-1, 12-3, etc.)
• Count forward and backward and read and write numbers to 100.
• Work with your child to draw clocks that show the time to get up, go to school, eat lunch, go to bed, and other household times that can be placed around the house.
• Use the calendar together to discuss upcoming or past events and determine how many days today is from those dates.
• Encourage your child to estimate and measure items in your household using nonstandard units. “How many shoes long is the kitchen floor?”
• Provide opportunities for you child to use real or play money such as creating a make believe store where your child can practice making change and buying items, express value using cent notation.
• Have your child find objects around the house, when driving to the store, or walking around the neighborhood that are shaped like circles, squares, triangles, parallelograms and rectangles.
• Ask your child to estimate (guess) objects or answers. Discuss the reasonableness of answers.
• Regular read math books with your child such as Math Curse, by Jon Scieszka and One Hundred Monkeys, by Daniel Solomon Cutler.
• Provide opportunities to play math games with your child, such as dominoes, Monopoly or Chinese checkers.
• Regularly create story problems to solve, such as, “You have ten cookies and you give three cookies to your brother, and I give you 5 cookies, how many cookies do you have total? Ask and listen to your child to explain how he/she would go about solving the problem and ask questions like “What do you have to figure out?” “How will you get started?” “What do you already know?”
• Predict events that are more or less likely to occur.
• Encourage use of a variety of strategies to solve problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 Second Grade

Reading/Language Arts 

Read, memorize, and recite poetry                                  Read aloud with fluency and comprehension at grade level

Utilize phonics     

Reading

Ways Parents can Help  

• Continue to read to your child as often as you can everyday. Ask questions about the story as you read and discuss what you are reading. Include fiction and non-fiction.
• Have your child read a cereal box and discover a world on wonderful storytelling opportunities.
• When reading with you child, have him/her predict what will happen next in a story and then read together to find out.
• Provide an opportunity to learn new words when reading by making a family list of new and interesting words. Share with your child the different ways you pronounce and use these words.
• Encourage your child to regularly practice using clues from a story such as pictures, to figure out unknown words and ask questions about a story as you read.
• Discuss, while reading with your child, about whether the material read is real or pretend and how you know. Compare the characters with real people you know or see on television.
• Assist your child in using table of contents and index to locate information.
• With your child use and research many sources at a local library or home for answers to questions your child may have (manuals, magazines, dictionaries, maps, phone books).
• Make use of dictionaries and glossaries to check meaning and spelling.
• Make regular library visits a part of your family routine and discuss with your child why he/she chose a particular book. Create a home library for your child.
• Help your child to make time for reading for pleasure.
• Provide books from other cultures, lands and times available in a library or at home. Discuss cultural differences and similarities between books.
• When traveling, encourage your child to read street signs, billboards and store signs.
• Reinforce the importance of reading by letting your child see you and other members of the family enjoy reading on a regular basis.
• If your child makes a mistake while reading aloud, allow time for self-correction and then gently explain and correct mistakes. Help your child to read aloud with expression.
• Remember, when a child is reading, if he/she stumbles over five or more words on a page, the book may be too hard to read alone.
• Encourage your child to talk with you about reading goals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing 2^nd  

We teach and assess the Six Traits of Writing in our classrooms. See the Kindergarten list for an explanation of the Six Traits. 

 

Writing

Ways Parents can Help 

• Encourage your child to write in a variety of ways, such as question and answer. Also have your child write notes to tell you where he/she is going when he/she goes out to play with friends.
• Encourage writing by letting your child see you write regularly with enjoyment and for communication with others.
• Encourage your child to write letters to develop a sense of voice, audience, and purpose to writing. These letters could be to family members, friends, celebrities, heroes, teachers, etc. let your child send the letter to receive a response. Responses will encourage more writing from your child.
• Provide different types of literature for your child, such as fairy tales, poetry, folk tales, rhyming books, non-fiction and other books that interest your child and family; let your child freely explore these books.
• Encourage your child to try out descriptive words (adjectives and adverbs) in his/her writing.
• When your child is writing, ask questions, listen, and talk together about the writing instead of writing for your child. Your child needs to do the drafting, revising, and editing with you as the coach on the sidelines.
• Make a collection of your child’s favorite writings in a folder or book, and read them together regularly to encourage more writing.
• Discuss with your child his/her writing, what he/she likes or dislikes about it, and how he/she can improve his/her writing.
• Provide highlighting pens, scissors, and glue or tape to encourage your child to revise his/her work. This will help your child add, delete, cut apart, and put together his/her ideas in different ways and gain clear, complete and focused ideas.
• In your child’s writings, you should always look for what is done well and encourage your child to write by praising his/her writing. Focus on what your child can do and celebrate those early steps to encourage positive writing skills.

   

Math 2^nd  

Addition and subtraction (2-digit adding & subtracting with regrouping by the end of Grade 2)  

Telling Time                                                                                Numbers to 1,000

Fractions 1/2, 1/4, 1/3                                                                Reading graphs & charts    

Money 
 

 

 

 

Math

Ways Parents can Help 

• Have your child find things to count. As your child counts, have him/her make groups of 2’s, 5’s, or 10’s with the items and then count by 2’s, 5’s, or 10’s together.
• Have your child count, compare, and order whole numbers to 1000.
• Have your child practice one number fact-family a day (7+8=15, 8+7=15, 15-8=7, 15-7=8).
• Pick a number and have your child find different pairs of numbers that can be added to or subtracted from that number. How many ways can we make 28? (28=20=8, 19+9, 15+13, 24+4, 28-0, 32-4, etc.)
• Ask your child questions about coins and their values. “How many different ways can you make change for a dollar?” “Can you express that in writing?”
• With your child look for shapes in his/her environment tat can be identified by name. Windowpanes might be rectangles, balls might be spheres, and tables might be squares.
• Look for opportunities to measure and estimate area, perimeter, length, weight, time, and temperature.
• Provide opportunities to measure and estimate area, perimeter length, weight, time, and temperature.
• Provide opportunities to play math games with your child, such as dominoes, Monopoly or Chinese checkers.
• Regularly read math books with your child, such as, The Teacher Who Could Not Count, by Craig McKee and Margaret Holland, and How The Second Grade Got $8,205.50…, by Nathan Zimelman.
• Have your child cut a pizza into equal pieces, count the pieces, and then describe the pieces with their fraction names such as, “There are four pieces so one piece would equal 1/4^th of the whole.” (Focus on halves, thirds and fourths).
• Help your child to identify halves, thirds, and fourths, of objects and sets of objects.
• Talk about how mathematics is used in everyday life. Have your child provide examples.
• Provide additional practice with + and – facts to 18.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third Grade 

Reading 

Read chapter books

Write book reports using the following terms: main characters, setting, problem, plot, solution, and summary 

Ways Parents can Help 

• Continue to read to your child as often as you can every day. Think and talk about what the author intended.
• Have your child summarize orally and in writing what he/she has read.
• Provide opportunities to play word games with your child. Describe a familiar object using only adjectives (cold, angular, frosty, etc.) Can you identify the item? (Ice cubes). The game Scrabble helps to build vocabulary and improve spelling.
• Provide reference materials at home such as almanacs, dictionaries, simple encyclopedias, atlases, and thesauruses.
• Discuss with your child why you read the newspaper, magazines and books and the benefits of reading.
• Encourage your child to ask “why” questions and predict what will happen in the story and what opinions the author has as you read together.
• Encourage your child to re-read and self-correct over longer passages of reading and writing.
• Encourage use of charts and tables in a variety of written materials.
• Reinforce the importance of books by buying books as presents for family members and friends. Let your child help you choose them.
• Make regular library visits a part of your family routine and discuss with your child why he/she chose a particular book. Create a home library for your child.
• Provide books from other cultures, lands and times available in a library or at home. Discuss cultural differences and similarities between books.
• Reinforce the importance of reading by letting your child see you and other members of the family enjoy reading on a regular basis.
• Help you child with pace and voice tone when reading aloud.
• Remember when a child is reading, if he/she stumbles over five or more words on a page, the book may be too hard to read alone.
• Encourage your child to read chapter books with you or those that are broken up into short sections, one chapter each night.

Writing 3^rd

We teach and assess the Six Traits of Writing in the classrooms. See the Kindergarten list for an explanation of the Six Traits. 

Writing

Ways Parents can Help 

• Encourage your child to write in a variety of ways such as reports, reviews, and directions to a location, or to explain something.
• Work with your child to keep a writer’s notebook including a list of topics and ideas.
• Encourage writing by letting your child see you write regularly with enjoyment and for communication with others.
• Set up a family message board for everyone to use and encourage your child to write on it.
• Encourage your child to try out descriptive words (adjectives and adverbs) in his/her writing.
• Discuss with your child his/her writing, what he/she likes or dislikes about it, and how he/she and improve his/her writing.
• Make a collection of your child’s favorite writings in a folder or book and read them together regularly to encourage more writing
• Encourage use of a journal or personal diary.
• Provide different types of literature for your child to check spelling and look up new words for writing.
• Read with your child aloud and discuss how the material sounds.
• Provide a dictionary and thesaurus for your child to check spelling and look up new words for writing.
• Provide highlighting pens, scissors, and glue or tape to encourage your child to revise his/her work. This will help your child add, delete, cut apart, and rearrange his/her ideas to achieve clearer, more complete and focused writing.
• Visit your child’s teacher and find out what words you child should be spelling and writing regularly. Practice these words at home with your child.
• Discuss with your child a piece of writing and what you both like and dislike about it. Such writings could be stories, letters, and books you have read together. Discuss the author’s style and viewpoint.
• In your child’s writing, you should always look for what is done well and encourage your child to write by praising his/her writing.

Math 3^rd

Extend addition and subtraction concepts to include solving two-step problems  

Introduce multiplication and division concepts including fact memorization, computation, and problem solving.                                                          

Ways Parents can Help

• Provide consistent practice with basic facts involving +, - and x
• Use a page of the classified ads to create challenges. Ask your child to “Find the largest number.” “Find the smallest number.” “Find numbers which have a five in the tens place.”
• Using a shopping catalog, go with your child on a pretend shopping trip. Pretend you have $250.00 to spend and select items so that the total will be as close to $250.00 as possible.
• Using various items, help your child to demonstrate relationships of ones, tens and hundreds.
• With your child practice basic math facts using pencil and paper as well as mental math.
• Have your child practice one number fact-family a day (e.g., 4x5=20, 5x4=20, 20÷5=4, 20÷4=5).
• Encourage your child to use a variety of strategies and approaches when solving problems.
• Have your child find and cut pictures of two and three dimensional shapes from magazines or catalogs. Make a chart or collage using these pictures.
• Regularly create math problems for your child to solve, such as “Using only dimes and nickels, how many different ways can you make change for one dollar?” Ask and listen to your child explain how they would go about solving the problem and ask questions, for example, “What do you have to figure out?” “How will you get started?” “What do you already know?”
• Connect math learning to the everyday world by talking with your child when you read a map, make plans to go on a vacation, see a chart or graph go to the ban, go shopping, etc.
• Provide opportunities to play math games with your child, such as dominoes, Yahtzee® or Battleship®.
• Regularly read math books with your child such as The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchings, and Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday, by Judith Viorst.

 

 

 

 

 

Fourth Grade

Reading 

Independent Reading                                                                  Vocabulary

Anthology                                                                                              Reading novels

Author Study                                                                                          Reading comprehension

Poetry 
 

Reading 

Ways Parents can Help 

·         Increase the time allotted for your child to do silent reading.

·         Have your child use computer menus, searches and icons.

·         Together look up news words in the dictionary and make a family list of these new and   interesting words. Encourage your child to use a new word in context several times to reinforce its meaning. 

·         Provide reference materials at home such as dictionaries, thesauruses, CDs, and atlases. 

·         Make regular library visits a part of your family routine and discuss with your child why he/she chose a particular book. Create a home library for your child.

·         Encourage your child to talk about reading goals. Revise those goals from time to time.

·         Set up a daily family time. Read and enjoy books with your child. Take turns reading. Emphasize improvement in phrasing, fluency and style.

·         Reinforce the importance of books by buying books as presents for family members and friends. Let your child help you choose them.

·         Remember when a child is reading, if he/she stumbles over five or more words on a page, the book may be too hard to read alone.

·         Encourage your child to read with you chapter books, or those that are broken up into short sections, one chapter each night.

·         Reinforce the importance of reading by letting your child see you and other members of the family enjoy reading on a regular basis.

·         When reading with your child help him/her to locate and identify various text features such as appendices, forewords, directions, codes, abbreviations, dashes, computers menus, searches and icons.

·         Help your child learn more about favorite authors through the use of videos, books, magazine articles or the internet.

·         Encourage your child to read a variety of fiction including comics, cartoons and historical and contemporary short stories and novels.

·         Encourage your child to read a variety of non-fiction including autobiographies, atlases, newspapers, magazine, memos, directories, phone books, schedules and business letters.

 

 

 

Writing 4^th  

We teach and assess the Six Traits of writing in our classrooms. 

The Traits are:

Ideas: Does the message make sense and are there details?

Organization: Is there a beginning and ending? Does the sequencing make sense?

Voice: Does the writing have personality and pizzazz? Does it show individuality?

Word Choice: Are words used correctly? Are new words attempted? Are lively verbs used?

Sentence Fluency: Do the sentences hang together? Do they have a rhythm and flow?

Conventions: Are capitals, punctuation, and readable spelling used? These should be appropriate to the child’s developmental level; i.e., depending on whether she/he is a kindergartener or third grader. 
 
 

Writing

Ways Parents can Help 

• Encourage your child to keep a writer’s notebook including a list of topics and ideas for future writing.
• Encourage writing by letting your child see you write regularly with enjoyment and for communication with others.
• Work with your child to help him/her week input in his/her writing. Encourage reading his/her work several times before editing.
• Encourage your child to try out descriptive words (adjectives and adverbs) and varied vocabulary in his/her writing.
• Challenge your child to write a persuasive note to you to explain why he/she needs a particular item.
• Share different kinds of writing pieces with your child, such as newspaper articles, business letters, journals, etc.
• Make a collection of your child’s favorite writings in a folder or book and read them together regularly to encourage more writing.
• Provide different types of literature for your child, such as tall tales, comics, essays, poetry and other books that interest your child and family. Let your child freely explore a variety of books.
• Provide a dictionary and thesaurus for your child to check spelling and look up new words for writing.
• Discuss with your child his/her writings, what he/she likes or dislikes about it, and how he/she can improve the writing piece. Talk about its effectiveness (the word choice in an advertisement, the voice of a letter, the details in a news article).
• Discuss with your child a piece of writing and what you both like and dislike about it and why. Such writings could be stories, letters, and books you have read together.
• Encourage legible writing from your child.

 
 

Math 4^th  

Addition and subtraction                                      Multiplication

Division                                                             Fractions

Decimals                                                           Elements of geometry: shapes, area, and perimeter

Elements of algebra:  Understanding equations and use of variables 

Math

Ways Parents can Help 

• Provide consistent practice with ÷ and x facts through 12’s.
• With your child play he game “Largest Wins.” Use a pencil and pare and have each player draw four boxes in a row. The first player rolls a die and writes that number in any box. After each player has had four turns, they read their number. The player with the largest number wins. A variation would be the smallest number wins, the number closest to 7,000, or any other number you choose.
• Have your child identify, order and compare numbers to 1,000,000 and common fractions.
• Have your child practice one number fact-family a day (e.g., 9x5=45, 5x9=45, 45÷5=9, 45÷9=5).
• Have your child estimate and measure objects around the environment to the nearest inch or centimeter. Also, measure the volume of different containers by filling them with water and then pouring the water in to a standard measuring cup.
• Help your child to round numbers to the nearest 10’s, 100’s and 1,000’s.
• Regularly read math books with your child such as Fraction Action, by Loreen Leedy, and Anno’s Flea Market, by Anno Mitsumasa.
• Have your child toss a penny 50 times and record the number of heads and tails that come up. Encourage your child to discuss his/her findings and predict what would happen if he/she tossed the penny 100 times, 150 times and 200 times.
• Regularly create problems for your child to solve, such as, “You have an ice cream story that has six different flavors. How many different two-scoop cones can you make? How about three-scoop cones?” Ask and listen to your child explain how they would go about solving the problem and ask questions like, “What do you have to figure out?” “How will you get started?” “What do you already know?”
• Discuss with your child the use of statistics in the real world (sports, etc.)
• Provide opportunities for your child to use real money and make change, giving them a few items to buy at the store. Have them estimate the price and how much change they should receive, then but it and compare the estimate to the actual total.
• Have your child accurately use a ruler, tape measure, scale, thermometer and clock.
• Create opportunities for your child to use fractions while doing chores such as cutting pizza, pie, cake, mowing of the lawn, etc.