on Dear Fourth-Graders,
If you would like to practice for the MAP test next week on your own, here is the link:
https://practice.mapnwea.org/#/practice-landing
The username is grow. The password is also grow. All lowercase letters.
Remember that the Reading MAP is next week and Language and Math MAP the following week.
See you Monday!
Ms. McNally
on Dear 4M Families,
Thank you for the kind and thoughtful teacher appreciation gifts and cards last week! We hope your children were able to share the poems and crafts they made in class with you for Mother’s Day this weekend.
If you would like to order Scholastic books in time for summer reading, here is the link:
Our new Scholastic Book Club is up and running! Go to https://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/kaohsiung-american/digital-book-club to browse the latest books and order online. For every $1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20¢ in Scholastic Rewards.
Please place your order online by May 17th, 2021.
Thank you,
Ms. McNally
on Dear 4M Families,
Please see the end of year assessment dates below for your reference.
Please make sure students come to school on-time, well-rested, and fed on these days, so they can do their best on the assessments.
NWEA MAP Reading – Tuesday, May 17 & Wednesday, May 18 8:30-9:30 am
NWEA MAP Language -Tuesday, May 25 10 – 11 am
NWEA MAP Math – Thursday, May 27 10 – 11 am
Extended Time/Make-ups Friday, May 21 & Friday, May 28
Students who want additional time on the assessment will be provided with extended time. The timed sessions represent how long it takes a typical student to finish.
Fountas & Pinnell Reading Assessments (Student reads aloud and interprets text 1:1 with teacher) –
Individual assessments administered each day May 17- May 28
Thank you for your attention to this and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns,
Ms. McNally
on Dear Fourth Grade Families,
Please plan to have your children attend the conference with you. They’ll spend a few minutes at the beginning of the conference sharing their socio-emotional and academic reflections with you. The idea is for them to get more comfortable communicating about their own progress, challenges, and successes, as in middle school they will need to begin leading the conferences themselves.
If you feel there is anything we need to discuss privately later on, we can have your child step out after they’ve shared their reflections.
Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this.
Ms. McNally
on Dear Fourth Grade Families,
We are currently working on a unit on persuasive writing, an important genre in fourth grade. Students are learning to write essays that state a clear and important thesis and support their thesis with a variety of types of evidence, such as stories, examples, and quotations. They are learning to structure essays into introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions and to use transition phrases to make the relationships between their ideas and evidence clear.
I am attaching here a couple examples of the type of work that is expected in our Writer’s Workshop curriculum. Please click the links below to take a look. A fourth grade example and a fifth grade example are included to give you an idea of the work that would meet and would exceed expectations.
Let me know if you have any questions about this.
Thanks!
Ms. McNally
on 
In the above image you can see an overview of our fourth grade math curriculum. Currently we are in Unit 5 – Computation of Fractions and Mixed Numbers. Next month, we will move onto Unit 6 which focuses on Division.
On this site from the University of Chicago, you can find tips for supporting our math curriculum at home as well as more information about each unit: https://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents/4th-grade/em4-at-home/
We welcome any questions about curriculum.
Thanks!
Ms. McNally
on Our new Scholastic Book Club is up and running! Go to http://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/kaohsiung-american to browse the latest books and order online. For every $1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20¢ in Scholastic Rewards to order books for our classroom library.
Please place your order online by October 5th, 2020.
on Dear 4M Families,
Please enjoy this video of our class’s performance of a respect song for the elementary school assembly last week. They worked hard to learn the lyrics, plan their dance movements, and use skits to illustrate the concepts for younger children. They did a great job!
Ms. McNally
on In our current social studies unit we are focusing on the geography of Taiwan and students are building their map skills and knowledge of landforms using tools like Google Earth and Google My Maps. Today, students worked in collaborative partnerships to engage in a geography quest using Google Earth. It was so fun to hear the “oohs” and “ahhs” and students learned how to use Google Earth to “fly” into destinations like YuShan or the Penghu islands. Many students were even able to locate the school or their favorite restaurants and malls! We will continue to explore various functions of these platforms, including pinning locations, calculating distances, and learning information such as population sizes, elevations, and river lengths.
Please enjoy this peek into our classroom during today’s exploration. Don’t worry – the video is hosted by YouTube, but unlisted meaning only those with the link from our class website can access it :).
on Dear 4th-grade families,
On our website you will be able to see our weekly newsletters and photographs that will document your students’ learning and experiences during the school day. These will also be automatically emailed to you as long as you are subscribed. Please check back next week to see updates from the first two weeks of school.