Hello Fourth Grade Parents,

      Today is Thursday, September 2nd.  I was happy to see all of you at Open House last night.  The older I get, the cuter your children become.  I am really looking forward to the new school year with your children.   Fourth grade is a busy, growing up grade.  The students take on a lot of responsibilities and activities that they have never done before.   One of the first things the students do this first week of school is school patrol.  The entire class gets trained on school patrol the first day.  My class will be in charge of school patrol the first month of school.  Mrs. Bellefeuille's class will be in charge the  month of October and then it switches back to my class for the month of November.  School patrol will continue this way for the entire year.  The second huge responsibilty fourth graders do is serving mass.  Father Nick will train the entire fourth grade the first week.  My class will serve all of the childrens' masses until January 15th.  Mrs. Bellefeuille's class will serve the remainder of the year after that date.  Father Nick would like fourth graders to serve the 7:30 a.m. parish masses here at St. Mary's during the week.  If you are interested, please sign the permission slip that is coming home with your children the first day.  The students who sign up wil be put on a rotational schedule for the school days only.  A schedule will be sent home for this the second week of school.  Fourth graders also participate in the Friendship program with St. Otto's.  Once  a month we will walk to St. Otto's and spend one hour with the residents playing bingo, school fued, music, etc.  For the month of September, we will be visiting the residents on Tuesday, September 14th.  Again, there is a permission slip at the end of the parent letter that will be coming home with your children the first day of school. We also have band in fourth grade.  Mr. Anderson will be sending home letters and details about this program.  School pictures will be Tuesday, September 21st.  Grandparents' Day will be Friday, September 24th.  Marathon will be Sunday, October 3rd.  Separate letters about these activities will be coming home in the near future.  Wednesday, September 29th, is an early release day set up by the school district.  Your children will be receiving letter grades on all assignments this year.  These will then be put into my grade book and into the computer and the report cards will show the percentages and the letter grades.  Another big change in fourth grade is fruit break.  The children are allowed to bring fresh fruits and vegetables all week.  On Fridays, students may bring whatever they would like for snack except pop.  Lunch for fourth graders is at 11:20.a.m.  Homework is always an interesting subject, along with discipline.  My policy is the same for both.  Homework is due the next day.  If it is not done, or left on the counter at home, the student must stay in until it is done.  If students are fighting, hitting, kicking, swearing,etc.  on the playground or the bus and I have witnesses to this behavior, students will stay in at noon recess and read to me.  I love listening to students read aloud anyway, and staying in at noon recess seems to cure many behavior problems. 

     Curriculum for September is:   Religion - the Bible       Math-fractions and money     Reading-short stories and dictionary skills   social-map skills      spelling-tough words        science-plants             

     I will update this web page every two weeks and I will always give a one week notice for upcoming tests.  Thank you for being such great parents,     

                                                                  Sincerely,         Kathryn Loscheider