Your spark can become a flame and change everything!

Sparking children's interest in a variety of subjects is probably one of the most rewarding aspects of being an educator. I like to tell the class that with hard work they can achieve their dreams and that one of them might be the first astronaut on Mars, find the cure for cancer, win a Grammy or become the Cats quarterback!
A positive attitude at school, and being responsible when it comes to doing your work at home can go a long way towards helping one achieve their goals. I hope they were extremely helpful around the house after filling out the Responsibility Chart that was part of last week's homework. I look forward to reading them all on Monday.
You should be proud of the hard work they're putting in at school. They wrote goal sheets last week before we left, and they all aspire to do great things with their lives.
I will continue to do the best I can to help them on that quest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving break! Thank you to everyone who sent in gravy for our school feast. A lot of hard work from parents and staff goes into making this event a success, and it serves of a reminder of how thankful we should all be for being a part of the La Paloma community.
The class has improved a great deal on being able to complete their Times Multiplication tests in the time allowed. I'm so proud of them for making the effort to work on memorizing their Multiplitcation Tables at home. The flash cards we made are a valuable tool as they are able to see the answers and commit them to memory. Knowing those products by heart gives them a tremendous advantage as we move further into our division lessons. I've been telling them since the first week of school to, "Use your addition to check your subraction."
Now they are getting used to hearing me remind them to, "Use your multiplication to check your division."
This all fits in perfectly with the quote for Monday morning, "A lesson hard to learn is sweet to know!"
Happy Thanksgiving from The Stauch Family!

When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.

Second quarter progress reports will be going home on Monday. Please sign and return the attached form to let me know you received the report. The class has been working hard this year, and while no one is expected to be perfect, I'm proud of the effort the majority of them make on a daily basis.
Fourth Grade has been assigned "Turkey Gravy" for our school's Thanksgiving Feast. If everyone could send in at least one jar or can, it would be greatly appreciated.
They got to do a fun, hands on science experiment on Friday for our magnets lesson. Without leaving their seats to touch anything first, the two groups had to make a list of 25 objects they thought would be attracted to the magnet. It was interesting to see their reactions, as they got to then walk around with large magnets to see if their hypothesis ended up to be correct.
We will be continuing to master multiplitcation facts through 12, and the introduction of division in math next week. We will be learing more about the Desert Tribes of Arizona in Social Studies. jOur second Judy Blume book, "Double Fudge", is proving to be even more popular than the first one! The class is working on parts of speech in the Buckle Down writing series, and our Character Counts lessons will focus on setting goals.

This is your one and only life, so take excellence very personally.

The character trait we're focusing on this month is Responsibility. Turning completed homework in on time, reading for at least twenty minutes every night and filling out Reading Logs correctly, giving your best effort every day at school, and being a responsible classmate to those you work with and sit around are all extremely important.
We are continuing to work on multiplying two digit by two digit numbers in Math. We have also been working on division and relating it to the fact families they are used to doing with addition and subtraction. Our Saxon Math book and the Buckle Down series we use also provide constant review of measurement, fractions and decimals.
Next week we will be reading about Magnets and Electricity in Science. Our Social Studies newspaper will introduce the students to the Desert Tribes of Arizona, and one of my favorites, the Gila Monster.