With the first quarter report cards coming home in a couple of weeks, I thought I might take a moment to discuss how I am grading homework this year in math. Students come home with homework Monday through Thursday (4 nights a week.) Each homework assignment is worth 5 points. Since 4 times 5 is 20, each week's worth of homework is worth 20 points. If there happens to be a day off of school or a night I don't give homework, I simply give them 5 points for that night. Each student has a copy of the 5-point scale in their math notebooks. They know that I do not expect it to be done perfectly but done to the best of their ability. It is a chance to practice new skills and review old ones. Students get one point for their name/number date, one point for completing the homework, one point for doing it with a pencil, one point for checking it with a pen in class with me, one point for turning it in the next day on time. The "on time" part is probably the biggest challenge for most. Homework is only 10% of the total grade for report cards so occasionally forgetting to turn it in is not a huge concern unless it becomes a pattern. Fourth and fifth graders get one additional sheet this week (we affectionately call it the "tan sheet" because it is always printed on tan paper. That comes home Monday and is due Friday. I grade those as a separate homework score. Below is the rubric I use to determine the points per assignment: A big part of the language arts enrichment that I do with both 4th and 5th graders is having the kids participate in literature circles. This year we are being consistent with lit circles being on Thursdays. We generally read 3-5 chapters in a book for each meeting. Students are given one day a week to prepare as part of our time together. Maybe one of the reasons I like lit circles the most is that kids get to take a leadership role each day to help teach and guide their classmates and their discussions. Laminated job cards keep them organized each time so they know their job and their required work to fulfill that job. The document below is what I have laminated for the kids. They must show up on Thursdays with materials and jobs complete (mainly because their whole group's learning is held up when one person doesn't do their job.) Here is a quick rundown of what you can expect your child to do for each job: Director - must write 3-4 "deep" questions to ask the group Summarizer - must write a 6-10 sentence summary of that week's reading Word Wizard - must write the definition, synonym, and a picture for each of the words Mrs. Bean provides Illustrator - must draw a graphic representation of something from the book and write 2 sentences why they picked it Lastly this week, here is a quick list of the concepts that each of my math classes has been working on and will be moving on to during the next weeks. 3rd grade - We just completed a quick review unit on addition, subtraction, and place value. The kids took a test early this week. Now we are going to spend the next few weeks on measurement (U.S. system, metric system, conversions, perimeter and area.) The third grade team and I are planning a fun day related to measurement before our conference break - stay tuned! 4th grade - We also just completed a review unit on addition and subtraction but we looked at different algorithms than the kids have seen before (stay tuned in the coming weeks I'll share videos so you know what crazy math I have been teaching them!) We also just took the test on this unit which also covered graphing concepts (including line plots, central tendency, landmarks for data.) Our next unit will be looking at concepts related to multiplication and division (including inequalities and some - gasp! - algebra.) 5th grade - These students will be taking a test on their graphing unit the first part of next week. We worked on pie graphs, stem/leaf plots, line graphs and, of course, reviewed mean, median, and mode related to graphing. Our next unit will be operations with decimals (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in addition to scientific notation with decimals. That should keep us busy for a while!
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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