Classroom Notes

Ms. Bondurant’s Class

September 3, 2010

 

Greetings, everyone! Well, we are off to a great start in the 4^th grade, despite the hot days

we’ve had this week. It’s a large class, as you know, but I am enjoying each and every one

of the children. Gradually we are getting set up, establishing our routines, and laying the

groundwork necessary for the school year ahead. I am very excited to be working with this

group!

 

Rest assured I have the help I need to meet the needs of such a large, diverse group. Gail

Maxwell works full time in my classroom, and is always available to help small groups or

individual students with their work. She is also a wonderful resource for technology, and will

be helping the children to do research and word processing on the laptop computers each

week. For our word study and literacy times, I have support from Sharon Boffey, Marty

Bouchard and Sandy Dickson, which will enable us to work with small groups to meet each

child’s individual needs. Sharon and Marty will also be available for some of our science and

social studies times. During math, I have help from both Gail Maxwell and Sandy Dickson. I

am grateful to all of them, and to Mr.Thompson, for making sure I have the support I need

for the coming year.

 

 Along with this letter, you will find a copy of our weekly schedule, which I hope will be

helpful to you in scheduling appointments and envisioning our days. It may change slightly

from time to time, but I don’t imagine any big changes. In the beginning of the year, the

technology content integration times will be spent learning all the “how to” processes needed

to do research and word processing. Then later, we will use those times for projects related

to the content of our science, social studies and language arts work.

 

I would like to tell you a little about homework. Generally I give short homework

assignments, four nights a week. These should take 30 minutes, more or less, to complete. I

do not give weekend homework at all, because I believe children need a break, and time to

enjoy their families and interests outside of school. If your child spends more than 30

minutes on a homework assignment, kindly write me a note, and I will accept the

assignment as is, or help your child if it’s a matter of not fully understanding the task. I also

recognize there are nights when completing a homework assignment is a big burden. We all

have these times. If I receive a note from you indicating it’s been a hectic night, I can easily

allow more time for the work to be completed. You can check your child’s nightly homework

by looking at their homework assignment page, inside their home to school folder. It is very

important for these folders and assignment sheets to come back to me daily. Your help with

this will be much appreciated. If there is no other assignment listed, my expectation is that

each child will read for 30 minutes or more. Also, if other assignments take less than 30

minutes, I would like the remainder of the 30 minutes to be spent reading.

 

When a writing assignment is given for homework, the paper can be handwritten or typed on

a computer. I will leave it up to you to decide with your child, what works best at home. I

know that for some students, the physical act of writing a paper by hand is very time

consuming, therefore I offer this option. I also understand that many children are still

learning keyboarding, so I don’t even mind if an adult types the paper, as long as the content

of the assignment is the work of the student. I will have plenty of in-class writing tasks I can

use to assess the mechanics of each child’s writing.

 

Please feel free to contact me at any time should you have questions or concerns. I look

forward to seeing you all soon, and thank you dearly for all your support at home!

                                                                                      Sincerely,

                                                                                      Brenda Bondurant

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 Dear Students,