6 Hours and 40 Minutes

That is the amount of time that your child spends in school each day. This is also the topic that I am going to speak about the most at tonight's open house (here's a preview for those of you who are followers already and attending tonight). Six hours and forty minutes is a lot of time. When you think about it, your child may in fact spend more time here at school than awake at home with you. Let's do some math:

6hrs. 40min. is only the time in the building, we also need to add time on the bus if your child is not brought to school. If we allow thirty minutes travel time each way that is another hour and brings us to 7hrs. 40 min. Perhaps your child is involved in early morning art or music. You would need to add another hour which would bring your total to 8hrs. 40min.

If you let me use 7:00 a.m. as the time that your child gets up in the morning, that would give you one hour of awake time with your child. Let's say that your child arrives home from school at 4:00 p.m. and goes to bed at 9:00 p.m.. That gives you a total of five more hours with your child awake, bringing your total to 6 hours of awake time with your child. Please adjust the times accordingly to fit your lives. The point is this....where does your child spend more time awake? For most of you the answer will be here at school.

This fact determines many of my classroom policies. For example, homework. If we examine that five hours you have when your child gets home, how much of that time is spent doing homework? In my opinion, that time should be spent with you enjoying each other's company. This is why I will explain my homework policy as follows:

#1. NEVER spend more than 45 minutes on homework. NEVER! Yes, your child may have homework most nights, but my belief is that it should never be anything more than what can be completed in 45 minutes or less. I give the kids plenty of assignments and tasks in school that I use to assess them with on a daily basis. In addition, I give the students numerous times throughout the day to work on their homework assignments and complete most, if not all of it. What I ask is that students do not turn an assignment in until the next day so that if it is completed in school, you still get to look it over with him/her before it gets handed in.

If your child does come home with work and is struggling, please don't let them stress out all night. If he/she has put in a full and honest 45 minutes, stop them and write me a note on the assignment letting me know that the task was difficult and then I am able to address the problem during our support time here in school.

The numbers speak for themselves. Your child spends so much time with me that the last thing I want to do is invade or take away from the precious time that you have with your child. After all, I am a parent myself and I know firsthand how crazy things can get during the evening hours.

What I ask of you in return is that you spend that time I am not taking up with your child. Use it. Ask them about their day. Check in and see if everything is good with their friends. Tell them a joke and make them laugh. Use the time and enjoy your child being nine and ten years old...it will never happen again. Get them involved in something they enjoy without any pressure.

Other Policies:

#2 Let's be on the same side. Could you imagine how miserable your child would be if the place they spend the most time awake is a place they hate being? As your child's teacher, I ask for your help, support, and understanding. I have the safety and well being of fourteen little faces to think about each day....I am only one person. Your support is essential if I am to do everything I possibly can to make your child's fourth grade experience a positive one. If there is ever a problem, question, concern, please bring it directly to me first. Nothing is worse than finding out about a problem after it has been discussed with numerous other people and usually blown out of proportion. Feel free to email me at anytime. This is the easiest and fastest way to reach me.

#3. Have fun.

#4. Be involved.

Many thanks to all of you who are able to attend open house tonight. I look forward to seeing you all!

You should look as good as your outlook,
Mr. Fletcher

Sugar Maples 2010

What a fantastic day! We were able once again to visit Sugar Maples under the direction of the AMAZING RitaMary Vining to design and paint reusable canvas bags. The weather couldn't have been better and Miss Rita treated us to an absolutely fantastic day. The purpose of this trip was to kick of a BYOB: Bring Your Own Bag campaign to promote reusable shopping bags as an alternative to plastic or paper bags. Each student designed a bag with a positive environmental message to help spread the word and encourage others to BYOB.

Reflections on Peace

On Tuesday, September 21, 2010, we celebrated the International Day of Peace. Besides creating and planting pinwheels for this celebration, the students also created some works of art and poetry inspired by peace. For these poems, students were asked to think about peace in a variety of different ways. The first line of the poem required students to think of how peace feels. The second line describes where they are when they feel peace. The third line describes what they are doing when they feel peace. The last line is reasons for being peaceful. This is a pretty simple format for any of you to follow just in case you would like to take a minute and think about peace in your life. Enjoy!

Peace Out,
Mr. Fletcher

Quiet, nice, relaxing
In bed, outside, home
Drawing, watching t.v. playing video games
Be calm, relax, be silent
By Cody


Calm, quiet, happy
In the woods, at a waterfall, at home
Swimming, writing, reading
For family, for animals, for friends
By Jessica


Great, nice, calm
At school, at home, not at home
Skateboarding, snowboarding, doing math
To help people, make people happy,
By Lee


Happy, nice, relaxed
Home, outside, with toys
Sleeping, playing my flute, drawing
By Abby


Calm, peaceful, relaxed
At home, at the farm, at Grandma’s
Playing with my cats, riding horses, coloring
For friendship, for the environment, for the nation
By Heather


Relaxed, calm quiet
In classroom, near water, with family
Playing with dog, with friends, hiking
For friendship, working together, for animals
By Avery


Nice, happy, peaceful
Outside in my front yard, with my dad
Having a catch, playing baseball, playing with my dog
For friendship, for citizenship for the Earth
By Chris


Nice, quiet, calm
With my friends, home, outside
Playing with my friends, being with animals, being with family
For animals, for family, for friends
By Aurora


Happy, nice, peaceful
Home, school, in bed
Playing, drawing, listening
For people, for friendship, for peace
By Rory


Relaxed, nice, happy
Home, outside, my grandparents’ house
Playing football, playing Monopoly, laying on my bed
For family, for friends, for cooperation
By Jeremy


Quiet, relaxed, calm
Outside, home, in my fort
Being outside, playing with my cats, being with family
For the environment, for animals, for friends
By Kamryn


Happy, grateful, relaxed
With my family, at friends house, in my bedroom
With Justin, drawing a picture, reading a book
For caring, for friendship, for feeling
By Logan


Quiet, calm, nice, relaxed
Snowboarding, BMXing, skateboarding
Playing football, playing video games, swimming
By Hunter


Calm, relaxed, fun
At home, outside, living room
Dancing, watching t.v., being with animals
For friendship, for caring, for thankfulness
By Riley

Let's Get This Show on the Road!

So, here it is. Today I am officially letting my little blog grow up and releasing it into the world. When I first created it last year, I had intended it only to be a small, low key place for the kids to share work and ideas. What I'm realizing is that if I am to convince the kids that their writing and their words do have power, then I need to provide an audience for them. That's why today I am officially launching my campaign to get 100 followers on my blog...currently we are up to ten (welcome to Logan and her family!!!). What a great place for the kids to have their work read by people from all over the world! I encourage you to sign up and become a follower, if you enjoy reading and participating....SPREAD THE WORD AND SHARE THE SITE WITH OTHERS!
All the security measures I have in place will stay the same. No one will be able to post anything or comment on anything without my approval. This may seem like a violation of free speech, but I am looking out for the best interests of my past, present, and future students. I will do my best to approve any comments that are made, but I will not allow anything that is disrespectful, harmful, or mean spirited to be read by the students. This isn't the place for that. What this is the place for is to encourage young minds to share their thoughts and give feedback that will help them to grow and become good people.
A blog is nothing without comments so please leave some. They are what start conversations and creative thinking.

To my faithful followers who jumped on at the beginning....a big Thank You and prepare yourself for some company!

Here we go.....ten and counting,

Mr. Fletcher