Q1W4

 Week 4

Recognizing When a Child Struggles to Stay Focused

 

Children often act differently at home than at school, but when challenges appear in both settings, it can be a sign they need extra support. You may notice patterns such as:

At Home (especially during homework or chores):

• Difficulty starting non-preferred activities without multiple prompts.
• Easily distracted by surroundings—TV, devices, siblings, or even unrelated thoughts.
• Taking much longer than expected to finish simple assignments.
• Arguments, avoidance, or negative attention-seeking behaviors to delay starting work.
• Forgetting instructions moments after they’re given.

At School:

• Drifting off-task during independent work, particularly in non-preferred subjects like writing.
• Needing repeated redirection from the teacher.
• Rushing through work with errors or leaving assignments incomplete.
• Calling out, fidgeting, or engaging peers at inappropriate times (negative attention-seeking behaviors).
• Forgetting to bring needed materials home or turn work in.

 

Why This Happens

These behaviors are not a problem of “willpower” or poor attitude. They often relate to executive functioning—a set of mental skills that includes focus, impulse control, organization, and planning-ahead. Executive functioning is managed by the frontal cortex, which develops gradually over childhood and adolescence. Some children’s frontal cortex develops on a slower timeline, which means tasks requiring sustained attention, organization, and self-control can feel much harder—especially when the activity isn’t interesting or preferred. This is not a character flaw; it’s part of their developmental process. In some cases, children’s developmental timelines reflect those of their parents at the same age. If you noticed similar challenges for yourself in adolescence, your child may be developing in a comparable way.

 

How Parents Can Help
Parents play a powerful role in supporting children through these developmental delays. Helpful approaches include:

• Break tasks into smaller steps and give instructions one at a time.
• Use visual schedules or checklists so your child can see their progress and know what’s next.
• Establish consistent routines for homework, bedtime, and mornings to reduce decision fatigue.
• Offer choices when possible (e.g., “Do you want to start with math or reading?”) to give a sense of control.
• Use timers or short work intervals with breaks in between to make focus more manageable.
• Notice and praise effort rather than only results, especially when your child perseveres through a non-preferred activity.
• Collaborate with the teacher to ensure strategies at school and home are consistent.
• In severe cases, seek a private parenting coach specializing on focus problems and executive functioning development. 

NEWS:

-Energy Comprehension Check on 8/28 (Thursday). Students will be tested on their understanding of Energy Transfer. This includes how different types of energy are transferred and the evidence or change that demonstrates. Students should be able to provide an example experiment or demonstration to aid their explanation. 

-Math Test on 8/29 (FRIDAY). We wrap up our quick review on addition and subtraction on this upcoming Friday, so ensure your students are prepared. 

-Half day 8/29 (FRIDAY). This Friday is a half day, so please prepare accordingly to pick up your student at 12:30p.m. There are no clubs or other afterschool activities on Friday sans Atheneum.

-No school on 9/1. This is labor day. This is an R&R weekend meaning no homework unless scholars had late work.

-Students will recite "The Moon" by 9/5. It is important that students are practicing their poem so they can recite it by this date.

-Progress Notes will be emailed during Week 5 for any scholar earning below 70% in a subject. These notes provide an opportunity for scholars, parents, and teachers to partner together—reviewing progress, identifying areas of need, and creating strategies to support the scholar’s success for the rest of the quarter.

-Parent-Teacher Conferences are scheduled for October 13th and 14th. Out of courtesy and respect for both teachers’ time and the importance of these meetings, please do not extend fall break plans into these dates. Scheduling conferences outside of this timeframe is extremely difficult and should be avoided.

CURRICULUM:

ELA:

In GRAMMAR, we will use our WOL book in order to practice and master adverbs within a sentence. This includes identifying, analyzing, and diagramming them. We will also continue our review of helping verbs. Scholars should review Chapter 2 in their WOL books to aid in their understanding of Adverbs.

LITERATURE continues with the reading of Wizard of Oz chapters 13-17, so please ensure your student has their copy at school. We will utilize the text to practice understanding order of conflict, resolution, and themes.

    We continue our COMPOSITION program, which will spend a great deal of time practicing their writing. This week we will focus on summary construction, one assessment of which shall be graded, and one dictation. We will also review capitalization rules.

In LATIN AND GREEK ROOTS, we will be learning our next three roots; co, and contra. With them we will learn the definition and spelling of the following: community, coexist, coordinates, cohesive, contrast, contrary, contradict, contraction, and contract. 

    We have a new poem for POETRY RECITATION. Students will be memorizing the poem "The Moon" by Robert Louis Stevenson and will recite it in front of the class on September 5th. 

    For PHILOSOPHY, we discuss the following question: what does perseverance look like? 

Math:

In math, we already wrap up our unit on addition and subtraction. This smaller unit is mostly review and introductory, so we will finish it with further breakdown of word problems, including two-step variants, and chapter review before the test on Friday, 8/30. 

Khan Academy Subtraction Review

History:

In history, we begin our new unit on world mountains. This begins with understanding why mountains are significant, learning about key mountain ranges and peaks across the world, and discovering how life has adapted to the frosted regions upon those peaks. Students can review their History books chapters 1 and 2. There is a graded homework assignment on Monday and graded classwork on Thursday.

Mountain Ranges of the World

Science:

We wrap up our unit on the Energy with review and a comprehension check on Thursday, 8/28. We will have a review homework packet on Monday (due Wednesday) in which scholars should use their notes and the Science text to solve, and a Classwork quiz on Tuesday. Wednesday we will review for Thursday's Comprehension Check. In weeks 5-9 we will continue our Energy unit by delving into atomic parts, chemistry, states of matter, types of matter and magnetism.

--Please have scholars review chapters 3-5 in their Science Text book and any videos linked on blog from weeks 1-3 to aid in their understanding.

    Remember, the blog is updated weekly. Be sure to come back frequently to see any upcoming events or changes in fourth grade.