Critical Thinking

A huge jump in 4th grade is that a huge value is placed on critical thinking skills to get students ready for 5th grade, middle school, high school and LIFE in general. 

As a parent you can help foster critical thinking skills by asking open ended questions to your student and making them give you that all important "because" to support their answer.

As we are progressing into harder thinking, our class overall is "stuck" in very basic thinking.  For example, when a student doesn't have a piece of paper, many students in our class just sit there instead of problem solving and getting a piece of paper for themselves or asking for one.  While we absolutely want to be there for our students in 4th grade we also have to start getting rid of "doing things for them."  Students should be responsible for their own homework, packing their own backpacks for school, etc.  This is something that not only builds independence, which is important, is places less reliance on you, as parents, to assume that everything is going to be done for them.  That is definitely not the case in our classroom.  I assume students are able to clean up for themselves, organize their own materials, etc.  These are important life skills that need to be fostered from home to make sure they are "sticking" and will be used now and throughout life.

Talk with your student about what responsibilites that you currently do that they can take on.  This may be a household chore like dishes, or a school related chore like packing their lunch.  Students will take more pride and ownership of the materials when they have a hand in making/organizing it AND it gives us all more time for the "fun" things in life!  :)

Have a great evening!