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2nd Trimester Review and Fall Festival Update

Oct18

Thanks to everyone who made it to parent teacher conference!  I hope you have been able to decompress a little and unwind with your kids (even those of you who still had to work) during fall break.  I know I needed the rest, yet I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks of school!

Work Expectations

Each day your children are responsible for planning their work, and have done a great job so far.  Tomorrow I will be introducing a new step in planning the day.  This will include an expectations sheet with specific work required each week.  It will be up to your kiddos to plan and complete the work required.   This expectations sheet will likely undergo a few tweaks over the next couple of weeks as we work out the bugs together, but the format and use of the sheet will remain consistent.

Ask your children about it tomorrow after school, your interest will encourage them to utilize this tool to help them plan work that is appropriate for their ability level.  It will even serve to push those who need just a little nudge.

I am so excited to have received new measurement materials for our classroom!  They are cut and ready to be used!   Your children have taken to measurement like ducks to water.  They love weighing, measuring, filling and all things associated with measurement.   Last week we had a “walk off” to test which was further, a kilometer or a mile.  Ask your child which is further.

Book Reports

I have had several of you ask about book reports this year.  My focus so far this year has been on reading non-fiction in the classroom, and because your students are so engaged with their Scholastic magazines, I have not assigned any book reports (that isn’t the only reason).  I really want the reading they do during silent reading, and at home for pleasure, to be just that – pleasurable.  My experience last year with book reports were both positive and negative.

The experience was positive when the students were really excited about the particular book and type of book report that was associated with the book at the time (you have some really creative kids), but negative when the students could not find a book that excited them or when they had a great book, but didn’t like the style of book report.  It is partly because I’m wrangling with just the right way to go about it that I am delaying book reports.   In addition, we have international festival in December (don’t worry, assignments have not gone out for this yet) and Science Fair immediately following in January.  I do not want your children to be overwhelmed with home projects, particularly when the about of research they will be doing at home is going to be increasing very soon.

Fall Festival

 

And finally, the Fall Festival is this week! Mark your calendars for Friday October 23 from 4-7pm. We are in need of 12 volunteers, between mine and Ms. Holly’s class, to help run the Goodie Walk game and the Batman Obstacle. The volunteer slots are for one hour increments. We need 2 volunteers at the Goodie Walk per hour and 2 volunteers at the Batman Obstacle per hour. Please click   http://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/nkztu  to sign up for a one hour slot. Remember this goes towards your 40 hours of volunteer time the school requires.

Thanks again for all you do to support your kids and our school community!

 

 

 

Summer Homework

May28

Because I feel strongly that children, and adults for that matter, need to practice what they know in order to retain it each of your kids will have summer homework.  A letter was sent home with your child on Tuesday outlining the expectations.  This homework is due the first day of school, August 17.   I am sharing the letter that was sent home with your children in this blog post.  The links provided in the post are only ideas for practice, your child may choose any way they would like to practice as long as they log the date, activity, skill practiced and amount of time spent.   If you need the passwords for the scholastic sites, please email me.  They were provided to your children in the printed letter, but I did not include them in this post for obvious reasons.

In addition to the required reading and math I will be unlocking all essays on Utah Compose for your children to practice as well.  I highly recommend your children practice their writing this summer.  Writing in Utah Compose will give them instant feedback and allow them to revise their essays to improve their writing skills.  We will be spending a lot of time writing next year and practicing this summer will give them a jump start for next school year.

Summer Homework

Summer is here and so are those long lazy days that seem to zap your brain of everything (or at least a lot) you worked so hard to learn this year.  In order to avoid losing too much of that hard work, you will have summer homework.  Now, don’t worry too much, it won’t take up your entire summer break.  In fact, it will take about 20 minutes a day.  What fraction of the time you are awake will this homework take?  Let’s turn that into your first math problem of the summer.

Let’s say you sleep for about 12 hours a day this summer which gives you how much awake time?  That’s right, 12 hours.  How many minutes are there in 12 hours?  A number sentence for the problem would be the number of minutes in each hour (60) multiplied by the number of hours (12).  12 x 60= ?  That’s easy to do in our heads if we remember our magic zeros from the grey tower.  12×6=72 then we add a zero because we wanted to multiply by 60.  The answer to the first part of our problem is 720 minutes in 12 hours.

But we aren’t done yet.  Remember the question we are trying to answer.  What fraction of the time you are awake will this homework take?  Let’s turn the information into a fraction.  20 minutes of homework out of 720 minutes you are awake is a fraction of 20/720 (for you 5th and 6th level students let’s write that in simplest form by dividing your fraction by the highest common multiple, which happens to be 20= 1/36).  That fraction converted to a percent (I’ve done it for you since you will learn that skill next year) is 2.7%  That’s less than a nickel of your time if you think of it in terms of money, heck that’s less than 3 pennies of your time.

See how we turned the amount of time it would take for you to do your homework into a fantastic word problem?  FUN!!

Summer Homework Assignment Due the First Day of School, August 17th.

10 Hours of Math Practice – IXL, Workbooks, Cooking, Gardening, Lemonade Stand are a few ways you can practice your math skills.

Dynamath – http://dynamath.scholastic.com/

Scholastic Math – http://math.scholastic.com/

IXL – https://www.ixl.com/signin/mariamontessori

2 Book Reports – Read to books of your choice with a minimum of 100 pages at your reading level.  Complete a summary of each book complete with book title, author and number of pages.

 As always, if you have any questions please let me know.

Reminders for the week of May 4

Apr25

Since I will be on the field trip with our 6th grade students next week and will not be able to give updates, I wanted to remind everyone of important dates.

Monday, May 4: Book Reports Due

Monday, May 4: SAGE Math test – Please be sure your child gets a good night sleep, eats a healthy breakfast, packs a healthy lunch and has a snack for the test.

Thursday, May 14: SAGE Science test

These are the big items coming up in the next 3 weeks.

 

April/May Book Report and Attendance Expectations

Apr20

The upcoming book report for April/May is due Monday, May 4.   Any 6th grade student going on the field trip will have an extra week to turn it in.  If they turn it in before the field trip, they will receive extra credit.  We have been discussing this in class for the last two and a half weeks and the expectations for the book report came home today.  You can view the expectations on the book report page of the blog.

The genre is Historical Fiction and the format for the book report is a letter to/from the main character.   Though the expectations state that students will be graded on proper grammar, exceptions will be made for letters from the main character where the character speaks in a dialect or another language.

On a different note, it is more important than ever that your child be at school every day, and be on time.  The time we have left before the end of the year is crucial learning time.  It is extremely difficult to catch up lessons when we are covering so much each day.   We have two more weeks before our Math SAGE test (Monday, May 4) and 3 more weeks (which will pass in a flash) before our Science test (Thursday, May 14).  Although the exams do not necessarily reflect everything your child knows, or is capable of, they cannot do their best if they are not present for the lessons and practicing during class time.

If you have any questions about testing or the book report please let me know.

February 23 – Updates

Feb23

Good Morning!

I can hardly believe we are through the month of February already.   Science fair is over, and we are heading into the month of March with a  new book report coming up.   The book report genre for March is mystery, adventure or science fiction and the report type is student choice.  I would love to see the creativity they put into their last choice reports shine through again this time around.  Book reports are due March 27.

6th level students have a state study that is due this Friday, February 27.  They have had some time in class to work on this project, but will need to finish up at home.  The criteria for the state study was handed out at the end of January.  If you have not heard about this from your 6th grade child, please ask them about it.

Last week we started IXL homework assignments again.  Because of the craziness of science fair and things happening in my own life, I did not post the assignment to the blog.  The students should have written the homework in their planners, however.  This week there is a new IXL assignment which will be posted on the blog and in class for your children to record.  Please talk to them about their homework.  It is important that they are spending at least 20 minutes a night on the homework.  If they need extra help, please have them ask in class.  The goal is 100 points.  If your child is spending longer than 20 minutes on each section and still has not acquired at least 80 points, this means they need additional help on the concept.  Please have them make note of this and Ms. Kari and I can help them during class time.

Our 5th grade maturation program is coming up.  Permission slips were sent home a month ago.  If you have not received a permission slip from your child, please ask them about it.  We need these signed and returned no later than tomorrow.  I am still missing a couple.