Black History Month Report

Just a reminder that the students have a Report due on Tuesday, January 20th.  They were given the papers for this assignment on Monday.  Please let me know if you have not seen these papers come home yet.  This report has three parts:  a research paper, a map, and a timeline.  It is all clearly detailed in the papers they received.  If you have any questions about this assignment, please let me know.

Utah Compose

Our class will be doing their SAGE writing test on Thursday, February 4th.  To help prepare for this test, we will be doing a lot of practice on www.utahcompose.com.  Each student has an account set up and they began practicing at school.  I wrote their usernames and passwords down for them and begged them not to lose them!  Hopefully they still have them.  I can not stress to you enough how important it is that your child practice this EVERY DAY!  They will be given time in class to work on it, but it will not be enough.  Each student began writing a free choice essay this week just to get a feel for how the program works.  Only two students finished and submitted their essays.  I have now added a new essay assignment for each grade level.  It should show up when they log in to their account.  They should have this essay completed and submitted by Friday.  I would highly recommend exploring the site with your child and looking at the lessons and other resources that are available to help them improve their writing.  The students should also submit their essays and then take the time to go back and try to correct their mistakes to improve their scores.  They will likely need your help and support with this.  I understand that it is hard to find the time to do this every night.  With Utah Compose, IXL, spelling city, and the SAGE Formative practice that all need to be done on the computer, there just isn’t time to do all of these things in class.  If your family has limited access to a computer, or doesn’t have internet access, please let me know and we can make arrangements for your child to have extra time with a computer at school.  I really appreciate your help and support with this!

Kirsten

JA Biztown

Our 5th Grade (and new 6th Grade) students have a field trip scheduled for Thursday, January 29th to JA Biztown located at the Discovery Gateway Museum in Salt Lake City.  This is a wonderful learning opportunity and the students always have a great time!  To find out more about the program, please go here:  http://ja-utah.org/programs/jacity/

So far, I have had two parents volunteer to go with us.  Yeah!  It would be good if we had at least one more, so please let me know if you would like to come.  Just so you are aware, the parent volunteers will be helping the students run their businesses, so expect to be busy all day!

I will be sending permission slips home at the beginning of the week, so be looking for those!  These papers will have all of the information you need about time, place, transportation, cost, etc.  As always, if you have any questions, please let me know!

Spelling

Hello!

As you know, I have moved our spelling practice to an online program located at www.spellingcity.com.  It went really well for many of the students this week!  However, I noticed that only about 9 of the students actually got on and took their spelling test.  Its not too late!  They can still get on this weekend before I get the new list up for Monday.  They should all know their login information, but you can e-mail me if they forgot and I will send it to you.  As I said before, with limited time and computers, the students will need to spend a few minutes working on their spelling at home each day.  I set up specific assignments for them to do each week.  You can also print their list at home for extra practice.

Thank You!

Kirsten