Hello 5-2 Parents ~
I'm looking forward to seeing all of you this week at conferences and sharing your child's progress thus far in the trimester. We will discuss their beginning of the year benchmark scores, I will have their midterm standards based grading report for you, as well as their goals for the remainder of the trimester. Please let me know if you had any trouble setting up a conference on Sign-up Genius - I'd be happy to help you out!
Important Dates
CogAT ~ Students will be taking the Cognitive Abilities tests the week of October 15th - I listed the specific dates and times below. These tests are used for placement in middle school, so we encourage the students to do their best. Typically, students enjoy taking these tests because each test is a series of three 10 minute tests. Please do your best to ensure they will be in school at the times listed below, as students are pulled from instruction for makeup tests. If you have any questions about these tests or the advanced placement process for middle school, please do not hesitate to ask.
Monday, 10/15 ~ 9:10-10:10am ~ Verbal Battery (verbal analogies)
Tuesday, 10/16 - 9:10-10:10am ~ Quantitative Battery (finding patterns)
Wednesday, 10/17 - 1:15-2:15pm ~ Nonverbal Battery (spatial reasoning)
Math
We spent the majority of this week on word problems. Your children are developing their ability to read and break down a real-world problem, and then apply the computation to solve the problem. Some parents have reached out to me to ask if there is a specific way we ask the students to solve the problems. We do teach Bar Modeling as a strategy, but your child can use any strategy to solve the problem. So long as they arrive at the correct answer, I am not particular about the method. If you would like to review Bar Modeling, just look back into the chapter. You'll find several examples at the end of each chapter with the word problems.
Our Unit 2 Assessment is still tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 16th, but this chapter has been difficult for many of them, so I will assess their skills tomorrow and determine if they would benefit from an additional day of practice. If you would like to support your child in this chapter, please review the Chapter Wrap-Up on Student Book pages 116-117 or the Self-Assessment I gave them at the beginning of the unit. Both of these resources will help identify the areas your children still need to practice in this unit.
Please continue to encourage your child to log on to Khan Academy and Freckle to practice multiplying and dividing whole numbers. Many of your children are still struggling with the automaticity of their multiplication facts, which is causing computation errors during this unit. Please ask your child to log on to one of the math fact games site for 10 minutes every night - it's an engaging way to practice their math facts!
Our Unit 2 Assessment is still tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 16th, but this chapter has been difficult for many of them, so I will assess their skills tomorrow and determine if they would benefit from an additional day of practice. If you would like to support your child in this chapter, please review the Chapter Wrap-Up on Student Book pages 116-117 or the Self-Assessment I gave them at the beginning of the unit. Both of these resources will help identify the areas your children still need to practice in this unit.
Please continue to encourage your child to log on to Khan Academy and Freckle to practice multiplying and dividing whole numbers. Many of your children are still struggling with the automaticity of their multiplication facts, which is causing computation errors during this unit. Please ask your child to log on to one of the math fact games site for 10 minutes every night - it's an engaging way to practice their math facts!
Science
Your children were very excited to begin the Earth and Space science unit this week! They had a great time exploring Google Earth and creating models of the earth, then we moved into a lesson on earth's gravity, where your children thoughtfully created models of earth's gravity. As I mentioned last week, their science work will primarily be completed on the Science Companion website. Your child should have introduced you to the site this week as they were asked to share the Family Link with you from the website. You can also review the work they are doing in their science journals online.
As you noticed with social studies, our science standards are very different this year. We will discuss this more at conferences, but until then, you will see two Owl Scorecards coming home for the work they did in the first two science lessons. They were assessed on their ability to create models, as this is a critical component of the scientific process. Please look for the Owl Scorecards to come home for a sign and return.
As you noticed with social studies, our science standards are very different this year. We will discuss this more at conferences, but until then, you will see two Owl Scorecards coming home for the work they did in the first two science lessons. They were assessed on their ability to create models, as this is a critical component of the scientific process. Please look for the Owl Scorecards to come home for a sign and return.
Reading
Your children wore their Book Review t-shirts with pride on Thursday, and they did an excellent job presenting their Book Review Talk! I was SO impressed with the quality of the t-shirts and the effort so many of them put into preparing their presentations! We gave the 5th graders 30 minutes on Thursday to share their t-shirts and book talks as an entire group. They were so engaged in conversation with each other, and so many were recording book titles they were interested in reading. I loved their enthusiasm for their book and encouragement of each other's creative work! I've included some pictures below for you to check out :) The t-shirts are hanging in the hallway so you can check them out when you come in for conferences. I'll send them home in a couple of weeks. Look for the Owl Scorecards to come home this week for a sign and return.
Writing
We finished up our focus on showing this week, so I had students choose their favorite entry from this section of our writing unit and submit it to me for grading. I will score these as I did the Focus submissions, and I will suggest a Revision Assignment. After they submit those revisions, I will formally score the entry and send home another Owl Scorecard. I hope to get those scored this week so I have them for you at conferences, but it's a short week, so we may run out of time!
As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise and capable beings. Only then can we play along in their world.
~ Vince Gowmon
~ Vince Gowmon
Cheers ~
Theresa Fowler
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