Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Field trip success!

Judge Lister did a great job of explaining the court system, and answering an unending flow of questions!

Friday, April 15, 2016

Remonder: Field trip!

Tuesday afternoon we will be heading to City Hall to meet Judge Lister and listen to him share all about his job and the role of the courts. We will be leaving school at 1:10 and we will return by 3:45. We are walking so make sure to remind your child to dress for the weather. If your child needs to leave early that day, they will stay with 4th grade for that time period until they are picked up.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Testing begins next week!

Please remember that 5th grade tests on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week! Make sure your child has their own snacks, water bottle and gets plenty of sleep! I know this time of year is crazy busy, my family included! Make sure their snacks are placed into baggies so we don't hear the crinkly wrappers so many snacks come in. Avoid greasy snacks and pack some healthy choices along with their favorite junk food for balance! Time to get our game faces on and show what we know! Enjoy your weekend!,💙

Thursday, April 7, 2016

TESTING INFORMATION/SNACKS

ALL TESTS BEGIN AT 8:30 A.M. (Please do not be late as we will start the test without your child and we cannot let them into our room once it has begun)

4/19/16   Science
4/20/16   SBAC Math Part 1
4/21/16   SBAC Math Part 2
4/25/16   SBAC ELA Part 1
4/26/16   SBAC ELA Part 2
5/2/16     ACT ELA
5/3/16     ACT Math/Science

It is true that we test one more day than the rest of the grades, but that is because we have 2 different science tests. We will get through it, we have worked hard on our stamina and I know they will do their very best!

SNACKSI do not do a breakfast or a "party" prior to testing. I have always encouraged my students to get their game faces on early and focus on what our job is. As far as snacks go, I allow my students to eat while they are testing, gum chewing and mints are also allowed. Please avoid too many sweets and pack healthy snacks. Also, please try to avoid greasy foods as they will be on their computer the entire time. They may use a lunch box to store anything cold under their seat. A wet hand wipe in a baggie is also encouraged. 
**Any foods that come in a noisy wrapper need to be opened up and placed into a ziplock type of bag. These are much quieter and will not distract other students. Please also make sure your child has a water bottle each of the testing days. 

This is obviously a difficult time for your children. I know these schedules are hard to keep track of, but it is critical that they have plenty of food, and plenty of sleep each day. They are hard working little people and I know they will do their part. Let's make them as comfortable and as prepared as we can! 

Walking field trip heads up!!

On Tuesday, April 19th, we will be walking to City Hall and Judge Lister will be giving us a presentation on the court responsibilities and process. We are excited about this, but I also wanted to let you know early so if your child had to leave early we knew. We will be leaving school at 1:10 and return when finished, not sure of exact time.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Welcome back!

I hope you have all had a wonderful and restful spring break! I have been back to school and we will be ready to roll first thing Monday morning!

Reading: We will start reading the book CRASH by, Jerry Spinelli. It is an excellent book that will help us understand and apply the concepts of character development and sequence of events. I have read this book every year and it is one of my favorites. We will have minimal questions with this book, lots of reflection and conversation with a culmination project at the end.

Writing: We will continue to work on the SBAC we started before spring break started. We will read our second passage and answer the questions that go with it. Then we will answer performance task type of questions that will ask them to pull information out of those two texts. This is the same format as the SBAC practice they showed you at student led conference and I am confident that with the feedback and rewrites from the first one that they will be successful navigating through.

Social Studies: We are starting to work on some civics standards this week. We will cover quite a few different standards. We will be teaching these in mini lessons and I think they will really enjoy the week.
Three branches of government
They will take and then research the questions from the Citizenship test
The role of the courts
Analyzing the purpose of The Pledge of Allegiance
Why we celebrate Nevada Day
Defining and understanding Democracy
Laws, rules and regulations

We are also planning on a few guest speakers as well. I am looking forward to seeing the children and hearing about their week.  We will be busy making sure we are prepared for our testing days and making sure our standards have been covered. We will finish strong and work right up until the end! Preparing for middle school best we can!

Welcome back!