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!

SNACKS: I 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.

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!

Pics!

Here are a few pics from our science project. The first day it was so windy and cold and we had to beg for a ray of sun! The second day our 3rd graders joined us!

Beautiful day...

...for some down time at the park!

Happy Spring!

I hope your families enjoy the week off and get some much needed down time amd rest!

Your children worked very hard this week.

We took 3 practice SBAC tests in math, reading and writing - while still holding steady to our science standards! We braved the cold wind every hour to get our measurements and then graphed our data Wednesday afternoon -- while teaching Mes. WindRiver ' s class what we were doing, all 20 of them!

Can I just tell you how amazing your kids are?! Everything I just listed was challenging and I needed them to be the most responsible, and they really stepped up for me, I appreciated them so much!

The two weeks after our break will be filled with reviewing the skills we have used all year.

In reading, we will begin reading the book, Crash by Jerry Spinelli which I think they will love! We will be talking about narrative elements throughout this book.

In writing for 4th and 5th grades, we will be practicing using 2 or 3 pieces of text to draw from. We have done this with 2 pieces throughout the year and they have improved a great deal. These are the same skills we use for researching during projects so they are fairly proficient already. Practice makes prepared!

In projects, we are moving back to social studies. We have some civics standards to begin covering which will include government, laws, responsibilities and democracy. It will be interesting and we have some fun activities planned and guest speakers lined up soon!

💙 I adore your children. They have given me an incredible year and I will continue to do my best to prepare them for middle school-- can you believe it?! Middle school!! 😲