Hello 5-2 Families ~
They did it!! Their excellent behavior earn your kiddos another Movie and Popcorn Party!! Woo hoo!! They chose to watch Frozen and I'll be serving Smartfood Popcorn as we spend Monday afternoon relaxing :) If you have any concerns about the movie or the snacks, please send me an email!
We have run out of tissue in 5-2! We use tissues for more than just our runny noses...the students use tissues as erasers for their laptop whiteboards. Since we use these whiteboards almost daily, we use quite a few tissues! If you could please send in a couple of boxes, we would really appreciate it! Thank you so much :)
Many of you have been asking about math placement for middle school. I have been given a little more information I can pass along to you. As you have heard, there will be two levels of math in 6th grade - Common Core and Algebra. Your child's placement will be determined based on their past (3rd, 4th, and 5th grade) performance on ISAT and MAPS scores. So, your child will not take a placement test in math as we have done in the past. I do not know when the placement decisions will be made, but I do know you will receive a letter in the mail as in the past. As always, please let me know if you have any questions, and I will keep you posted as I receive updates. Thank you for your patience as we make these changes in our district.
Important Dates
April 18th ~ No School
They did it!! Their excellent behavior earn your kiddos another Movie and Popcorn Party!! Woo hoo!! They chose to watch Frozen and I'll be serving Smartfood Popcorn as we spend Monday afternoon relaxing :) If you have any concerns about the movie or the snacks, please send me an email!
We have run out of tissue in 5-2! We use tissues for more than just our runny noses...the students use tissues as erasers for their laptop whiteboards. Since we use these whiteboards almost daily, we use quite a few tissues! If you could please send in a couple of boxes, we would really appreciate it! Thank you so much :)
Many of you have been asking about math placement for middle school. I have been given a little more information I can pass along to you. As you have heard, there will be two levels of math in 6th grade - Common Core and Algebra. Your child's placement will be determined based on their past (3rd, 4th, and 5th grade) performance on ISAT and MAPS scores. So, your child will not take a placement test in math as we have done in the past. I do not know when the placement decisions will be made, but I do know you will receive a letter in the mail as in the past. As always, please let me know if you have any questions, and I will keep you posted as I receive updates. Thank you for your patience as we make these changes in our district.
Important Dates
April 18th ~ No School
Math
We will wrap up Unit 8 on Monday with a quiz. This quiz will include multiplication and division of fractions and percent of a number, and will not be included as an assessment grade. If you recall, prior to Spring Break, we took the Part A assessment on Unit 8. After Spring Break, we have worked only on the Part B lessons, which are not included in the final assessment. These concepts are just introduced in the unit, and they are not expected to be mastered. We will also take the Unit 9 Pre-test on Monday. In this unit, students will study coordinates, area, volume, and capacity.
Social Studies
We began our Westward Expansion Unit as we returned from break with a huge map of the United States taped to our floor. Students moved in and settled the land, but discovered quickly there wasn't enough land for them. As they became more crowded, they pushed and wanted to move west to have more room. This activity mirrored the idea of Manifest Destiny - the common belief that we as Americans had the right to move west and take over land from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. Chapter 16 focuses on how we acquired the different portions of land that now make up the United States as a whole. The Chapter 16 test will be on Monday. We discussed the many ways they can study: re-read the chapter, take the online assessment, create flash cards, review the organizer. Students were quite excited as they were also introduced to Hacker's Trail - a Westward Expansion game that simulates an Oregon pioneer wagon train that moved west in the mid-1800's. Students will have to work cooperatively to make trail decisions, and deal with the many different fates a real wagon train would have had to deal with on this journey - from cholera to Native American attacks. Students will get sick, injured, and even die along this exciting journey. On Friday, they were able to choose their identities, and given the task of loading their wagons this weekend in preparation for our journey. We will be leaving Independence, Missouri on Monday!! While the actual journeys took months, this game will take about 3 weeks to play. Who will make it??
Reading
As you know, we spent this week discussing and researching the difficult topic of bullying in schools, with an emphasis on middle school. Bullying has become an important topic for parents and schools to address because it is different today than when we were in school. It is more prevalent and more intense. it is now understood to be very destructive to the well being of students, creates unsafe schools and creates a school climate that hinders learning. As your child's teacher, I'm committed to prevention and intervention in my classroom, so we spend several weeks on the topic of bullying. The lessons I teach are designed to create a positive environment where everyone feels safe, accepted, and a sense of belonging as they discuss this difficult topic. They also provide students with information to help them develop empathy, self-control, and skills to cope with bullying and to become bystanders who take a stand against bullying.
I have been so impressed with the students as they have had such heart-felt and mature discussions about bullying in our classroom. Students have been working in teams to do research over the past week. They will pull their research together this week to create a presentation to take the information to other younger classrooms in our building. We've learned this week that one of the best ways to prevent bullying is education, so it is their mission to educate as many students as possible.
I have been so impressed with the students as they have had such heart-felt and mature discussions about bullying in our classroom. Students have been working in teams to do research over the past week. They will pull their research together this week to create a presentation to take the information to other younger classrooms in our building. We've learned this week that one of the best ways to prevent bullying is education, so it is their mission to educate as many students as possible.
Writing
We continued our persuasive writing unit this week as the students are writing essays trying to convince me where my family should go for vacation this year. It's going to be hard to decide!! These essays will be due on Friday.
“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Peace ~
