Monday PE Studyhall before school | Tuesday In and About Studyhall before school | Wednesday Art Studyhall before school | Thurs & Fri Student Led Conferences on Thursday No School Friday |
4/14 -- No School, Student Led Conferences (please call the office to schedule your child's conference)
4/14 -- The Backyard Garden will be open for visits and a Work Party during conferences, from 10am-2pm.
4/15--No School
4/22--Earth Day Bike Ride
4/29--No School
* Sign-ups for Summer Garden Stewards are open. Please consider helping care for the garden this summer! Visit this link - Become a Summer Garden Steward! learn more.
It is going to be a hard transition not having Kerry in the classroom, and we will miss her so! We had a very sweet celebration on Thursday filled with fun and tears. Many Merlins wanted her contact information and here it is:
Kerry Daimon [email protected]
Student Led Conferences are this Thursday! You should have signed up for a 30 minute slot, if you haven’t please call the office to schedule a time. Your student will guide you through documents that show growth in reading, writing, math and our classroom expectations. I will provide you with a brochure to help guide the conference and/or to extend the conversation with your child or if he/she seems stuck. All families are welcome to come and check in with me too. I will be sitting in the background enjoying the conversations of the room, but I would love to talk with each family for a few minutes. Enjoy the time seeing your child take ownership over his/her learning.
Literacy
- The Performance Task on uniforms was due Thursday the 7th.
- Writing homework this week: Performance Task and/or Typing Web
Literature circle groups continue to go well and kids are very excited about the books they are reading. I absolutely love hearing their excitement and discussions about what they read.
For writing, we spent the short week writing a persuasive piece to explain our perspective on uniforms. It seems kids are getting the hang of how to cite evidence and inform their readers. We are going to spend our even shorter week on perfecting these pieces.
Ask, what chapter do you think is the most important that you’ve read so far.
Listen to your child read his/her persuasive piece on uniforms.
Extend the learning by reading and discussing a realistic fiction story as a family.
Project
What lovely day we had at Fernhill on Tuesday. I can’t thank the volunteers enough. Without their participation this project just doesn’t work. In small groups, students collected important data. We are going to take time this week to look it over. The Fernhill project will be a major focus for us next year.
Ask, what was your favorite part of the Fernhill trip on Tuesday?
Listen to your child explain what the group found in terms of data.
Extend the learning by visiting Fernhill and have your child act as the tour guide.
6th Grade Math
Our week was mainly focused on how to multiply mixed numbers. The number of steps to make this happen can be overwhelming! (Convert to improper fractions, simplify before multiplying, multiply across, turn back into a mixed number) But, kids persevered to gain this skill. Going slow and clearly documenting each step helped kids to be successful. Chris, the Level 4 math teacher observed one day and gave me some pointers as to how help the group transition to the expectations for next year. We’ll get into division of fractions this week.
Ask, what will you need to work on to be successful in Level 4 math?
Listen to your child explain the steps to multiply mixed numbers.
Extend the learning by looking at how fractions are a part of our everyday life.
5th Grade Math-
This past week we spent the first half reviewing the mathematical interpretation of "of," multiplication of fractions and division with fractions for the unit test. The nest half of the week was for the unit test. This test proved to be challenging for the students. We will spend this short week with collaborative and active review of the unit's concepts and skills. Students who will retake may do so as early as Tuesday's homework. Please use the math homework time to review the test and corrections with your child. The signed reflection, test and corrections should be back at school by WEDNESDAY, 4/13. I am including the links for videos on the unit's topics. This would be a great review for your child and a good way for you to understand the math your child is doing in class.
The formula for a/b of c/d
Product of two fractions: Definition and formula
Computing 5÷(1/3) using the definition
Computing 3÷ (1/4) using the definition
A quick summary of a few specific examples of division of fractions