May 17th - May 23rd News!

Dear Families,

It was great to see some of you at our monthly Family Night! We are officially done with STAR testing!! You will receive your child’s test results in the mail sometime in September. Overall school scores broken down by grade will be available in July on the internet. Thank you for making sure your children were on time and well rested, they did great!


Your child may mention some additional testing I have started in the classroom and they will be referring to the WRAT tests. These tests are for Innovations Academy and will tell us how your child has grown in reading comprehension, spelling, and math. Students took the math and spelling tests last Friday and I will begin scoring them this week. The other portion of the test is done individually, so of course takes additional time. If you have any questions, let me know.

Talking about the end of the year, on Monday, June 7th, in the afternoon we will be at the YMCA engaging in "WACKY RACES". On Friday, the 11th as noted in my last BLOG, we will be going to "Flip Force". Both of these will be great fun for your children! The very last week of school, I am planning a final field trip. I'm not sure what we will be doing yet, but am open to suggestions from parents. I would like it to be fun and educational. I would also like to have a final class party on the last day of school. Students have asked for a pizza party. Are there any parent willing to donate plates and napkins? I have drinks and will buy the pizza's out of our class funds.



In math:

We will be finishing up learning a partial-quotient strategy in division and moving onto some fraction work, understanding angles, and probability.

For writing:

We are still working on summaries. Students are working hard learning how to restate information using synonyms and pronouns.

In Science:

We are looking at classification of living things.

Project:

Students have been given dates to finish each part of their project. Some are still working on their 3-D representation and others on their reports.



At this point in the year, we are almost finished with Wordly Wise. When we have finished, we will either move to other sets of words or engage in other types of word work.

That's it for now.
Kim

Dear Families,

I hope you are doing well! I want to let all of you know how much I appreciate all that you do as families of IA. Near the end of the year, everyone gets tired (students and teachers alike); however last week I got just the boost I needed. The cards, flowers, and treats you all brought to school for "Teacher's Appreciation Week" touched my heart and I want to "thank you" all very much.

This week we continue CST testing for math. The fourth graders were given a practice test on Friday and I think overall did well and as expected. We did pinpoint one area that needs some attention which I will be covering today. In addition to these tests, I will be starting to assess students using the WRAT test this week. This is an IA assessment and helps us evaluate student growth! If you happen to stop by the classroom, things may not look exactly as usual. Last week, I also reassessed one of my reading groups and found that they had improved their word recognition skills by a minimum of one grade level and in some cases more! Yey!

Please mark your calendar for this Thursday, May 13th for our monthly Family Night Meeting. I'm not sure who is hosting it, but know it is a good time to gain important IA news and information. If you do come, be sure to stop by my classroom and see the current project your child is working on.

Since I mentioned our current project, I want to let you know that your child was given an information sheet to bring home for you to read. Students are required to display their work and I recommended a tri-fold poster be purchased for each student. They are available at Michael's for $5.99. At this point, very few students have brought them to school. They are not required to use a tri-fold poster, if they have another idea about how they want to display their work. Ask your child what they are researching? By the way, we can always use more art supplies. Right now, I am looking for wire we can use under clay to build a 3-D figures and thin dowels.

I think that is it for now! Keep an eye on my BLOG over the next few weeks as I will be announcing an end of the year field trip!
Kim