Week of February 11 – 15

Happy Valentine’s Day week!  I hope that everyone stays healthy during this time of year!

*Important Announcements This Week*

*Report Cards:  Report cards will be sent home on Monday, February 11.  I’m sure many of you have already seen your child’s progress for the 2nd quarter on Power School, but the paper copy is for you to keep.  Please keep the report card and return the signed envelope the next day on Tuesday 2/12.  Thank you for your help with this.

*Benchmarks Assessments:  I will also be sending home scores from the benchmark assessments this week. Please remember that we did no preparations for these assessments in school, and we use these assessments to help us determine areas needed for review and remediation. The scores on these benchmark assessment will be recorded as a single classwork grade in reading, math, and social studies.

*MAP Assessments: I will also spend some time conferencing with students this week about the upcoming spring MAP assessments (MAP stands for Measures of Academic Progress). Students will take the Reading MAP test on April 11th and the Math Math test on April 17th. During our conference, students will review their performance on the fall assessments and we will discuss their areas of strength and areas that were relative weaknesses. I will suggest to students that when given the chance to select an area within the NWEA MAP Path on Study Island, that they choose a topic from one of their weaker areas. Students will also set a goal for themselves for the Spring MAP test.  A letter will be coming home soon with some tips of things that you can do at home to help your child be successful on the NWEA MAP test.

*Valentine’s Day:  Valentine’s Day is this Thursday 2/14. Last week I sent home a list of students’ names in our class.  We will be exchanging Valentines this year, if students want to participate. It is completely optional. The rule is that if students would like to participate, they must create a Valentine for everyone in our class. Also, since we have many allergies in our school, please make sure that the Valentines that your child chooses does not include any candy/food.  Small treats like stickers, pencils, erasers, or any other non-food items are fine if they come with the Valentine. We will be doing an engineering activity during the week of Valentine’s Day to create a container to hold our Valentines. Then on Valentine’s Day children will distribute and open the Valentines from their classmates. Our room parents sent out a sign-up on the “My School Anywhere” website asking for supplies to make our containers. Thank you to those of you able to donate items!

*Assembly:  This week we will go to a very fun assembly!  We will get to see the “Robert Jospe World Beat” program on Tuesday 2/12.

*Virtual Lesson:  We will have our next virtual lesson with the Virginia Museum of History and Culture on Tuesday 2/12.

 

*What Are We Learning This Week?*

*Reading:

This week we will use some of our whole group reading time to have one-on-one conferences about NWEA MAP assessments. With me, students will review their fall performance and set goals for their spring assessments in April.  During small group rotations, students will meet with me in our reading groups and we will continue practicing comprehension strategies using leveled texts.  While not with me, students will read to self and work on their writing.

We will continue with word study this week. Please check in with your child this week to make sure that he or she is completing their homework carefully and correctly. Students will complete their word study sentence assessment on Thursday. Please be sure that your child is studying the meaning of the word and the word study feature so that they can correctly write sentences that demonstrate the meaning of the word. Students will take their word study test on Friday 2/15.

*Math:

This week we will finish our Fraction unit. The last concept we are learning about is how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. As we practiced this skill in class on Friday, we learned that we have to find the common denominator for both fractions, then make new equivalent fractions before we can add or subtract them.  As we have discussed in class, the biggest mistakes that students make is not paying attention to the sign and forgetting to reduce their answer to simplest form.  Please check in with your child on Monday night to see how they are doing with their homework.  If they are getting stuck, remind them to open up their math notebook and look at the examples we completed in school.

Students will take a short fractions quiz on Tuesday 2/12. Then we will review all concepts in preparation for their Fractions Test on Friday 2/15.

*Social Studies:

This week we will begin our new unit on the causes of the Civil War (VS.7a).  Even though we just completed our new nation unit, we will be jumping forward in history to the era of the Civil War. On Wednesday this week we will learn about the major differences between the north and the south. On Friday we will learn about some famous abolitionists who were trying to end slavery.  It is important to understand the causes of the war before we even learn about any of the events during the war.

*Science:

This week we will complete an engineering challenge to create a container for their Valentines following specific criteria. I look forward to seeing how students handle the challenge!

We will also begin our next unit in science this week – Electricity. To begin this unit, we will begin learning about the structure of an atom – electrons, protons, and neutrons. This will help us learn about static electricity, insulators and conductors.

 

Have a fabulous week!

-Mrs. Jacobsen

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