Welcome back from spring break, everyone! I hope you all had a relaxing and fun week! I had a nice break spending time with my family up in Northern Virginia and here in Richmond. And of course, I had a great time cheering on my UVA Cavaliers in the NCAA tournament! This is a very exciting time! Go Hoos!!!
*Important Announcements*
*Thank you for your donations! Thank you to the families who sent in donations for the SPCA. Our school did a great job collecting over 400 items to donate to the Richmond SPCA!
*4th Quarter Reminders: This week we begin the last quarter of the year. Please encourage your child to maintain his or her focus these last couple of months. We know that with the weather getting nicer and sports practices running later, that the focus on school can start to decrease. Thank you very much in advance for your help in maintaining a strong work ethic throughout the rest of the year.
*Recorder Reminders: Please remember that students should be practicing their recorder at home throughout the week. Your child has the Recorder Karate music in his or her Music Folder and should be practicing the next song in order to earn the next belt. As Mrs. Garcia explained in the letter sent home with recorders, you can record a video of your child performing a song and email it to her so that your child doesn’t have to “test” in music class. Doing this really helps cut down on the testing line in class, and your child can do it in a much more relaxed environment at home. Thank you for your support with this!
*The recorder concert will be on Tuesday, April 16th at 7:00 pm. Please mark your calendars!
*MAP Assessments: As a reminder, students will take the Reading MAP test on Thursday, April 18th and the Math MAP test on Wednesday, April 24th. The students have been working on their growth skills in class, using both the Reading and Math sections of “My MAP Learning Path” on Study Island. Thank you for encouraging your child to work on this at home also, if possible.
Below is the link to the NWEA website and their Parent Toolkit:
https://www.nwea.org/parent-toolkit
*Classroom Items Needed: We have run out of tissues! With allergy season upon us, we could really use some more boxes of tissues. If you are able to donate some boxes, I would truly appreciate it. Thanks! Also, if you are able to, we could use some new Dollar Store prizes for our “Gotta Get It Card” drawings. Thank you in advance if you are able to send in some items for our Friday drawings!
*What Are We Learning In Class?*
*Reading:
This week we will review a complex skill we learned earlier this year- summarizing. We will learn to use the “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then” strategy to summarize a story using a graphic organizer. Once students have determined this important information they will be able to put it together in a summary of what was read. Students will complete a comprehension assessment on Friday 4/12. During small group rotations, students will meet with me in our small group and we will continue our strategy work using leveled texts. Students will also read to self and work on their writing.
We will continue with word study this week. Students will have their sentence assessment and the word study test on Friday 4/12. Please check with your child throughout the week to make sure that they are able to explain the feature that we are working on so that they will be able to apply it to some new words on the test.
*Math:
We will start our unit on Patterns this week. Students will need to be able to identify geometric patterns and number patterns. They also need to be able to extend these patterns to a specific amount, not just the next one in the pattern. Please encourage your child to write on their patterns and NOT try to do everything in their head. We will be practicing strategies in class and it will be important for them to be practicing these strategies on their homework throughout the week. Our class will take the Patterns assessment on Monday, 4/15.
*Social Studies:
On Monday we will review the content that we covered before spring break on VS.8 a and b. On Tuesday we will learn about VS.8c, which is about the importance of the growth in cities, railroads, and industry in Virginia and how it affected the economy of Virginia in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Students will take the VS.8a-c Test on Friday, 4/12.
We will also begin the next unit on Virginia in the 20th and 21st Century (VS.9). We will start by learning about Virginia’s change from a rural society to a more urban society in the early 20th century.
*Science:
No science this week.
Have a great week!
-Mrs. Jacobsen