Monday, October 2, 2017

Falling Into October. . . .

We've had a wonderful first whole month of school, with your children doing a fabulous job adjusting to fifth grade learning routines. Here is a rundown of what's been cooking in room 401:

Hurricane relief
We contributed 100 dollars to Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas. Cryar Intermediate school in Conroe, Texas will use this money to replenish much needed school supplies for those students. Twenty-five dollars went toward the school-wide Hurricane Irma relief through the Red Cross. Thank you so much for your generous donations.

My MSU Research Study
Look for two copies of a photo/student work release to come home this week. One copy is for you to sign if you give permission for me to use your student's work in presentations I do about our fifth grade writing instruction. The other copy is for your records. As a National Writing Project Fellow I have an opportunity to participate in work that aims to improve the engagement level and the quality of student writing. The current study focuses on a process to approach "undiscovered genres." Ask your child about it! More details are in the letter coming to you.

Literacy Assessment
We are on a three week rotation, with vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension strategies being assessed for a "grade," respectively on a rotating cycle. Students are held accountable in other ways (they must show evidence of spelling edits in their writing, for example, ALWAYS. Ask them to show you the strategy they have been taught for doing this.)
Here are the dates for specific literacy assessments for the month of October:

Oct. 6th--vocabulary quiz (on that week's vocabulary list)
Oct. 13th--spelling proofreading passage assessment (using that week's spelling words)
Oct. 20th--comprehension skill exit ticket (they cannot study for this, other than to be practicing the strategy focus in our reading for that week as they always do, in multiple contexts.
Oct. 27th--vocabulary quiz

The assessment cycle will rotate this way, mostly, for the rest of the school year.

Some Thoughts on Spelling Assessment

Students will have the spelling words copied in their planner. We do word study every week, with a focus on Greek and Latin roots. Also, I am reinforcing the spelling strategies students use in the real world by having them practice looking at words to see if they "look" right, and then fixing them up until they do. They don't only do this on assessment day. They are practicing this all the time. The reason specific words are not assessed every week is because there is overwhelming research to support the notion that focusing on the memorization of specific words only teaches children how to memorize words for one week, and they are very likely to forget them the next. The focus in our classroom is on spelling practice with instant teacher feedback (on their whiteboards). This is part of our word study. We want students learning strategies to fix their own spelling, reading voraciously to get exposed to correctly spelled words. We also want them to write voraciously (and edit with spelling in mind, always) to practice. If you're interested in a short article about the merits of word study over rote memorization click here. :-)

Math Games
A Call For Expo Markers
Because we use our whiteboards (slates) often in math and literacy, we go through a lot of those skinny Expo markers. If you see them on sale and want to send some our way throughout the year we so appreciate it! I pick them up as well when I see them marked down. Thank you so much.

Friday Folders
Please make sure your child brings their Friday Folder back to school on Mondays!

Homework
We will resume our normal Everyday Math Homelink plan (three to four homelinks per week, checked in on Mondays) as our next math intervention won't begin for a while. I'll let you know about any changes, and in the meantime you may check your child's Monday planner entry for the homelinks to be done for that week.

Forty Book Challenge!
Last week the students brought home a flyer about our 5th grade wide 40 book challenge. This works out to them reading roughly one book per week throughout the school year. If you haven't seen this there is a link to the document with all the details here. Consider doing the challenge with your child! Families who read together stick together!

As always, please contact me with any questions you have. Here are some pictures from the past month:




Buddies

Some Book Buddy Pictures. Mrs. Ellis' class is our Buddy class this year!

Buddies

Immersing ourselves in the genre of author blurbs.


1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for taking the time to create this and share it for us all! I love seeing what's happening in the classroom.

    Justin Plough

    ReplyDelete