Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
March 18-March 22
Mark Your Calendars:
- Thursday, March 21st: 5th Grade Level 1 Math Placement Test
- Thursday, March 21st - Friday, March 29th: Parent Conferences: Dismissal at 12:30 each day!
- Monday, March 25: Lit. Circle Day 1
- Wednesday, March 27: Lit. Circle Day 2
- Thursday, March 28th: Miller Middle School Parent Info. Night @ 6:00 p.m.
- Friday, March 29th: Spirit Day: Ribbons or Pins Day
- Monday, April 1: Lit. Circle Day 3
- Wednesday, April 3: Lit. Circle Day 4
- Wednesday, April 3: 5th grade “Design a Bedroom” project due
- Thursday, April 4th: Family Science Night
- Friday, April 5th: Report cards go home
- April 8th-19th: Spring Break!
- Monday, April 22nd: School resumes
Volunteer Opportunity - Literature Circles!
It’s
once again time for our famous “Literature Circle” discussions! To
make this activity successful we need parent volunteers to help out in
class for about an hour twice a week for two weeks. Last session we had
a wonderful turnout of parents and we think they were the best
literature circles we’ve had in a long time. As a parent volunteer,
your job is to listen to children discuss what they have read and let us
know how they’re participating in the discussion session. It’s easy
and a great deal of fun - that’s what the parents who volunteer tell
us! The dates and times are listed below. Please do let us know as
soon as possible, via email, if you can help out. A complete direction
sheet will then be sent home for you to review.
Literature Circle Dates:
Monday- 3/25, Wednesday- 3/27, Monday- 4/1, Wednesday, 4/3
All times are from 8:00 - approximately 9:00.
Curriculum Flash!
Language Arts:
We have some fun projects planned over the next two weeks as we wrap up By the Great Horn Spoon
and move into our shortened days of conferencing As we revisit the
major themes of the book, students will be reviewing vocabulary, writing
the final entries in their perspective journals, and completing a
“One-Pager” open response to share their reflections of the novel.
A
wide selection of award-winning, thought-provoking picture books have
been chosen in which to continue our practice of the various writing
formats within the fourth and fifth grade standards. As fifth graders
reach towards mastery of these structures and fourth graders sharpen
their understanding and developing skills, all students continue to
write within these various styles to strengthen their mechanics,
sentence structure, vocabulary, and voice.
We
teachers are looking forward to meeting with you to share your child’s
progress in the Language Arts as we look ahead and set new goals for the
final few months of the school year.
Math:
4th grade:
Welcome
to Geometry! Our classes shift their attention this week to plane
geometry concepts like points, lines, line segments, rays and angles,
polygons, quadrilaterals, circles, and bilateral symmetry. Each person
will create their own geometry poster with these key ideas to display
proudly in their rooms at home! This way, visions of equilateral
triangles and rhombuses will dance in their heads as our students sleep
peacefully each night. Well, that’s our hope anyway! For those of us
working in small groups on our Click, Clack, Moo algebra explanations, we’ll take on another challenge problem and complete our work on Friday.
5th grade:
We
will continue learning about and seeking real life examples of
decimals. We focus on both the operations and application of decimals
in real life problem-solving. We look forward to witnessing student
creativity in the Decimal Menu projects. Please note the new due date
of April 3 for the “Design a Bedroom” project.
5th Grade Math Placement Test:The
Level 1 placement test for the fifth graders will be administered on
Thursday, March 21st. Students should feel confident with their skills
in the strands they have learned. They may review the 4th grade
geometry concepts learned last year to re-familiarize themselves with
the vocabulary. It is important that students realize that this test is
designed to place them in the correct level of math so that they will be
successful in the upcoming year.
Students will be given more placement tests throughout middle
school. The Level 2 placement test will be given on Thursday, April
4th. This test generally tests students’ proficiency in the sixth grade
math standards. The middle school counselors and teachers will work with
students and parents concerning all placement issues in the fall.
Social Studies:
We
are moving on to our next unit, which focuses on Mexican California;
the transition from missions to life on a rancho. Students will create a
diseno, reata, and type up a narrative of rancho life experiences in
the next couple of weeks.
Science:
Students
will be finishing up their 2 minute oral presentations of our
Electricity and Magnetism investigations this week. They are sharing the
purpose of the investigation, the materials used in the presentation,
the procedure for the investigation (including a look at the actual
investigation setup), and the lesson learned from the investigation.
These oral presentations should be available for viewing during the
technology portion of our conferences beginning on March 21 for most
classes. If time allows, we’ll also begin our preliminary discussions
for our Environments unit.
CA Trivia:
What is the insect that takes four generations to migrate from Canada through CA to Mexico and back?
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