Week 31: Practicing for the MSP....

Welcome to week 31!  We hope that everyone had an enjoyable and restful Spring Break. 

We have a new tool for parents and students to use to stay caught up on classwork in the 5th grade.  We are excited to introduce to you the online assignment sheet for both Woods and Therriault's classes.  This assignment sheet will be online so any parent or student can gain access to see whether they have missing assignments that need to be completed.  The assignments sheets are linked to the Ridegcrest 5th Grade Web Page and use each students classroom number instead of names.  Classroom numbers will be sent home via weekly evals this week if your student will not tell you theirs.  Here are the links for the two classes:

Woods Assignment Sheet

Therriault Assignment Sheet

This is a new feature for us, so it may take a little getting used to.  But, we are very hopeful that it will be a powerful tool for students and parents.  Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns regarding the new online assignment sheets. 

On to the week:

In reading this week we are going to be doing some MSP preparation. We are going to be reading passages that are similar to what the students will see on the MSP next week.  We are going to continue to talk about how to write a complete answer using evidence from the text. We are also going to continue to discuss test taking strategies. Students will read the questions prior to reading the passage, underline key names, dates and words while reading, and they will refer back to the passage as they are answering questions.

In addition to MSP prep, we are also going to be reading some poems and learning how to respond to questions about poetry.  Students will be using skills they learned throughout the year such as inferring, synthesizing,  identifying author's purpose and theme, and summarizing while reading the poems.  This exposure not only meets fifth grade standards, but also will prepare students for the MSP. 
The only reading homework this week will be classwork that isn't finished in class.

In social studies, students will be given some time to work with their group on their colony project throughout the week. There will be no official assignments made regarding this project this week. However, students may chose to work on their projects at home.  If you are in need of the rubric and assignment explanation, please contact Mrs. Therriault. 

In math we will be continuing to review the many concepts we have worked with this year.  We will do this in two manners.  The first, students will be taking practice MSP math sections in class and we will be scoring and talking about each section so that students can get a better sense as to what is expected of them on our upcoming MSP.  In addition, we will be giving the kids an online progress monitoring test each day that covers the entire years worth of math concepts.  Again, we will discuss their work each day so that each of our students are finding new ways to think and solve each problem. 

That's it for now.  Please be on the lookout for an MSP Goal Setting Worksheet going home with each student this week.  Please fill it out with your student and send it back with your weekly eval. 

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

-Allyn and Alaina