This Week in Room 33! Sept. 3-6

Parents, 

Don’t forget to sign up for your parent-teacher “intake” conference using THIS LINK! To prepare for this parent-led conference, please click HERE for a survey (answers are only shared with me). We can use these questions to guide our discussion. I truly appreciate all of the information you give, so we can work together to better meet your child’s needs this school year! 

What is an intake conference?

An opportunity to- gain useful information about students from parents, establish partnerships, set goals for the school year, allow one-to-one communication

How do you prepare for this conference?

Think about your students- strengths, opportunities for growth, interests, motivators, how do these areas impact your child’s learning and interactions with peers?

Here's what to expect this week in 5th grade…

STEAM: Important note about math assessments→  Instead of assigning a rather large and lengthy formative assessment at the end of a chapter or unit, we are breaking the former “test” down into progress checks. Each “check-in” is usually given at the end of a school week and typically consists of about 5 problems. Our intention is that the progress check will only include skills taught that week, that the assessment should be completed pretty quickly (usually about 15 minutes), and as the material is fresh, hopefully completed with ease. These progress checks are then assessed, students are given an opportunity to meet with the teacher to discuss their learning, and most importantly, I use the data to meet with students the following week to continue to review the skills that were missed. We find that the students seem to improve much more quickly this way, and that overall the students are more relaxed instead of little balls of stress on a test day. Students will also be assessed periodically with independent projects that will cover math skills taught in a real-world and more authentic problem solving setting.

As a reminder→  students are ALWAYS encouraged to use their textbook at home for extra practice if they feel they need it in a certain area as a way to feel more prepared for these assessments. Students will be responsible for showing YOU their weekly assessment scores by logging into their Google account and going to their Gmail inbox. I will send a Remind text when they are available to view. When looking at these assessments, encourage your child to explain to you what they missed and what they have learned from their mistakes, rather than focusing on the point values.

This week we are beginning Chapter 2- Multiplying Whole Numbers.  We will practice prime factorization and talk about powers and exponents. It will be important to make sure your child knows his/her basic multiplication facts as we move forward!

ELA: We are working really hard on our goals to read more than EVER before this year! We have also been learning that it is not only about VOLUME but about the QUALITY of our reading- our metacognition (thinking about our thinking!) We are showing our deep thinking about our books by using our ELA notebooks. This week we are learning to think analytically and taking a closer look at our characters and their struggles. We will utilize all of these skills as we complete our first literary essay on the Panyee Football Club short documentary.

Please CONNECT with our classroom→ 

Facebook: @MrsSchaefers5thGradeClass

Remind 101: text @sch533 to 81010 to sign up! 

Class Blog: schaefer5th.blogspot.com