Parents,
I wanted to give you an idea of what to expect next week in 5th grade: - I will send home end-of-the-year testing results. I will not be sending home report cards- they will be mailed to your home. - Any missing work needs to be turned in by the end of the day Thursday. - Computers and books will be turned in on Tuesday. Please have your child look for any school books at home. - Tuesday is field day here at Driggs. The 5th grade will be on the field from 2-3 pm. - Wednesday the 5th grade will be having an end-of-the-year party from 10:30- noon. - Projects and classwork next week will not be used for 4th quarter grades. - Thursday is a distance learning day, however, the kids will have already turned in their computers. There will be a student parade from 9- 10 am where the teachers will be sitting in front of the school. Your family is welcome to drive by and be cheered on! At 10:30, my class will be having a short awards assembly on the grass in front of the school. I sent a note home with your child yesterday about this. The awards being given will be honor roll (grades), the Presidential Academic Award (all 4's on their EOY testing), Presidential Silver Award (exceptional growth this past year), and safety patrol participation awards. I will not be giving any assignments on this day. I hope you will be able to enjoy this Memorial Day weekend. Thank you, John
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Parents,
Today your child will be bringing home a summer work packet. There is also a piece of paper that has your child's logins and passwords on it. Both of these can be used if you would like your child to practice during the summer. Over the course of the year, many people have asked me for my opinion on COVID's impact on schools and education. I am happy to give you my opinion if you ask, however, what I believe you most care about is my opinion on the impact COVID has had on your child in particular. Is your child ready for 6th grade? Categories and indicators: Reading fluency and comprehension- There are two areas to look at that are good indicators of your child's level. Dibels (Acadience) testing and the RISE test in ELA. I will be sending home your child's results in these areas. In the meantime, I can say that all of your children are on grade level for reading fluency. RISE testing in ELA scored your child using a 1-4 system. If your child received a 3 or 4 they are on grade level or above grade level. Math- There are two areas that I would look at closely. 1) The skill(s) test that is at the end of the packet that is being sent home. This is the same skill(s) test that I sent home at the end of the 3rd quarter. 2) Your child's RISE test in math. Math also uses a 1-4 system to let you know their proficiency. Writing: The state of Utah made a slightly suspicious change to its grading here. It will only tell you if your child scored below, at/near, or above grade level on the end of the year RISE test. If your child is in the at/near range you may want to look more closely at the details of their results (I will be sending these home next week.) Science: Due to a change this year in the 5th-grade science content/standards and in the style of test that they give we will not be receiving science results anytime soon. My understanding is that the state of Utah needs to check for validity in the test questions before they finalize results. I will say that we explored science in more challenging ways this year. Just today I watched your children participate in a science assignment and I was very impressed with their thoughts, work, and analysis. I feel confident that they are on the right track. Responsibility: This is the middle school leap of faith. Are they ready for 7 different teachers and the organization that will be required to be successful? I challenged them this year in that regard. I purposely did not fill out a daily planner together with them. I tried to give them the freedom to sink or swim in order to find their strengths and weaknesses. Distance learning Fridays were a gift in this regard. Was your child able to take care of their own distance learning without you? Were they able to get their work done on their own, or did you have to micromanage their Fridays? I think distance learning days were a sample of their preparedness for the responsibilities of middle school. Homework: This is the one area that I find myself conflicted. I don't believe in the classical expectation of homework. My understanding is that your child did NOT have much homework (Monday- Thursday) this year. We were still able to be highly successful without having much (if any) homework. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the strategy of middle school. If my seventh grader is a fair example, there is a high level of homework required in middle school. I don't agree with it, but I am also not a middle school teacher, so I don't think I can judge. I didn't feel comfortable assigning a lot of homework this year when my only rationale would have been that it prepares them for middle school. In this area, I may have done your child a disservice. I hope not. The main takeaway that I want to leave you with is that our class did not regress when I compare them to past years. They started the year lower. It took longer to convince them of good habits and skills. However, as I look at our end-of-the-year results we have caught up to my expectations and previous years' levels of achievement. We did not drop at all. Thank you for all of your support. We were/are on the same team, and we could not have achieved what we did without you. Regards, John Hi parents,
Yesterday I asked the kids how many of them had started planning what to wear for their state costumes. Only three of them raised their hand. This 5th-grade tradition is not meant to be stressful or expensive. If you could start talking with your child about what they could wear to represent their state this weekend, then hopefully there will be less stress next Thursday (the day they are supposed to wear their costume/outfit to school.) I am sorry if this is a hassle. Normally, the kids then wear their outfits during our "America" concert in the multipurpose room as a part of our end-of-the-year celebration. This year, on Thursday, I will be taking pictures of them in front of their state on our classroom map and will be turning that into a music/slideshow. They will also be doing other state activities with parent volunteers on that day. Thanks, John Parents,
Teacher appreciation week is over. Thank you for the great week! Thank you for the kind notes, school supplies, plant, art, and food this week! Lunch was brought to me every day- that was very generous and delicious. Your kids created a mural of me that was especially touching and memorable. As I have mentioned to a few parents, I have pushed to have it become a permanent mural at Driggs. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen. In talking to the class, leading up to teacher appreciation week, I told them that I didn't really need flowers or anything. What I really wanted was for them to do their best on their end-of-the-year testing. Yesterday afternoon I received the results of last week's writing and this week's language arts tests. I am incredibly proud of what your children accomplished. Because they didn't test last year, I can't easily see their growth from 4th grade, but I can see that we are close to 100 percent proficient in writing and 84 percent proficient in language arts. To put that in perspective, the district (5th grade) has a writing proficiency of 58 percent and a language arts proficiency of 33 percent. I am so very proud and thankful for the effort they have put in this year and over the past two weeks. It was the best gift for teacher appreciation. While I am writing to you I would also like to add that next week your child will be assigned a state for our end-of-the-year state report and activities. Part of the activity is that your child will try to dress up in a way that represents their state. They will bring their outfit/costume to school on Thursday, May 27th. I will be taking pictures of them to put into a montage video. The goal with the outfit is to be creative, not to spend a lot of money. Thank you again, John |
Parents:This is the place where I will post updates as I make decisions, problem solve, and learn how to adjust to a new paradigm of teaching. Archives
August 2022
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