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
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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,
Next week is the beginning of the end of the year testing schedule. I wanted to give you a little idea of how that takes place in 5th grade and general idea of how that affects our school day. There are four tests in 5th grade- writing, reading comprehension/grammar, math, and science. We will take one test per week. This involves 50- 60 minutes of testing each day until the student completes their test. In the subject that we will be testing, we won't have any direct instruction that week. We spend these weeks reviewing the material we learned this year. This slightly changes our normal schedules. For example, we won't have the normal language arts work (comprehension tests, spelling paragraph test, etc.) during the next two weeks. Similarly, next week we will finish the math book. The following week before the test will be a review week. Because we take the testing sessions seriously, I try to give the kids a bit more relaxing downtime. We will still be working on assignments that will lead to grades, but it will be more relaxed. The big push is to have them ready for the testing each day. Please encourage good sleep habits and healthy breakfasts as much as possible. They worked hard this year, and I want them to feel good about their tests. It is a challenging time pushing them to do their best while not putting too much stress on them. We will discuss this in depth, and practice some of the stress relief skills that we have learned this year (mainly focused breathing and mindfulness.) If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Regards, John Hi parents,
I hope you were able to enjoy the unusually long spring break this year. It was a little hard on everyone coming back to school on Monday. Tomorrow I will be sending home the 3rd quarter report card. As a parent and teacher, it is interesting to observe my own bias in looking at report cards. Earlier this week, my 7th-grade daughter brought home her report card. I immediately started comparing her grades to the previous quarters. Did she go up? Did she go down? If she went down, I wondered what happened. I believe this is probably a normal reaction for parents. We look at our kids' report cards and want to know if they are doing well. We want to know if they are getting better or getting worse, etc. The teacher part of me has a different view. Here are some of my thoughts that I would like you to keep in mind as you look at your child's report card:
I am also sending home a math assignment (Skills Test) with the report card. Please have your child complete it at home. When they are finished, please put your signature on the assignment. A few years ago I did some research using this 5th-grade skills test. The test is comprised of math (without word problems) that the kids have learned in 5th grade. I found that if a student was able to achieve 80 percent or better on this test, they were very likely to also pass the state of Utah end-of-the-year test in math. If you find that your child has trouble with any area of the test, we still have 3 to 4 weeks to figure it out. This will also be a very good indicator of your child's strengths and weaknesses in math. We will correct the tests in class after I receive them back from you. Finally, habits and mindset have a big impact on positivity and success at school. With spring arriving, it is easy for us to think it is the end of the school year. Please encourage your child to keep working hard over the next 7 weeks of school. As I have been reminding them. If they work hard during the next 7 weeks, they are allowed to have a 12-week vacation as a reward! Regards, John Parents,
Next week are the scheduled parent teacher conferences. If you don't want to sign up for a specific time and would prefer to just email me questions, that works. Otherwise I will set up a Zoom Meeting and you can join me at your scheduled time. Coming to school for an in person meeting works also- but please let me know ahead of time. Our Valentine's Day celebration/party will be next Wednesday afternoon. Class lists for valentines can be found on Google Classroom. If your child decides to make a valentine's box, the challenge this year is to make it wearable. A tradition I also have is to have a lip sync contest on Valentine's Day. This year I am modifying the experience. If you child would like to participate they will need to record their lip sync on flipgrid.com (video) at home before Wednesday. Then we will show their lip syncs during our party. If you have any questions, let me know. I will hopefully be communicating with all of you next week. -John Hi parents,
Report cards were sent home yesterday. I included three items:
Conference options:
To schedule a meeting, you can sign up for conferences starting January 28th. Thank you, John Parents,
Thank you for your kindness and generosity. The cards, notes, treats, and gifts this week have made me a bit emotional. The year has not come easy, but your children make up for it everyday. They are kind, hardworking, polite, and caring. Their laughter and smiles make my job so much easier. I see their growth and development, and I am extremely proud of them. I hope you are seeing some of this happiness at home too. I hope you are able to enjoy the next 16 days, have a very happy holiday, and stay healthy! -John Parents,
The last two months have caused me to rethink my homework practices and expectations. There are 3 main reasons why I am feeling like I need to make this change:
In this no homework policy, I am specifically referring to Monday thru Thursday. Fridays are distance learning days and I make myself available during the day to help students through their challenges and questions. Work at home on those days I am considering ‘classwork.’ Please encourage your child to utilize me on Fridays just like they would during the rest of the week. If I need to adjust my Google Meet schedule to make that more helpful and convenient, please let me know. Thank you, 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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