The Kersey Chronicles
Rockstars Choosing to Matter in Room 25
Goals + Commitment = Success
Full of things that have never been."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
With a fresh, new year upon us and the beginning of a new quarter, it provides a beautiful opportunity to review our goals and press the "reset" button. This first week back at school is a perfect time for students to evaluate their progress so far this school year, and analyze their work habits and behaviors as they pertain to their desired outcomes. Students will update their data binders, and will use this information to help set goals for Quarter 3. Please plan to schedule an at-home conference with your child this week to discuss his/her work and spend time creating a plan for the next 9 weeks of school. Third quarter is a pivotal time of the year, as we head into "testing season" and continue to push ourselves to new heights. It will require vision and commitment to persevere and reach our best academic potential, and I continue to be grateful to be the teacher who gets to work with your child each day to help him/her get there!
Try This At Home ...
This week, plan to schedule a 20 minute block of time to sit down for an at-home conference with your child. He/she will come home with his/her data binder to share work from Quarter 2 with you. Work together to use this data to guide goal setting for Quarter 3.
This Week's Set List (January 4-8)
Week at a Glance/Skills for the Week:
LITERACY – We begin book clubs this week, which will last approximately 3 weeks. In guided reading groups, students will focus on practicing nonfiction reading strategies and skills. We will also spend a significant amount of time this quarter reviewing and practicing our test-taking skills in reading.
WRITING – We will begin our informational writing unit this quarter.
MATH – We begin unit 7 on Tuesday. The main purpose of this unit is to investigate prealgebra concepts and skills. Students explore notional conventions of numbers, develop rules for adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers, as well as make and analyze line plots. The four main areas of focus are: to understand conventions associated with exponents; learn to interpret number sentences with order of operations; recognize the need for negative numbers; and to organize and analyze date with line graphs and line plots. These skills will be tested at the end of unit 7. This test is currently scheduled for Friday, January 22nd. A student guide will be sent home the week before and we will review the day before the test on January 21st. Per usual, please remember to utilize the family letter to support your child's work throughout this unit.
SPELLING – We will resume spelling this quarter. Students will take either 4th grade words, unit 9 (their, it's toward, special, kept) or 5th grade words, unit 2 (its, several, among, build, they're) depending on their previous spelling scores.
SCIENCE – We begin our unit on electricity and heat. Questions to guide our learning include: How is energy transferred? How do we use electricity and heat? How are heat and electricity related? Why do we need electrical circuits? What do we know about circuits, conductors, and insulators?
SOCIAL STUDIES – We are taking a break from Social Studies and will resume later in the school year.
TIPS - We will read Time for Kids articles to practice nonfiction reading.
Upcoming Events
January 18th: MLK Jr. Day, No school
January 20th: Early Release Day, 2:55pm Dismissal