Barrett Crew
UMAC News- October 8, 2015
Dear Parents,
Next week our Old Friends will be taking the OLSAT test. This is an ability test that measures verbal, quantitative, and figural reasoning skills. This test is used as one of the criteria for determining placement for the extended curriculum students in middle school. There is no way to study for the test, however we would like to encourage our Old Friends to eat a great breakfast on Wednesday morning. The test will be given during math on Wednesday, October 14.
I’m looking forward to parent/teacher conferences that are coming up quickly. Thank you to those parents who already completed the online “Conference Planning Form.” Your feedback is very important to my conference preparation.
Have a nice long weekend!Michelle Barrett
Shared Reading This week we read a text titled, Encounter,by Jane Yolen. This was a fabulous story that described the relationship between the European explorers and the Native Americans. Encounter is the story of Christopher Columbus and how his men, known as “strangers”, interacted with Native Americans already living in the New World. Our discussions were supported using the author’s clues and word choice. This text put the concepts from our last two social studies chapters into a story which allowed our students to comprehend this historical encounter! | Writing a narrative story Our students have been working diligently in writer’s workshop to create their own narrative story. After analyzing elements of a narrative in shared reading, students got the opportunity to demonstrate their narrative knowledge in writing! I am quite impressed with how the students creativity created a problem, events and a falling action to support how the character learned a lesson. Students spent time in the computer lab this week publishing their story using a template on Google Slides. These will be available for you to read at your upcoming parent/teacher conference. | Math New Friends: This week our new friends have been using their computational skills to multiply and divide. We have been practicing our facts playing: “Multiplication Baseball”, using the website XtraMath and also using fact quiz sheets. Your help and support with our students memorizing their facts is greatly appreciated. Be sure to ask them some of our clever ways to study! Old Friends: Students will be bringing home their unit 2 assessment today for your review and signature. We are so impressed with how hard our students are working to becoming confident solving multiplication problems the “old school” way! Next as will dive into geometry exploring angle measures, practice measures angles using a protractor, and analyze geometric properties of polygons. |
Shared Reading
Writing a narrative story
Math
Old Friends: Students will be bringing home their unit 2 assessment today for your review and signature. We are so impressed with how hard our students are working to becoming confident solving multiplication problems the “old school” way! Next as will dive into geometry exploring angle measures, practice measures angles using a protractor, and analyze geometric properties of polygons.
BOX TOPS: Please send in any box tops you have by October 16th!
Upcoming Events
Monday, October 12: No School Columbus Day
Wednesday, October 14: Old Friends OLSAT math test
Wednesday, October 21: New Friends Chapter 3 math test
Early release 2 pm, Parent/Teacher conferences 5:00 - 8:00
Thursday, October 22: No school, conferences 12:00 - 8:00
Friday, October 23: No school, conferences 8:00 - 12:00