Mrs. Hassett's 5th Grade Oak Knoll School - Menlo Park Elementary City School District |
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Room 30 Classroom Newsletter Thursday, November 9, 2006 Hi!! Better late than never, right? This had to have been that most hectic week since finals weeks in college. I was mislead to believe that I would have loads of time at Outdoor Ed to get grading and report cards done. …Um, no. So, with meetings every day after school this week, somehow I managed to get them done, I hope. ;o) If not, it’s Kathy O.’s fault because she told me that I should go home and drink wine. (BTW, I did not follow her advice, but will tonight.) I apologize if this is a long e-mail, but I have a lot to say, so take potty break, get a snack, or save it for later when you have time to read it… Level of dryness: HIGH - Report Cards & How I Grade Stuff, except for math (FYI): Most assignments (homework, class work, projects, presentations, tests, worksheets, essays, etc.) are given a point value based on criteria set for the assignment or problems correct. Points are weighted in terms of importance of the assignment to meeting the standards for that particular subject (this is where math is different because all problems are worth one point). I enter the points into an Excel spreadsheet that I created. It calculates a percentage score based of the total number of points earned over total possible. Grades are given based on those percentage scores. Pretty simple. Effort grades are observed and therefore more subjective. Science Quizzes: A comment from Ms. Brewbaker about recent scores: “Your kids were enthusiastic and bright. They worked and listened well in the classroom. I gave the two tests (you got them back in the Monday Packet this week) the last twelve minutes of class… I taught up to that point. All in all, I hope that you are lenient on report cards. They could have done much better given more time.” I was. I did not count the students’ scores on these tests as much as the others. Conferences Next Week: If you have not already had a conference with me, you probably do next week. You should have received a reminder about it from me via e-mail. Students are welcome to come and participate in their conference, but I will leave that decision up to you. Please bring your child’s report card and comments to the conference that will take place in room 30. Class Web Page: I have many Outdoor Ed photos to add to the gallery and plan to do so this weekend. Check back next week! Also, your child may have told you about our Online Classroom yesterday. Read on if you want to know more about it. If you could care less, skip this paragraph. I learned about nicenet.org through an independent study course for teachers that I took last month. It’s a safe and secure way for students and teachers to have discussions without the outside world being able to see in. Only the students whom I have given a “key” (all of the room 30 students) are able to “come in” using a password that they have created. They main tool that we will use on the site will be the “conferencing” tool. I pose a question and can ask/require students to post an answer. We then can each read and respond to each other’s remarks. This is a fun way to get kids writing, thinking, and responding to others’ ideas. Additionally, I will teach the class how to submit an assignment via our online classroom. There is a feature where students can cut and paste text into a box where it will be send to me. I will never require that students turn things in this way, but it may be nice for kids who type something at home and want to send it to me without bothering their parents to attach it to an e-mail. Students can also message each other and myself. We have and will continue to discuss appropriate vs. inappropriate use of these tools. If all of this sounds crazy, just ask your kid to show you around this very simple online classroom. I think that it will be fun! Curriculum Side note, but related: I feel that my students are growing a tremendous amount socially, emotionally, and have the potential to grow more than ever this year in terms of academics! I do notice that fifth graders are WAY more social creatures and greatly aware of relationships, group dynamics, and their own “places” within a school’s social hierarchy than fourth graders are. This makes for concentrating in a classroom setting with your friends a new type distraction and I am working with the class and individuals to use strategies for self-control and focus. With the major field trips out of the way I am looking forward to focusing more heavily on academics and the meaty curriculum. Here’s what we’re up to: READING: We started our first real Jacob’s Ladder discussion group this week. It was fabulous and very rewarding! The reading material is very rich and the discussions could have lasted for hours. If you want to know more about this program, e-mail me. I am excited about it and I hope that my passion for this type of reading instruction rubs off on the class. You will start to see “ladders” come home with a score of 0,1, or 2 on the assignments. These are used for me to track student progress using particular reading strategies. I will provide a key with the first one I send home. I am also reading Sign of the Beaver to the class when we have free time. Some have already read this Newberry Award winner, but it fits too well into the history curriculum for me to skip it. HISTORY/WRITING: We will work on organizing a mini-report of the US Explorers next week. I hope to have each student create a slide or two on PowerPoint to make one unified class presentation. We will also begin reading about the first settlers who came to the “new land.” Students will practice note-taking strategies by pulling out main ideas and important supporting facts. SCIENCE: The class just finished lessons with Mrs. Louttit (convection currents, wind, thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes) and will begin science lessons with Mrs. Emmert next week. The content will be weather maps and air pressure. Two very brief assessments are given each week. GRAMMAR: We're working on nouns - possesive, common, proper, plural, and all sorts of other variations. I have to run to pick up Eric from the airport (hence me waiting around Oak Knoll at this hour). Have a wonderful three-day weekend! E-mail with any questions or comments! Bye!
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