McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of May 4, 2015

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Make sure your child brought home a bright pink notice about our 4th Grade Musical! I'll try to post it here on the blog, as well.

Thank you!

Thank you all very much for your flowers, cards, kind words, and attention this week!  I certainly feel appreciated!  I look forward to our final 5 ½ weeks together.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Our regular testing sessions are complete.  Next week, we will have time for kids to finish the writing portion.  I am pleased to say that a lot of our students need more time to finish!  The reason I’m happy about that is that this was a BIG assignment with lots of details and criteria in the directions, and I’m proud that so many writers are taking their time to work thoroughly.  Also, we will have students who were absent on any day this week make up the portion of the testing that they missed.

Reading Workshop

And the assessing continues…  I’ll be working one-on-one with every reader in the coming weeks -- right up until the end of the school year in some cases -- to assess students’ reading levels using the Teachers College Reading Assessment.  When I have completed those, I will give each child a sheet that shows the highest level s/he passed and more explanation about what it actually means.  I will also send home with every child a summer reading packet of book titles, and some tips about reading to keep in mind and to hopefully keep it fun.  A surprising number of our students regressed over the summer of 2014, so please make and stick to a plan for summer reading.  We want to maintain the momentum students have gained during the school year!

We will also work on a reading unit focusing on social issues.  We’ve already had a few discussions, and the Begley readers have started a new read aloud, called Just Juice, by Karen Hesse.  The McFarland readers will start it next week as well.  It will be helpful for your child if you can ask her/him about possible social issues in books being read independently (or together) at home.

Writing Workshop

Students have been analyzing the craft of other writers these past two weeks, and they are able to identify a number of kinds of figurative language.  Next week, we’ll be shifting our focus from reading lots of poetry to writing lots of poetry (though the reading of poetry is an important component of writing, and we will continue to do that).  Based on initial student writing samples, I’ll be looking for some risk-taking and heavy revision, especially incorporating the kinds of figurative language we’ve been studying.  I will provide much-needed guidance in creating meaningful poetry.  We have some work to do…  Oh, and in case you’re wondering -- this week’s Rock n Roll Friday feature: Brandi Carlile’s “That Wasn’t Me.”  The depth of the kids’ understanding was beautiful.  I’ll see if I can attach here photos of the notes I took on our discussions.

Math:

This week has been a bit scrambled with schedule changes due to the MEAs. We did get in some review work and students took a mid-unit check-up. It will be nice to get back on track next week!

Theme:

This week we explored the West and Southwest.  Students have been working to finish and self assess their passports and all the projects we completed during the unit.  Several students are still missing the photo of themselves for the passport.  Students also took their 50 states quiz today - the last one.  

Next week we will begin our final science unit - the skeletal and muscular system.   

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, May 11th - no PE (moved to Tuesday) / Guidance

Tuesday, May 12th - Study link due / recorders for Music

Wednesday, May 13th - Early Release

Thursday, May 14th - Spelling due

Friday, May 15th -

Happy Mother’s Day!!