What's Happening This Week:

We are on the Final Countdown to Spring Break! The weather feels more like summer these days though! This will be a busy week pushing to wrap up as much content as possible before break.

**When we return from break on Tuesday, April 7th, 5th grade is going to jump right in to CMAS testing with our first of three Science Unit assessments. We will test every morning from 7:30-9:30a.m. through Tuesday, April 21st.**

As a teacher, I use the CMAS/NWEA data to help determine:

• If your student is on grade level
• If your student is in need of intervention or advanced learning plan
• How to group students to ensure optimal learning during partner/group projects

As a class, the data is used to identify:

• Where, if any, gaps exist that I need to fill
• Subjects/content areas I can accelerate due to broad knowledge base
• Identify areas where I need to further develop instruction
• Evaluate curriculum and preparedness for my fifth grades for sixth grade/middle school

As an Intermediate team/teacher team we triangulate data samples to include CMAS, NWEA and Dibels to create a whole picture of student learning. CMAS is the only norm based assessment we administer that evaluates writing and compares it to a broad base of students.

It would be extremely helpful and extremely appreciated if any absences/appointments could be scheduled in the afternoons. I will be doing my best to limit (and hopefully eliminate) homework during CMAS testing. Thank you, I appreciate your support of our classroom!

Important Upcoming Dates:

March 24-27 - Relay for Life Spirit Week

• Tuesday - Anything but a Backpack
• Wednesday - Wacky Wednesday
• Thursday - Character Day
• Friday - Class Color (Lime Green)

March 27th - Mini Relay for Life 2:15-3:30pm

March 31-April 4th - Spring Break

**April 7-24th - CMAS Testing - Grades 3-8**

April 24th - 3-8 Spring Program @ WCHS 6:30pm-

This week:

We will wrap up Chapter 10 - Dividing Fractions on Thursday afternoon. We will take a short combination assessment over multiplying and dividing fractions.

We will continue to work in small groups with Mrs. Herman to work on Coordinate Plane. In order for that to happen, students need to be able to focus during instructional time. Concepts worked on in small group will *NOT* be homework, unless students cannot stay on task.

We will wrap up the majority of our Poetry unit this week. There will be one more short lesson after Spring Break.

We will jump into my absolute favorite unit we have all year - American Civil War! I am so excited about this unit! There WILL be an individual project that comes with this, however, I will wait until after CMAS testing to start it.

We will continue our Wonder Novel Study this week. This is one of my favorite books. We often have amazing conversations throughout the book. I ask students to self-reflect during discussion and writing prompts.

It is quite long so it will take us through March and into April. I hope to be able to watch the movie at the end.

We will work to complete our Protecting Earth's Systems science unit this week. Students have been working in partners to complete this unit. They have had great discussions over the different types of pollution and possible ways to prevent or eliminate pollution.

We will take the unit assessment Friday morning (due to Mini-Relay in the afternoon). We will also use some of our afternoon writing time to work through the practice CMAS Science tests so that the students have a clear understanding of what this test looks like, how the demonstrations work and the tools available to them.

After break, we will begin our next History unit. I am undecided just yet on which unit it will be. It may depend on how our afternoons look, trying to get through the Civil War content because it is more in depth and often takes more time to get through, especially with mornings dedicated to testing.

We will use our Riggs time for extra Grammar practice. Reviewing what we know and what we might see for CMAS after Spring Break. It became very evident through some of our work last week that students are struggling with concepts that they should have mastered previously, i.e. capitalization, punctuation, past/present tense, etc. As such, we will continue to reteach and practice these concepts and more, until we take CMAS ELA after break.

We will also use Grammar/Riggs time to explore the CMAS ELA practice tests as well. This allows students to refamiliarize themselves with tools and expectations for questions and written responses.

We will not have new Riggs Lists until after break with our Civil War Unit.

New lists are current content based across subjects. Lists will only have 3 words. Students will be required to write each word with markings 4 times each, look up each word in the dictionary (writing down part of speech, page number and proper definition), and writing a sentence using each word correctly.

New lists will be posted to Parent Square.

We will work on our writing skills within the Poetry unit as well.

We will use this time as needed to help wrap up content before Spring Break!

We won't have another major essay due until after CMAS/NWEA testing when we complete our final End of Year writing assessment with our Civil War Research Project. More info to come.

March 21st - Spring Musical

March 24-27 - Relay for Life Spirit Week

March 27th - Mini Relay for Life

March 27th - Intermediate Pi Day Celebration

March 31-April 4th - Spring Break

April 7-24th - CMAS Testing

April 24th - 3-8 Spring Program @ WCHS 6:30pm