What's Happening This Week:

**We wrap up CMAS testing with our FINALof Science Unit assessments tomorrow (Tuesday, April 21st). We will test from 7:30-9:30a.m.**

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:

April 21 - May 1: StuCo Yarn Drive

April 28th-May 15th - NWEA/DIBELS End of Year Testing **INTERMEDIATE WILL TEST 4/28-5/1**

May 5th - WC FFA Flower Sales @ CCA 3:30p.m.

May 13th - 5th/Ag Field Trip

May 13th - 3-8 Spring Program @ CCA Gym 2:45pm

May 19th - Intermediate PTO EOY Field Trip to Museum

May 22nd - LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

This week:

We will jump back into new content and work with the Imperial Measurement and Conversions (US measurements). I'm hoping to move through this unit quickly and move onto reviewing Coordinate Plan, Volume, and 2-d/3-d shapes to wrap up the year.

We will continue working through our American Civil War unit! I have broken this unit up into 4 different sections/packets to make it slightly easier with testing. We have wrapped up the first packet and grades will go in this week. We started the second packet on Friday. Something students need to remember is that just because I don't collect the worksheets every day, they need to keep up with it. Students also did not seem to pay attention to instructions in the first packet and I have MULTIPLE sections not completed across the packet.

Please remind your student to check their packet and make sure it is complete before turning it in. Packet #1 will be the *ONLY* packet I allow them to complete and turn back in if they missed something. Going forward with the current and next 2 packets, anything not completed will be graded as such. This will be very detrimental to their grades at the end of the year.

There WILL be an individual project that comes with this unit. Students have been given some basis to start thinking about what they would like to do their projects on. If it looks like we are running out of time to get projects completed, we may take the content assessment instead - and write a research essay instead.

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 and with CMAS testing we didn't get much read, however, we are about 2/3s of the way through so I am hopeful we will be able to watch the movie still.

We will begin our next History unit soon. 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.

Due to the Civil War content being in depth and generally a lot of content to cover, we will prioritize this before adding another history unit.

No new lists until after CMAS! We WILL review and practice Civil War content specific words to ensure students understand the vocabulary.

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.

April 21 - May 1: StuCo Yarn Drive

April 28th-May 15th - NWEA/DIBELS End of Year Testing **INTERMEDIATE WILL TEST 4/28-5/1**

May 5th - WC FFA Flower Sales @ CCA 3:30p.m.

May 13th - 5th/Ag Field Trip

May 13th - 3-8 Spring Program @ CCA Gym 2:45pm

May 19th - Intermediate PTO EOY Field Trip to Museum

May 22nd - LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!