AZ Merit Testing

It's upon us! Our "game day(s)" are here. While we sometimes have mixed feelings about standardized testing, we are mostly excited to show our best work and celebrate the year's learning achievements.

Next Week: 5th Graders take AZ Merit

• Tuesday, 4/3: Writing 
• Wednesday, 4/4: ELA & Math 1
• Thursday, 4/5: ELA & Math 2

The Following Week: 4th Graders take AZ Merit

• Tuesday, 4/10: Writing
• Wednesday, 4/11: ELA & Math 1
• Thursday. 4/12: ELA & Math 2

If students are wanting to prepare for the t
est, we say NO CRAMMING! Play outside, get fresh air, eat healthy meals, and get on a regular early-to-bed sleep schedule.

If you'd like to work through some sample test problems at home, here is the link to the AZ Merit Sample Test Site.

Sample Test Site

Thank you for sending in those healthy snacks! We're still accepting more. :) 

Now let's crush those tests!

Spring Portfolio Conferences

If you received a sheet about an optional conference use this link to sign up for a time to meet with Ms. Fisher or Ms. Baker.

https://doodle.com/poll/f7mehht5iy6bv7p3

If you received a conference sign up sheet with times on it, circle as many times as you're able, and return the sheet to school. We will send a confirmation sheet back to you with the time that you're officially sign up for. 

Week in Review 2/5-2/9

First of all, I am so sorry for the utter silence on the blog the last few weeks. I've got no excuse other than just plain falling out of the habit. But here we are, back at it, keeping you informed and up to date. Here's what's been going on this week in the F/B classroom:





This Week in Academics:

• We practiced area, perimeter, and missing angles
• We built words using prefixes, suffixes, and base words.
• The fifth graders learned lessons in grit, and pushing through the frustration of learning a tough new skill, skiing! We had a beautiful day on the mountain encouraging each other to try our best, falling down, and getting back up.
• The fourth graders discovered how to create a magnet using electricity--an elelctromagnet!
• The fourth graders learned about relative pronouns with our student teacher, Ms. Peterson.
• We found lines of symmetry on various shapes.
• We analyzed our findings from our food waste audit with Ms. C. and Ms. Melissa from Willowbend.

Looking Ahead:

NEXT WEEK:

• Next Week is Random Acts of Kindness Spirit Week!
• Monday: Pajama Day
• Tuesday: Tie Dye Day
• Wednesday: Pink and Red Day
• Thursday: Hawaii Day
• Friday: Crazy Hair Day

• On Wednesday afternoon, we will be celebrating our class's positive behavior in their specials with a Waffle Party! If you'd like to send in treats, make it something we can top on a waffle! It also just so happens to be Valentine's Day. We have 50 students (and 4 teachers). You're welcome to send in Valentines, but just without individual student names on them. It takes FOREVER to pass out 50 individually addressed valentines...trust us.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK:

• No School NEXT Monday 2/19 for Presidents' Day

• Our class's science fair projects are due on Wednesday, 2/21
• We've approved the plans of all of our students
• Science fair boards are on sale for 5 dollars at the front office
• Here are a few other resources if you're interested Science Fair Stuff

Keep it up on those science fair projects! Have a great weekend!

Week in Review 1/8-1/12

Good afternoon, fourth and fifth grade families!

With homework and a full week behind us, we seem to be back in the swing of lots of learning. Here's a bit of what went on this week:

This Week in Academics:

• We started learning about science topics to help prepare us for the annual science fair
• How are demonstrations and experiments different?
• What are the three diggerent categories of science?
• We learned two methods of dividing that are more visual than the typical long division algorithm. 
• t-chart division
• area model division
• We continued our Gary Paulsen book, Woodsong. Those dogs are always up to something!
• We learned how to properly punctuate possessive nouns. (cat's vs. cats')
• We learned about food waste and some of the ways people, distributors, and restaurants waste food with Ms. C. and Ms. Melissa from Willowbend

Overall, we had a lovely week in the Fisher/ Baker classroom!

Students of the Week

This week's students of the week are...

Emily, Shakira, and Brianna!

Emily did a great job bouncing back and catching up after being gone for a lot of time before the winter break.

Shakira was kind to a classmate by returning something to them when she noticed they left it.

Brianna has been involved in class discussions and staying on top of her notes. 

Thanks for setting a great example and starting 2018 with kindness, positivity, and healthy work habits!

Week in Review: 1/2/18-1/5/18

Happy New Year,  all!

We hope the winter break was restful and filled with quality time together. Now that the crazy pre-holiday season has passed, we're feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the coming months of Marshall events. Here's how we've begun our year together.

This week in academics:

• We began reading another great Gary Paulsen book, Woodsong.
• We had a week filled with FUN-ctuation. We punctuation dialogue, direct addresses, question tags, and intro words. We sure do love commas around here. 😀
• We practiced distinguishing between multiplication and division when facing word problems.
• We practiced a shortcut we call basic fact division involving crossing off zeroes when faced with a problem like, 600 ÷ 30.
• We began learning geometry terms (line, point, collinear points, ray, line segment, parallel, perpendicular, intersecting)
• We started using Front Row, a math practice website that is individualized based on each student.

Looking Ahead:

• Next week, we'll start expert's homework back up.
• Next week, we'll send home the traveling folder, to be signed and returned by Friday.
• Head's up: Science Fair projects are due the last week of February, so we'll begin prepping at the end of this month. 
• NO SCHOOl on MLK day (Monday, January 15th...one week from this coming Monday.)