Week of April 6th

I don't know about you but I am LOVING this warmer weather and longer days! I love the spring with all of the new growth and excitement. I feel like it perfectly represents what I see in my students this time of year, and I love that!

ELA:

This week in ELA we will continue working to improve our reading comprehension through reading non-fiction texts on ReadWorks and paper passages. We are also working on our next opinion writing with the "Case of the Missing Grandpa". 

Math:

We are making great progress towards covering all new content before ISAT testing. There will be a few days that we double up on lessons to make sure we cover everything in time, but students will still only have one math assignment each day. 

I also have SO many students who are just about ready to pass their multiplication facts! I am so excited with our progress, keep practicing those at home to make sure they get there!

ISAT Testing:

We just have 2 weeks left before we start ISAT testing. In 4th grade we take the English Language Arts and Math ISATS. Each test has two parts, the Performance Task (PT) and the Computer Adaptive Test (CAT). Each part is fairly lengthy and involved so we break them up into two days to make it easier on our students. We will be taking our ELA ISATs on Tuesday, April 21st and Thursday April 23rd. We will take our Math ISATs on Tuesday, April 28th and Thursday, April 30th. The state made the testing window earlier this year so we are doing our best to cover everything before students test. If your student is going to be absent while we are testing, please let me know ahead of time so that I can make sure they take it before they leave. :)

My number 1 goal is to make testing as comfortable and stress free as I possibly can for your student. One way I have learned to do that over the year is to talk about testing leading up to give kiddos an insight into what it will look like and what will be asked of them based on the provided practice tests. It is so important your student is here every day so that they can get all of that information since it isn't anything I can assign them to work on at home. If they are absent, they just miss it. 

ISAT Party:

One of the things I offer my students every year is the opportunity to earn an invitation to our class ISAT party after testing is over. They can earn an invitation one of two ways. 

1. One is to meet their goal that I am making with them one-on-one and this is based on individual growth. 
2. The second way is to work really hard leading up to testing and doing their best on their test. If your student has missing assignments, this will keep them from the party. Please work with your student to stay up on their work.

As someone who deals with testing anxiety, I never want my students to work really hard and then feel bad because they didn't do well on the test because they were anxious. The learning is what matters and the ISAT is just ONE way we see that growth. I have several different other measures of growth I look at to ensure my students are growing each year. :)

Our school will be offering a second incentive as well and I will be sharing those details soon! 

Science Fair Project:

Our Science Fair Project information went home with your student before Spring Break. They will need to turn in two components to me. The first is their guiding question that will guide their project and investigation. That was due tomorrow, Tuesday, March 31st. If your student needs to revise their question, I will go over that with them and send it home with them to make sure you are ok with it as well since you will be helping them with the investigation. 

The second component is their presentation board. This will have all of the data they have compiled while working on their project and all of that is in the packet that was sent home. If you lost the packet, I included all documents in the assignments in Infinite Campus so you should be able to print them from there.