We’ve finished the first two days of conferences and are really enjoying the chance to meet with all of you. Conferences are always a good opportunity to clarify and answer questions as well as create new goals and have the chance to look forward to new and exciting learning oppportunities. Please remember that conferences continue this entire week and that the students will be dismissed at 12:30 each day. If we haven’t met with you yet, we’re looking forward to seeing you!
A note from Mrs. Ales:
Dear Parents,
It’s Survey Time!! We would like to invite you to take part in our annual School Survey. Your feedback on the survey is critical to the school as the survey results are used by the School Site Council to create the school goals. The survey will be “live” on Monday, March 16, 2009 and will close on Tuesday, March 31, 2009.
To complete the survey follow these steps (during the dates listed above):
1) Go to the school website, www.portalpenguins.org
2) Click on the link to the survey.
3) Complete one survey for each child attending Murdock-Portal.
4) After you have completed the survey, print the last page of the survey.
5) Bring your receipt to your parent-teacher conference.
Thank you for your participation in making our school a wonderful place! Again, your feedback for the survey is so important and we value your input.
Sincerely, Julie Ales
Current Academics:
Language Arts:
The finish of Island of the Blue Dolphins draws near! We'll be finishing
our reading of this great book in the next two weeks, and we'll continue to assess our understanding of the text through vocabulary work, comprehension checks, and writing responses to the literature. When we bring this book study to a close, we'll be starting our last core literature book of the year, the realistic fiction novel entitled Bridge to Terabithia. We have copies of this book at school, but we are short a few books for our students. If you have a copy of this great book at home (maybe an older brother or sister had one), please send it to school with your son or
daughter as soon as possible; this will allow us to see if any additional
books will be needed from local libraries or other sources. Thank you!
Math:
4th grade students will start work on Geometry and Measurement this week. We will be studying both customary and metric forms of measurement covering length, capacity, mass, and temperature.
5th graders continue to study fractions, percentages, and decimals. We are learning how all of these concepts are related and how to move easily between the three.
The math placement test for middle school, Level 2 test will be given to students on March 31. This test is basically used to determine if a student is ready to skip all of sixth grade math , which VERY few are. Students should not get overly stressed about the assessments. The placements that are determined are usually just right for the child to be successful in their math class in middle school. The middle schools will notify students in the mail. If a parent feels that their child has been incorrectly placed, they may discuss the placement with the middle school. Also, students are reassessed every year to determine correct placement.
Social Studies:
In social studies, students are working on their disenos. Along with the disenos they’re working on a narrative, cattle brand and reata (lasso).
Science:
Our Environments unit is being completed. Our assessments for this unit have consisted of formal responses to investigation situations that our integrated into our studies. I will also be checking science notebooks for organization (dated work) and level of participation in our activities. Our next unit will be Electricity & Magnetism. Our Science Fair project continues on as well, with our second half of the scientific method write-up due on March 18. This portion of the formal write-up will contain the results of their experiment and their interpretation of these results, otherwise known as the conclusion! Please check with your student to make sure they have shared their results in a clear format (chart, graph, detailed notes), and that they have thought about how their results relate to their original question and hypothesis.
Important Dates to Remember:
March 19 - March 27 Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences -
EARLY DISMISSAL -12:30. Students must attend conferences with parents.
March 24- Parent Principal Exchange 8:15 am
March 25- PSCO Meeting 6:30
March 27- Sprit Day - Crazy Sock Day
March 31- Math Placement Test - 5th grade. Level 2.
CALIFORNIA TRIVIA!
Q: The Sierra Nevada, CA's primary geological feature, is composed mostly of what rock?
Good luck!
Mr. Roels & Miss Scourkes
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