Reminders & Classroom News

April 2nd-4th: ELA CMAS Testing (8:45-10:30 a.m.)

April 8th-11th: Math CMAS Testing (8:45-10:30 a.m.)

April 15th: Young AmeriTowne Field Trip 💼

April 16th-18th: Science CMAS Testing (8:45-10:30 a.m.)

April 19th: No School

April 30th: HawkQuest FREE in-school Field Trip (1:30-2:30) 🦅

Young AmeriTowne

Congratulations to the following students who ran for mayor/judge for Young AmeriTowne: Abby, Connor, Aven, Campbell, and Lauren. All five of you showed incredible courage and impeccable writing skills with your speeches! Congratulations to our new mayor and judge: Campbell and Aven! What a terrific campaign this was!

CMAS TESTING!!

This coming Tuesday begins our standardized testing for this school year. We have been completing practice tests and prepping for this all year long. This is an important time for our school to "show what we know" and strive to do our very best!

Please try to ensure your child is present at school for ALL testing dates/times. Avoid scheduling appointments during those testing windows. Our testing schedule goes as follows:

April 2-4: ELA CMAS Testing (8:45-10:30 am.)

April 8-11: Math CMAS Testing (8:45-10:30 am.)

April 16-18: Science CMAS Testing (8:45-10:30 am.)

With standardized testing comes anxiety and stress. Please remind your kids of a few things:

This is NOT a grade! Yes, we will be getting the results and we do use it as a piece of data, but it is only one out of the many we look at. All they need to do is their best.
Speed does not equal a good grade. Take your time! Be mindful of the time you have left, as well.
Getting a good night's sleep and eating something before school will help you get through the test easier. Bring a snack for afterwards!
Have a positive attitude! Instead of thinking how awful the test will be, try to say positive things to yourself: "I can do this! I only have to do my best."

Thank you for your support! I know they will ROCK the test!

WHat we are Learning

This week, we read about Rosa Parks and how her simple, yet peaceful stand against the law created a domino effect that ended segregation. The kids wrote a short constructed response outlining three lessons that we can learn from Rosa Parks citing evidence from the story.

We have been working with measurement conversions in math. This week, we learned the metric system and how to convert units of length, capacity and mass. We learned a fun saying that helps us remember the order the prefixes go in so we can just move our decimal point: "King Henry Died By Drinking Chocolate Milk". Ask your 5th grader to explain it to you!

We have completed our final unit in science for the year: "Chemical Magic". The students had so much fun mixing different chemicals together and learning which ones reacted with each other and thinking about why. We were even able to make slime and explode a ziploc bag!

CMAS is our focus, as we prepare to write to the best of our abilities. We are using mock testing formats to help get the kids used to seeing the verbage and format the tests use. Playing games while we complete the work makes it much more fun! I have been very pleased with how hard they are working on these.