October 3, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! It has been a very busy time since our last post. Our Room 13 students recently started our first novel study of the year! We are a few chapters into Esparanza Rising and the students are loving it! We are usually reading one chapter each day so check in with your student everyday to have them update you about the story.

Also, I have to send out a huge THANK YOU to all of our Room 13 students and families that helped to plan a surprise birthday party for me! I was genuinely in shock of the surprise. Additionally, I was incredibly impressed by our Room 13 student's level of organization! They worked and collaborated with each other to plan decorations, food, cards, and even sought out our administrators to distract me the afternoon of the event!

Lastly, thank you everyone that signed up and attended parent/teacher conferences this week. It was a great opportunity for us to connect and check in during the early part of the school year!

September 23, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! Our students have been learning all about poetry elements recently. After defining elements such as rhythm, simile, and onomatopoeia, they analyzed poems to identify what elements the authors used as well as answering comprehension questions about the poems. This week our students will extend their poetry learning by writing several of their own poems including a couplet, quatrain, haiku, and a limerick. Check out the video below to see a few of our couplet poems!

September 17, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! It has been a busy few weeks for our students since our last post. Students completed the first unit of the year of our Benchmark Advance curriculum where students worked on answering the following essential question: Why do laws continue to evolve? To do this, students read and analyzed two short reads about the Constitution and President Lyndon Johnson's Voting Rights Act Address. Room 13 students also learned about the "race response" which is a writing strategy and acronym that teaches students to answer questions by Restating the question, Answering the question, Citing evidence from the text, and Explaining your answer.

Room 13 students also worked through our rounding unit and recently began working through our new addition unit with the subtraction unit on the horizon. Recently, they also began engaging in math talks! Math talks are structured collaborative activities where student thinking, strategies, and ideas are discussed, shared, and exchanged. This gives students an opportunity to reveal both their understanding and misunderstandings in a safe and collaborative environment. It also provides an opportunity for students to develop their math language as well as a chance to promote deeper mathematical reasoning. Check out two of our most recent math talk discussions below.

In PE students learned all about foursquare and are now reviewing this and wall ball so that they are confidently prepared to join these games during recess.

Room 13 students have also been furiously "training" in order to catch all of our Pokemon!

Lastly, Tools of the Heart is a fantastic Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum that Room 13 students began working through over the last few weeks. Ask your student about the tools they learned for emptying their feelings, breathing to calm down, using their voice, and making it right!

This month's Lyric Lab included the following vocabulary words: contestant, demonstrate, devastate, device, ecosystem, outlaw, revive

August 29, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! Our second full week of school as well as day 13 are in the proverbial books. This week our Room 13 students spent a majority of their time completing their first iReady Diagnostic of the year. We still have a few students that have not yet completed this so they will be prioritizing that the following week. For math, students brought the first unit, place value, to a close by taking the unit post-assessment. In PE we finished up the last few days of our wall ball unit and next week we will begin our foursquare unit.

Lastly, Room 13 also caught our first few Pokemon of the year! If this is a bit confusing for you make sure you ask your student what this means!

Below you will find pictures of our beautiful, brand new posters from the California Teachers Association (CTA), the back to school night presentation, the intermediate teachers annual BTSN photo, and this week's riddle.

August 25, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! Day 9 of the school year is now in the rear view mirror. This week our students began their first iReady Diagnostic of the year and have been very focused on the task. Our window of time for this first diagnostic closes much earlier than usual so our students have had to unfortunately work through extended testing sessions. With that being said, we're happy to report that they have worked well so far!

Last week we began our first math unit of the year hitting place value with our post-assessment for the unit coming up this Friday. Students also began engaging in periodic movement breaks utilizing a favorite Room 13 platform, Go Noodle. We also brought our initial growth mindset unit to a close as well.

The last few sets of pictures below are of our first two riddles of the year. At the beginning of each week we introduce a new riddle and at the end of the week we work together as a class to try and figure out the answer through a customized game of Wordle!

Lastly, don't forget that we have Back to School Night this Wednesday evening. Families new to Room 13 are strongly encouraged to attend!

August 15, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! Day 3 of the new 2025-2026 school year is officially in the books. Today, our students had a chance to come together with all of the 4th-6th intermediate grades at our first assembly of the year. Ms. Johal and Ms. Flores went over several expectations during the assembly as well as celebrating attendance highlights from last school year.

In addition to our first assembly of the year, Room 13 students had their first opportunity to meet their Science teacher, Ms. Chow! Depending on the week our students will be in Science with Ms. Chow 2-3 times each week.

In the afternoon our students continued learning all about the Growth Mindset, specifically diving into the science of parts of the brain. Ask your student all about the three main parts of the brain as well as the four parts of the cerebrum! Students also had a chance to preview our Room 13 Store today which is a weekly opportunity for them to spend their hard earned Spangler Dollars.

To end their first week of school our students watched the brand new August 15 Week in Rap. For our new Room 13 families unfamiliar with Flocabulary and the Week in Rap, feel free to click this link to learn all about it. In addition to the Week in Rap, I occasionally take that week's vocabulary words and write my very own rap to share with Room 13. This week's vocabulary words included: effect, extinct, mindful, rarity, resident, rookie, and stupendous. Check out our first Lyric Lab to try and find all 7 words!

August 14, 2025

Hello Room 13 families! We are now officially into the 2025-2026 school year. Our students now have two whole minimum days of learning under their belt and they have all done so well thus far! Our new 4th grade students are getting acclimated to the different expectations in their new class while our returning 5th and 6th graders step into a different grade this year and have immediately begun to showcase their emerging leadership skills.

Over the past two days students began learning about our Room 13 expectations this year which includes our, "Give me 5," call and response as well as some of our school-wide PBIS expectations. If they have not yet told you already ask your student about this year's new and exciting PBIS theme!

Today, students began our growth mindset unit where they learned about the power of, "yet," as well as the benefits of a healthy brain and how to keep our brains healthy.

Come back tomorrow for this year's first Lyric Lab!

August 11, 2025

Hello to all of our new and returning Room 13 families! We have been incredibly busy here at Spangler these last few days preparing for the first day of school coming up on Wednesday, August 13th. We are eager to welcome back our 5th and 6th grade students and incredibly excited to meet our new 4th grade students!

Don't forget, tomorrow (Tuesday, August 12th) our fabulous PTA will be hosting a Popsicle Social! For times and details be sure to check ParentSquare for the flyer.

June 12, 2025

Hello to our new and returning Room 13 families! We hope you all have a relaxing and energizing summer. We will see you back at Spangler for the first day of school on Wednesday, August 13, 2025.

Don't forget, the first three days of school (Wednesday, August 13 - Friday, August 15) are all minimum days.

Have a fantastic summer, everyone!