Hi Families,

I am so proud of this class for all their hard work this week, especially during the SBAC testing. They were focused and tried their hardest, and my heart swelled watching them being so earnest! The SBAC testing is long and arduous, and they rocked it out of the park!  The language arts portion is done, and we move onto math next week.  Halfway through!

I have tried to keep our academics a little more casual this week so that their brains didn't get fried, but we did do some work. In math, we worked hard on the distinction between division story problems and multiplication story problems, and what strategies can be used to figure out which is which. This class is really getting good at using a variety of strategies to solve division problems -- most of the small errors they make are calculation errors (not knowing their basic multiplication facts) and not about conceptual understanding. I am so happy with the progress they have made!

In reading, we are still working in our book groups and trying to practice writing in our notebooks. I will really push them on this over the next few weeks because I know it will be an expectation in 5th grade. I am hoping a few weeks of practice will show them that it isn't so bad!  I have started doing my final reading assessments, and it makes me smile to see the growth.

We continue to work on our graphic novels/narratives during writing time. I am loving some of the drawings and story ideas I am seeing, and I can tell the students are  super excited about their writing! I haven't decided how I will celebrate this unit yet, but we will manage to celebrate somehow!

Here are a few important pieces of information:

• On Monday, we will be taking a walk with Mr. Bouchard down to the park behind the Red Mill. This will be a fun and informative way to finish up our geology unit. We will leave school at around 9:00 and return in time for recess at 11:00. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this.
• You will be receiving a communication about our year-end celebration from the office later today (I think!) We are having our 4th grade celebration at Mills Riverside Park on June 11. We will take the bus over to the park at about 11:30. All of the 4th graders will be able to enjoy a fun, unstructured play time together (with the pods mixing, masked) until lunch time. We will have a picnic lunch. Then, we will have our annual Memory Book ceremony, during which each student will get a Memory Book from Mrs. Graf. Parents are invited to join us for the ceremony (masked and distanced, of course!) at 1:30. We will board the buses right after the ceremony to head back to JES in time for dismissal. If you attend, you can take your child directly home with you if you'd like. I wish we could do more to celebrate these wonderful students, and I especially wish we could invite all of you to join us for the entire event, but it will be a really fun day and I know they will enjoy themselves. Our last day of school is the following Monday (June 14) and we will spend that day just enjoying each other's company and cleaning out our desks. Then it will be time to say goodbye....

I think that's it for this week. As always, reach out if you have questions or concerns. Enjoy the weekend!