MEAP dates

Elementary students in grades 4 and 5 will be taking the MEAP assessments in a few short weeks. Testing dates are determined by the state, local school districts cannot change these dates. The MEAP dates are as follows: October 13 and 15; October 20 and 22.

Please do your best to have your child in school on these dates. Students that are not present for the MEAP testing dates will need to take the MEAP outside of their classroom on designated MEAP makeup days.

It's just easier to have kids in school on the actual testing date...

Thanks! :)

Mrs. Perrien

Math Fact Practice

Please ask your Upper Montessori student to practice his or her math facts 2-3 nights per week for homework. Practicing addition and subtraction is important but at the Upper Montessori level we should be focusing on multiplication and division. If your son or daughter is skilled in those areas as well students could make flash cards for equivalent fractions or reducing fractions, fraction to decimal conversion, Roman Numerals…students in the 5^th grade could also work on square root flash cards, or even order of operations, geometric figures, and rounding.

While using a computer games once a week is fine, please do not do this as the sole way to memorize facts. Old-fashioned flash cards are important, too! By varying the method you also make the studying more interesting and fun. The following web site has some links for flash card problems: http://www1.bellevuepublicschools.org/curriculum/k6web/3-6MathwebpPage.htm

Remember, vary the type of flash card practice. Also, when students are ready to move beyond division, visit the previously mentioned website for ideas.

Curriculum: Science and Social Studies

The Upper Montessori students will be spending time this fall learning about energy transfer. Studies will focus on heat energy, electrical energy, and magnetism. We started today with an investigation into heat energy. Today a note was sent home explaining some of the activities we will be doing over the next few weeks. On the back of the note are several "at home" activities, including the steps necessary to make a solar cooker! You will occasionally see our science worksheets. We do these with many of our activities in order to practice working through the scientific method, as well as learn how to properly record scientific data or work through problems. Most of these are used to work through problems, not necessarily to record a right and wrong number. You may also find that we don't answer every question.

We have also been doing plant or animal research. Students started this work last week to practice and refine their research skills. They were given the task of pick their own research topic and let loose in the computer lab! It was exciting to watch so many seasoned researchers know exactly where to begin! From here students will continue studying the animal kingdom throughout the year, learning about animal classification.

Over the next few weeks students will begin a Biomes project. We will do the preliminary research and work at school. They will then (next week) begin building a diorama of their biome as a homework project. More information will follow later this week. Each student will need a shoebox at home to make their biome. They may "raid" my supply cupboard for diorama supplies but should build their model at home. We will feature all the biome dioramas at a classroom biome fair! *Students will bring home information about this project later this week.

Kids InfoBits: Excellent research site!

Homework Tips

How can parents make homework less of a hassle at home? Here are just a few tips for making homework time easier!

• Establish a routine—this involves a regular time for homework each night. In the past parents have commented that working right after school or right after dinner have been good times to complete homework.
  
• Create a work space—Ideally, a flat, uncluttered surface that is well-lit with few distractions.
  
• Provide homework tools—Good to have on hand are pencils and pens, notebook paper, highlighters, glue sticks, colored pencils (preferable to markers), a calculator and a dictionary.
  
• Organization—this involves setting up a space at home where notes and papers go for mom and dad, a place to hang the backpack, and a work space for completing homework. Review the "getting home from school" routine to make sure that kids understand where papers and belongings should go as well as where and when to work on homework.
  
• Be available—Stay nearby to answers questions or provide help as needed. Please offer guidance without giving the answer. Your children may need time to discuss and work through a problem.
  
• (Yes…despite what your kids may tell you, it is okay for you to correct and review completed work!)
  
• Break Time! Kids' attention often wanders after 20-30 minutes. Taking a few minutes break to walk around, get a drink or snack will often help kids recharge and make completing homework easier.
  
• Let Mrs. Perrien know if the homework assignment is especially difficult. Homework should mostly be review (especially in math) of previously learned concepts.

If you ever have questions about homework, please contact Mrs. Perrien.

The end of the first full week!

Everyone went home today looking a little tired and worn out! The first full week is an adjustment for the kids. We spent the last 20 minutes reviewing the week--what we did and all that we had covered, plus we talked about next week.

These past two weeks we've covered a lot of routines and procedures. We've set up the learning environment. We did preliminary assessments in reading and writing and took math tests to determine where we should begin this year. These can all seem tedious because we review and practice, review and discuss. However, the payoff is a well-run classroom with a group of students ready to hit the ground running for the rest of the school year. Speaking of hitting the ground running...next week we will begin with a workplan. Not everything will be on it, but it will be used to further normalize our classroom. I am excited to begin workplans next week!

I have enjoyed getting to know the new students these past two weeks! We have some wonderful personalities joining us this year and I love the diversity in our class.

Thank you again to the new parents for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend the Upper Montessori parent night. Please contact me if you have any other questions. Conferences are just around the corner if you can believe it!

Thank you!

Thank you, wonderful parents, for donating so many of my wish list items for the classroom!

Thank you for the stamps, cups, Kleenex, snack items, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, baggies, and disposable silverware.

I appreciate your generosity! :)

--Mrs. Perrien

Upper Montessori News: Routines

Lots of information in this posting!

Parent Night Reminder: Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30 p.m. We will meet for approximately one hour, maybe less. This meeting is geared for the new Upper Montessori parent but returning parents are welcome as well.

Homework: Students will have homework Monday – Thursday night. We talked about homework quite a bit this week! Each student is responsible for his or her homework folder. Taking the folder home each night, returning it to school the next day…these are all tasks that should be managed by THE CHILD. Requesting a teacher signature and a parent signature…these are all tasks that should be managed by THE CHILD. Managing nightly homework is a simple but powerful task that will help to build life-long responsibility skills in your child. IF your son or daughter forgets the folder at home or in the car, please do not bring the folder to school. When this happens it is much more powerful for your child to accept responsibility for being forgetful and learn from the experience. They are much less likely to forget the folder again if the responsibility for it remains theirs. (From personal experience I can tell you I've walked by the homework folder [and even a lunch box] on the kitchen counter. It's very hard to leave items sitting there but in the long run it's been a great learning experience for my girls.)

Classroom notes and school-wide communication will also be given to students in their mailboxes at the end of each day. Students will be asked to place these in their homework folders to make the school-to-home transfer easier. If you prefer an electronic copy of the school newsletter (distributed on Fridays) please let me know or Mrs. Coney (CONEYS@westottawa.net) know and we will make sure your name and email address are added to the list. Remember that the school news is sent home via the youngest child in your family, or only child if that is the case.

Daily Writing: We begin our school day with "notebooking." Based on relevant writing research, notebooking is a period of time every day when the children "just write." Topics are sometimes offered but usually not required. The children have plenty of personal topic lists ready to use. Two key components of Notebooking: Children must write without pausing for the 5-10 minutes of notebooking. So far, this requirement has been met with excellent results! Also during this time the classroom is silent. The second component is that the children write daily. Behind this activity is the idea that children will write better the more that they write. Notebooking is just one component of our writing program and one the students look forward to and are embracing!

Math Facts Assessment: The upper Montessori students take a quick math fact assessment daily. We do a one minute "speedway" assessment and a weekly five-minute timed test. This plan was developed based on a plea from middle and high school math teachers to make sure that students knew their facts! Our math speedway is a three or four day per week one-minute test with 10 problems. It covers basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Ideally, students move forward each time they take their speedway test. The five minute timed test requires students to move through 100 basic math facts with 100% accuracy. Students do addition and subtraction in the beginning of the year each year as a baseline assessment but the main focus is multiplication and division. For those students that pass out of division we have other five-minute challenges! Students compete against their own score each week. The goal is steady progress in memorizing the facts.

These assessments can be fun and the students look forward to them (That is also why everyone starts at zero for the addition speedway.) Most importantly, they take very little time each week out of the school day but the results are seen in our daily math lessons as well as simple fact recall.

I will be posting more information soon about our September and October curriculum. Stay tuned!