16 September 2010
15 September 2010
Vote for WO! in the Pepsi Refresh Grant Competition
Please consider supporting West Ottawa Schools in the Pepsi Refresh Competition
Dear Parents and Guardians:
Please help us promote reading by voting for West Ottawa in the Pepsi Refresh Grant Competition. We are competing for $5000, which we will use to buy books to supplement our school library’s collection, but we need your help!
What to do?
- Go to www.refresheverything.com/westottawabooks
- Sign in. (If you keep the bottom two boxes unchecked, you will not be spammed.)
- Vote for WO!
Please vote for West Ottawa today! You can vote for us again tomorrow and everyday for the rest of September.
Thank you so much for your support!
14 September 2010
Student Council
Students interested in running as classroom representatives for the Waukazoo Student Council should plan on giving classroom speeches on September 27, 2010. The class will vote to elect two representatives on September 28.
Each person running will need to prepare a 2-5 minute speech on why he/she would make the best student council representative for our class. We are asking that for classroom elections, students refrain from distributing campaign materials or from making campaign posters.
Student Council Information: The Waukazoo Student Council meets once per month before school at 8 a.m. Parents of elected representatives will be responsible for transporting their son or daughter to school for student council meetings.
09 September 2010
Math Fact Assessment
Today, students are bringing home their first "speedway" assessment pages. For homework tonight they are filling in or fixing their addition 5-minute assessment. How do we do these assessments in our classroom?
The upper Montessori students do a daily, quick math fact assessment. 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.
What do these assessments tell you at home? What math facts students have mastered and where they struggle. If your son or daughter did great on this week's addition five-minute test, that is great! Next week we'll be doing a subtraction five-minute assessment. Watch for these to come home to see how students are doing on their facts. Look for speedways that are 100% correct. When a speedway test comes home with errors, this is a fact family to study and practice at home.
The upper Montessori students do a daily, quick math fact assessment. 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.
What do these assessments tell you at home? What math facts students have mastered and where they struggle. If your son or daughter did great on this week's addition five-minute test, that is great! Next week we'll be doing a subtraction five-minute assessment. Watch for these to come home to see how students are doing on their facts. Look for speedways that are 100% correct. When a speedway test comes home with errors, this is a fact family to study and practice at home.
07 September 2010
First Day!
Parents,
I had a wonderful first day with the children! They were fun, engaging and eager to do their best. However, they are probably very tired! We spent a great deal of time working on homework policies and procedures--please look for your child's homework contract in his or her homework folder. If you have any questions about the homework folder or the homework contract, please let me know.
Our class also spent a great deal of time discussing classroom procedures. In fact, the first week of school is full of procedures--learning and practice. For this reason it can seem like a very long week. But the more we work on procedures now, the smoother our year goes!
During these first weeks we are primarily working in small groups or whole class. We won't be starting workplan for a few weeks. These first weeks are a time of team building; by putting in the time now we find the students handling the rest of the school year much better. I will be testing many of them to determine where to best begin them in the Upper Montessori math curriculum. Other tests (reading, writing) take place these first few weeks. We'll also begin our reading and our writing workshop schedules this week.
Thank you again for making the choice to place your child in the Upper Montessori classroom. I consider it a priviledge to be working with your son or daughter this year.
--Mrs. Perrien
I had a wonderful first day with the children! They were fun, engaging and eager to do their best. However, they are probably very tired! We spent a great deal of time working on homework policies and procedures--please look for your child's homework contract in his or her homework folder. If you have any questions about the homework folder or the homework contract, please let me know.
Our class also spent a great deal of time discussing classroom procedures. In fact, the first week of school is full of procedures--learning and practice. For this reason it can seem like a very long week. But the more we work on procedures now, the smoother our year goes!
During these first weeks we are primarily working in small groups or whole class. We won't be starting workplan for a few weeks. These first weeks are a time of team building; by putting in the time now we find the students handling the rest of the school year much better. I will be testing many of them to determine where to best begin them in the Upper Montessori math curriculum. Other tests (reading, writing) take place these first few weeks. We'll also begin our reading and our writing workshop schedules this week.
Thank you again for making the choice to place your child in the Upper Montessori classroom. I consider it a priviledge to be working with your son or daughter this year.
--Mrs. Perrien
05 September 2010
Updates and Information
The "links" section of the blog has been updated to include a link for www.sendmoneytoschool.com. This site is West Ottawa's new online payment and account viewing site for the school lunch program.
The Waukazoo PTA schedule is in your child's back-to-school packet. Please consider being part of the PTA. The Waukazoo PTA is a vibrant organization that works hard to support Waukazoo and its students!
The PTA is once again sponsoring a Fun Run/Walk Event. This will kick-off almost immediately this fall. The date of the Fun Run is October 1. This is the only PTA fundraiser in the school and the funds raised cover many Waukazoo opportunities, including but not limited to: Science Alive, Brainstormers, the Publishing Center, Discovery Days, Patriot's Day, the Tulip Time parade, playground equipment, field trips, teacher's supply budgets, and the Montessori 5th grade year end dinner.
Waukazoo's morning and afternoon procedures have not changed since last year. But I am once again appealing to parents to take advantage of the school bus system if possible. The parking lots at school are small and easily overwhelmed at the end of the day. If your child lives along a bus route please have him or her ride the bus if at all possible. Thanks!
Finally, the Upper Montessori students have their physical Wellness special on Tuesday. Please make sure that gym shoes are in backpacks on the first day of school. Students will be picking lockers and moving into both those and their cubbies on Tuesday.
The Upper Montessori parent night is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. I just discovered that this is the same night as the September PTA meeting. I apologize for this scheduling conflict, I didn't know the PTA meeting date when I planned my meeting. If you will need to attend this month's PTA meeting please let me know and we will work around the meeting time.
I'm looking to a wonderful first day of school!
--Mrs. Perrien
The Waukazoo PTA schedule is in your child's back-to-school packet. Please consider being part of the PTA. The Waukazoo PTA is a vibrant organization that works hard to support Waukazoo and its students!
The PTA is once again sponsoring a Fun Run/Walk Event. This will kick-off almost immediately this fall. The date of the Fun Run is October 1. This is the only PTA fundraiser in the school and the funds raised cover many Waukazoo opportunities, including but not limited to: Science Alive, Brainstormers, the Publishing Center, Discovery Days, Patriot's Day, the Tulip Time parade, playground equipment, field trips, teacher's supply budgets, and the Montessori 5th grade year end dinner.
Waukazoo's morning and afternoon procedures have not changed since last year. But I am once again appealing to parents to take advantage of the school bus system if possible. The parking lots at school are small and easily overwhelmed at the end of the day. If your child lives along a bus route please have him or her ride the bus if at all possible. Thanks!
Finally, the Upper Montessori students have their physical Wellness special on Tuesday. Please make sure that gym shoes are in backpacks on the first day of school. Students will be picking lockers and moving into both those and their cubbies on Tuesday.
The Upper Montessori parent night is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. I just discovered that this is the same night as the September PTA meeting. I apologize for this scheduling conflict, I didn't know the PTA meeting date when I planned my meeting. If you will need to attend this month's PTA meeting please let me know and we will work around the meeting time.
I'm looking to a wonderful first day of school!
--Mrs. Perrien
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