Ipads, Writesteps, NWEA, Constitution Day, and gradebook

We had a wonderful opportunity to borrow the "ipad cart" last week. Students partnered up to explore four aps: spellingcity, tangrams, opposites, and cursive writing.  Ipads and the educational aps are a great way to reinforce the concepts we are learning in school (spelling patterns) and to try new things (cursive).  The students were learning and having fun.

For writing, we are using the program WriteSteps.  It is a wonderful program that incorporates creativity, purposeful writing, review, and language concepts.  Students have decorated their writing notebooks and have also wrote every day for an extended period of time.  As we build their writing endurance, we use their individual writing to persuade, inform, and entertain.

I have updated the online gradebook with your student's scores from last week.  You can access it through the SPS website.  You will need to login to visit your child's grades.  Be sure to double click the bar graph for information about individual scores.  The assessments will be returned in your child's Monday Mailer with their score on it.  Homework, workshop work, morning work, etc. that is returned to you should have a checkmark, smile, or a note.  Items with notes/check/smile rather than a point score are reviewed for participation points and are used to inform future instruction.

Constitution Day is Tuesday, September 17th.  We will be comparing our class contract to the United States Constitution and learning about the history of such an important document.

Our class will take three the NWEA MAP tests this week:  Reading is Wednesday at 9:30, Math is Thursday at 9:30, Language Usage is Friday at 9:30.   The results will be shared soon after.

Thank you for a great week!