Friday, January 30, 2015

Writing: Please finish your Soil Essay by Monday. Get to it on https://write.utahcompose.com/Home/Welcome.

Don't forget to sign up for Parent Teacher conferences (in the post below)!

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Writing: Finish your essay Titled "Unit 4 Week 3 Exploding Ants"

Tomorrow is a short day! School is dismissed at 1:15. Please schedule you Parent Teacher Conference today! Follow the link from the post below. ↓ 

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent Teacher Conferences are next week, Monday, February 2 and Wednesday, February 4! Conferences are scheduled online in 10 minute blocks. When prompted, enter the code "Midvalley" for access. Please schedule your conference here: http://goo.gl/4z8lkT

Monday, January 26, 2015

Math: P. 159 7-12 Order of Operations practice & Data Table worksheet (Variables & expressions).
Language: There is no spelling or vocabulary tests this week and next as we clear time to prepare for the SAGE writing test.
Writing: finish your "School Uniforms" writing prompt on www.utahcompose.com

The SAGE writing test is upon us! It will be administered in two weeks and we need to be ready! Expect that if your child does not finish a particular piece in school, then I will be asking them to finish it at home. If computer access is a problem and going to the library is out of the question, then they can finish it with pencil and paper.

PARENT / TEACHER CONFERENCES:
Parents, check back here soon as I will be posting a link to schedule an appointment for conferences.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Reading: 20 minutes/night forever
Language: New vocab lists, test Friday
Spelling: New lists, test Friday
Math: P. 158 #s 16, 17, 19, 20, 26, 27 Pay attention to the directions!
Science: We are studying Heredity! If your kids are asking you questions about eye color, tongue rolling, etc, this is why!

If you haven't noticed, I've scaled back on the detailed descriptions of the day to day goings on in the classroom. I'm trying to pass that responsibility onto my students via Twitter. Check out our Twitter page by searching Twitter for #rolleyclass. Have a great week!

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Reading: 20 minutes/night... forever!
Language: Test Friday
Spelling: Test Friday!
Math: Tests returned today. Remediation assigned, due Friday. Make-up test Friday.
Test remediations were assigned. We began working on those in class.

What are remediations? After completing a unit in math, I give a test. This test is meticulously gone over by me, making comments when I can, in the hope that the student reads what I have written and learns from their mistakes. This is very time-consuming. Taken seriously, this is a powerful learning tool. No grade is given. Test remediation is then assigned, where the student must:

  • Explain their thinking (why did you put the answer you gave).
  • Do the problem correctly.
  • Explain why this is the correct answer.
They must do this for EVERY problem that they got wrong. Then they must get a parent signature and turn it in to me. These are DUE FRIDAY!! The retest is FRIDAY too!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Spelling list update:
  • Red Group: Word within Words: Sort 23
  • Blue Group: Word within Words: Sort 46
  • Yellow Group: Derivationals: Sort 15
  • Green Group: Syllables & Affixes: Sort 39
Links to copies of these sorts can be found on the right.
Reading: 20 minutes/night... forever!
Language: New vocab list, test Friday
Spelling: New words, test Friday! Unit 3 Test is tomorrow!!
Math: We had our division test today. I will try my best to get them back to you tomorrow. Retest Friday!

Welcome back everybody! It's great to see all the smiling faces. Hope your holidays were great! I enjoyed a nice "staycation." I even went skiing with my daughter. See you all tomorrow!

Thursday, January 1, 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Well kids and parents, I'm looking forward to the second half of our school year! I hope this break has been refreshing and you all come back renewed and ready to work. We have the SAGE Writing test coming up and we'll be starting a new science unit too.

Last school year, I wrote a grant that was awarded by the Canyons Foundation for almost $8500 that got us our Chromebook lab. This year twelve donors, both families and friends, have donated to get us two new iPads for our classroom! The grant was fully funded New Years Eve when a donor from San Francisco donated enough for us to reach the half-way point which caused Wells Fargo and the Eccles Foundation to donate $833.76 to fully fund the project through the "Double Your Impact" program. I just wanted to thank you all for your generous support. I am truly humbled by the kids and families of Midvalley. I can't wait to get back to work with you!