Meeting April 21

SIT-technology survey (nothing needs to be turned in, just something to think about and consider right now)

Colonial Day Stations-May 23

Cathy-candle making day 

*Mike-Butter making

*Rebecca-Stenciling

*AnnMarie-tin punching

*Julie-Weaving 

*Mitsy-music 

*Christy & Joe-Pioneer Games (outdoor/indoor games)

Julie needs cereal boxes to be collected for student looms (75), $1 donation request in parent letter, hot plates

Ann Marie will look for Helmer Nature Center letter

Rachel will look for Colonial day letter 

March 10, 2014

Colonial Days is our next half day in May 

*Cathy-candle making day 

*Mike-Butter making

*Rebecca-Stenciling

*AnnMarie & Joe -tin punching

*Julie-Weaving 

*Mitsy?-music 

*Christy-Pioneer Games (Marlene & Sara did games like) 

Parent Volunteers-cut off the face of the cereal boxes and volunteer wraps yarn around the cereal box for weaving 

35 minute stations-start with history, background and then activities, students take notes on activities and then they write a letter to their parents about what they did 

Talked about superintendents conference day expectations 

February 7, 2014

Grade level meeting at 12:30

*We anchored in on the scoring of 3 pieces of informational writing that Cathy brought. We discussed a few common concerns with with the rubric related to the 45 minute time limit, yet they are being assessed on "illustrations, multimedia,etc" and that is difficult to include in the time constraint 

*We all need to take pictures of IB representatives from our classroom and post them

*unit 5 math test-give test before, or right after the break

*updated budget requests

January 27, 2014

Meeting to discuss what to go over with Chris & Michelle next week for the math meeting:

*change the order of units-unit 5, place value should come first 

*10 minute math should be multiple step problems for multiplication & division

*we created review sheets (parallel tasks) to model the type of assessment coming for end of Unit C and therefore we question the validity of our results. We all agree that investigations does not prepare the students for this district assessment

*our results showed that close reading is an issue for them

*rich tasks in the n:drive weren't even enough to prepare them for the end of unit assessment

*what are other buildings doing to prepare them for the district assessment? Is it just investigations? How are they supplementing?

Mike-what topics can we recommend for the book room? 

*explorers, native Americans, high interest lower level texts, module texts 

Rachel-going away send off on?

February 3,2014

Meeting with Michelle & Chris regarding math feedback:

*students were not prepared for multiple step multiplication & division problems

*wrap up unit 5 of addition and subtraction before February break so that everyone could have fractions started after break

*Chris- students need more exposure of algebraic equations 

*Team- need many more parallel tasks to meet the expectations of questions & type of problem solving skills necessary to complete rigorous assessments

*Team- we have had to create our own Multi-step problems (not nearly enough) to supplement 10 min math

*Team- VE's demographic is much different than NW which has a direct impact on performance

*Team- investigations needs more opportunities to write about their problem solving steps

*need more homework-possible summer work?

*consider moving unit 5 (addition & subtraction) to either earlier in the year, or after the assessment. Between mult/division and fraction unit is not a good fit

*agree that investigations did not prepare students with how to use a protractor, so we supplemented with resources from engageny

January 13, 2014

The grade level met today to talk about the following...

*Math unit 3-all will have the midterm math assessment done by January 24th. We will assess them the following week. Annmarie will email Chris & Michelle about meeting with us in early February

*Expository Assessment-we agree that we should choose from curriculum topics, as opposed to open ended topics. 

*DRAs are the last week of January. The writing assessment will also be given then. Our goal is to compete DRAs, while other students are working on their research topics for writing

*Next meeting is January 27. Joe or Christy will bring copies of student work for collaborative scoring