Grades Galore!

Grades

Last week we sent home forms with the username and passwords for the Synergy ParentVue accounts. I hope that you received your letter and had a chance to view your students grades online. As I mentioned before, I typically am caught up with the previous week's grading by Monday morning. I encourage you and your student to take a look and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Regular assignments are graded as follows, on a 0-5 scale:

0= Not turned in

1= Incomplete

2= Not yet meeting

3= Nearly meeting

4= Meets

5= Exceeds

Tests and quizzes are given a proficiency grade (Exceeds, Meets, etc.). I am fairly flexible with the my grading; students who wish to redo, complete, or extend an assignment have my blessing. After a week, I typically don't encourage my students to finish late work. Because we use a proficiency model, multiple assignments will be given throughout the year to measure skills in each of the report card areas.

Math grades will become available soon. We are currently compiling class lists to match your student to their math teacher.

Just What Have We Been Doing?

Many of the assignments posted in ParentVue are from our language arts block. Every week the students are given a choice menu with a number of activities to complete. Each of these assignments is aligned to the sixth grade common core standards covered in our Houghton Mifflin series. This includes vocabulary activities, comprehension work, and writing tasks. So far we have been looking at character development, author's purpose, and writing narratives.

We have also spent time in health working on communication skills, have used our knowledge of heredity to create dogs, and have been working on map reading. Typing skills have been our focus during our computer lab time, and I introduced and set up Newsela accounts for the students. We will be spending more time reading and reflecting on current events using the Newsela website in the coming weeks.

Upcoming Dates

This week the fifth grade is hosting a Scholastic book fair. We are scheduled to visit the fair on Thursday afternoon. If your student would like to go earlier, the fair is open before and after school, from 8-3:30. Students may also visit during their lunch breaks if they have money.

Finally, we have our first three day weekend coming up this week. Remember, there is no school on Friday, October 9. 

I think we off to a great start. Thank you so much for an excellent September!

-Ms. Kinsman