May Newsletter!

Gulf of Maine Research Institute Field Trip May 1-2.

Day in the Life - Art Show, Book Fair, and Concert - May 7th from 5-7

NWEA Testing (get lots of sleep)

• May 6th - 7th Reading
• May 8th - 9th Math

ACE's day - All children exercise simultaneously - May 14th

Children’s Water Festival at USM - Portland - May 23rd

Memorial Day - May 26th (no school)

Homework Haven is held every Thursday from 2:00-4:00 p.m. and a Late Bus is available.

Mrs. Bedard sarah.bedard@rsu4.org

Mrs. Collins allyson.collins@rsu4.org

Ms. Cornish madelyn.cornish@rsu4.org

Mrs. Dupee carolyn.dupee@rsu4.org

Ms. Pfeffer beth.pfeffer@rsu4.org

Mrs. Richardson jen.richardson@rsu4.org

I am so proud of these kiddos! They did so well on their final punctuation assessment and facts vs. opinion assessment. This means we can put all of our focus on continued research skills, autobiographies, biographies, and informational writing. I am excited to see the projects that students create in this final month of school.

My hope is to have students work on alphabetical order as a small skill before the end of the year. This can help them when doing research and looking into vocabulary, the old-fashioned way with dictionaries.

We finally finished Chapter 9, which dealt with Social Class in Ancient Greece. Students did a fantastic job on this assessment! It was great to see such great success!

We also began working on Chapter 25, The Geography and Settlement of Ancient Greece. We began the unit with a fun activity where students had to group up and claim land in order to survive in ancient Greece. If they didn’t claim enough land, they had to send a group member away to start a new colony. The colonists then brought goods back to mainland Greece to trade. This enabled the Greek settlements to survive. Students really enjoyed the activity! Ask them about it at home!

Throughout this unit they have learned new problem solving skills as they worked through how Greeks survived with little available farmland. Students worked through Reading Notes, Vocabulary, a Crossword Puzzle, a Vocabulary Review, as well as a Test Review. We played BINGO to review vocabulary and Jeopardy to review for the final test. This was a quick chapter!

Next month we will be learning about Democracy in Ancient Greece.

In science, we did activities related to the Spheres of the Earth. We are learning about the hydrosphere and geosphere in more depth. We have also been working in more depth with the processes of weathering, erosion, and deposition.

As we continue into May, we will be learning more about the Water Cycle, including a project that involves the geosphere and hydrosphere.

In Literature, we wrapped up our Figurative Language unit just before April Break. Students created “Idiom” posters on Canva as well as wrote about “The Best Part of Me” using figurative language to describe what part of themselves they are most proud of or happy about. This work will be on display on May 7th from 5-7:00 p.m. at our “A Day in a Life” event. As a reminder, all assignments are posted on Google Classroom daily for those students who need reminders or who have been absent, so they know what they missed. Students should still be reading daily and logging into their reading logs, which are glued into their Literature Notebooks. 6th Graders will finish the year working on a Nonfiction Unit. We also have Reading NWEAs on Tuesday, May 6th. We will celebrate all of their successes and growth in June. Thank you for supporting your child’s education.

Math: We are making slow but steady progress in Unit 6 - Equations and Expressions. Utilizing foundational skills to solve more complicated problems is the theme. (Students who continue to struggle with division and fraction work have found this challenging.) Students took a formative assessment, had a full review, and attempted a second assessment to master the concepts being presented. We will complete Unit 6 in May and also take our NWEA assessments. Students are expected to complete nightly homework practice problems that follow each lesson when assigned to prepare them for the final assessments, where the work has to be completed without support. Independent practice prepares them for success!