5/6 Families
A conference letter was placed in your child's mailbox. Please be sure that your child has brought this letter home to you! Thanks!
News from Ms. O
Math 5
Students in 5th grade math have been working their way through several topics of study this week including prime factorization and order of operations. Focus questions included:
We hope that this work will lead to improved understanding of the properties of numbers and of basic fluency facts. We will move back into algebra with deeper instruction on decoding cube sequences and do some work with data and statistics to end the unit. A unit assessment will be administered within a two week period.
Math 6
We had our first studio day this week in the 6th grade classroom. Bill Feeley, a resident consultant who works for district, taught class to the 6th graders to model best practices in mathematics. The 15 adults in the room were impressed with the efforts made by the students to practice the math habits and interactions reinforced in Bill’s lesson. This group will be the studio classroom for the year and will have another visit from faculty again in November. I appreciate the opportunity your children are providing me as an educator. This work is a privilege and your students will be better mathematicians because of it!
We are finishing up our work investigating the properties of numbers and will move into an algebra unit when finished.
⅚ Math Families
Thank you for your continued insistence to practice math facts at home. Below is a letter from Caitlin Bianchi, the math coordinator, commenting on fluency.
⅚ Science
This week we will take a pause from the Properties of Matter unit and change focus to introduce our yearlong field work learning about the Winooski River Watershed. We will be taking a walk with the Williston Town Planner, to the Allen Brook, to begin this adventure! Students will be able to answer the following questions:
IMPORTANT Info!!!
Mr. Merrill’s core will take their field walk Wednesday. Ms. O’s core will take their field walk Thursday. Any parents are welcome to join! Touch base with me via email so I can expect you! We leave school at about 1:20 and will return for 2:50 dismissal. Please encourage old clothes, warm clothes, potentially rain gear and rubber boots! We may find ourselves in some wet and muddy areas!
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
This week students wrapped up their first literature group book and project. Students created character maps or organizers in their Reading Response Notebooks, using details like description, traits, actions, and changes. In Social Studies, we practiced reading Informational Text. We read it three times in three different activities, to identify the issues, problems, and the potential solutions to the issues in the upcoming election. The students will be writing a LEAF paragraph that is due on Tuesday. The LEAF will be the starter blog post for a blogging activity on the upcoming election with Sterling House.
Ms. Q's Corner
Math 7
The week began with looking at the story that graphs tell us. We explored the relationship between independent and dependent variables, and began learning to write algebraic equations that represent the relationships between those variables. We paused to watch a classic 1977 film, “The Powers of Ten” in order to help us make sense of scientific notation. We practiced writing very large numbers and very small numbers using this notation.
Math 8
This week delved into a variety of math concepts. We revisited slope, line of best fit, solving multi-step algebraic expressions and explored inequalities. We compared and contrasted equalities vs. inequalities, learned how to graph them on a line, and determined the numbers that could be in the solution set. We explored the use of words like “at least”, “within” when placed in context of an inequality.
Science 7/8th
This week students presented their scientific models of photosynthesis,cellular respiration, energy traveling through ecosystems, carbon cycle, food chains and symbiosis. While their colleagues presented, we took notes and asked clarifying questions. The quiz was postponed until Monday,due to an assembly. Students may have an index card with them during the quiz.
Math 5
Students in 5th grade math have been working their way through several topics of study this week including prime factorization and order of operations. Focus questions included:
- How does a prime factorization help us solve problems?
- Why do mathematicians have a set of rules for problems that have multiple operations?
We hope that this work will lead to improved understanding of the properties of numbers and of basic fluency facts. We will move back into algebra with deeper instruction on decoding cube sequences and do some work with data and statistics to end the unit. A unit assessment will be administered within a two week period.
Math 6
We had our first studio day this week in the 6th grade classroom. Bill Feeley, a resident consultant who works for district, taught class to the 6th graders to model best practices in mathematics. The 15 adults in the room were impressed with the efforts made by the students to practice the math habits and interactions reinforced in Bill’s lesson. This group will be the studio classroom for the year and will have another visit from faculty again in November. I appreciate the opportunity your children are providing me as an educator. This work is a privilege and your students will be better mathematicians because of it!
We are finishing up our work investigating the properties of numbers and will move into an algebra unit when finished.
⅚ Math Families
Thank you for your continued insistence to practice math facts at home. Below is a letter from Caitlin Bianchi, the math coordinator, commenting on fluency.
Knowing math facts with automaticity (without having to figure them out) positively impacts a child’s ability to complete more complex mathematical processes. Gaining an understanding of the concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division also helps students access higher level math thinking. The Bridges in Mathematics program includes instruction in computation. The Connected Math Program does not make this instruction as explicit.
Students participate in activities that help them understand how operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) work and how they are related to each other. There are also activities in the Bridges program designed to help students learn facts. For some students, the amount of practice at school is enough. For other middle school students, additional practice at home is a necessity (particularly since the school focus on fact practice in grades 6-8 becomes much less frequent). Williston Schools use a CSSU wide fact fluency assessment program to help monitor fact fluency progress and determine the level of additional practice that students need.
As part of this program, children will be assessed on how well they know facts. You will be provided with information about your child’s progress at conferences. Until your child has met the end-of-year grade level standards for fact fluency, she/he will need to practice facts at home in addition to the work being done at school. Each teacher will provide families with resources outlining options for practice. Once our assessments show that your child has met the grade level standards, he/she will not be expected to do additional work at home.
Based on the Vermont Grade Level Expectations for automaticity of facts, students in grades 3 and 4 are expected to be able to add and subtract numbers 0 to 10 with sums/minuends through 20. 4th graders are expected to multiply numbers 0 to 12. 5th and 6th graders are expected to be able to multiply and divide whole numbers through 12.
⅚ Science
This week we will take a pause from the Properties of Matter unit and change focus to introduce our yearlong field work learning about the Winooski River Watershed. We will be taking a walk with the Williston Town Planner, to the Allen Brook, to begin this adventure! Students will be able to answer the following questions:
- What is a watershed? What is my watershed?
- What evidence can we collect that tells us about the health of the Allen Brook ecosystem?
- What are the natural and human impacts on this river system?
- What role do we play in ensuring an ecosystem’s health?
IMPORTANT Info!!!
Mr. Merrill’s core will take their field walk Wednesday. Ms. O’s core will take their field walk Thursday. Any parents are welcome to join! Touch base with me via email so I can expect you! We leave school at about 1:20 and will return for 2:50 dismissal. Please encourage old clothes, warm clothes, potentially rain gear and rubber boots! We may find ourselves in some wet and muddy areas!
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
This week students wrapped up their first literature group book and project. Students created character maps or organizers in their Reading Response Notebooks, using details like description, traits, actions, and changes. In Social Studies, we practiced reading Informational Text. We read it three times in three different activities, to identify the issues, problems, and the potential solutions to the issues in the upcoming election. The students will be writing a LEAF paragraph that is due on Tuesday. The LEAF will be the starter blog post for a blogging activity on the upcoming election with Sterling House.
Ms. Q's Corner
Math 7
The week began with looking at the story that graphs tell us. We explored the relationship between independent and dependent variables, and began learning to write algebraic equations that represent the relationships between those variables. We paused to watch a classic 1977 film, “The Powers of Ten” in order to help us make sense of scientific notation. We practiced writing very large numbers and very small numbers using this notation.
Math 8
This week delved into a variety of math concepts. We revisited slope, line of best fit, solving multi-step algebraic expressions and explored inequalities. We compared and contrasted equalities vs. inequalities, learned how to graph them on a line, and determined the numbers that could be in the solution set. We explored the use of words like “at least”, “within” when placed in context of an inequality.
Science 7/8th
This week students presented their scientific models of photosynthesis,cellular respiration, energy traveling through ecosystems, carbon cycle, food chains and symbiosis. While their colleagues presented, we took notes and asked clarifying questions. The quiz was postponed until Monday,due to an assembly. Students may have an index card with them during the quiz.
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