Thank You

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of our Room 21 families. You guys made me feel so supported this year. I couldn't have asked for a better group of students or a nicer bunch of families. I wish all of you the best over the summer and in the coming year. For the record, I would welcome visits from former students at any time.

Last Week of Sixth Grade!

Dear Room 21 Families,

This is it! The last week of school. Our last day of school is this Friday, June 23rd. 

The sixth grade will have a graduation ceremony on Friday at 10:15. Parents are welcome to attend. There will be a reception immediately following the ceremony. 

Dismissal on Friday is at 11:45.

Finish Strong

Hey Room 21 Families,

We are just a couple of weeks away from the end of the school year, but we are not quite done yet. We have a number of students who still need to turn in their persuasive letter for Reading. If you haven't heard about this assignment, take a moment to check with your student and see if they are done.

Next week, we'll be starting a small project on Shakespeare. Each student will choose a monologue or a sonnet by Shakespeare and will decode and present it.

Here are some upcoming dates to keep in mind:

• All library books are due by tomorrow, 6/12.
• Our class will be taking the Easy CBM math test on Tuesday and the SRI lexile test on Wednesday.
• Our class walked the most laps in this year's Walk-a-thon and earned an ice cream party, which will happen on Friday, 6/16.
• Intermediate grade Field Day is on Monday, 6/19.
• We have our swim party on Thursday, 6/22 at Inis Arden pool; if you haven't signed the permission form for this, please do.
• Our last day of school will be Friday, 6/23.

Hope you are enjoying this lovely early summer weekend.

Moving Up Info

Hey Room 21 Families,

I mentioned this last week, but I wanted to make sure you were all aware of tonight's information session. Here's a letter from our counselor, Mrs. Anderton:

Dear 6th Grade Families!
We are excited to invite you and your 6th grade student to Echo Lake’s first annual ​Move Up Night​! We will have a panel of freshmen and sophomores from Shorewood High School speaking about their experiences at Einstein - strategies they used to prepare themselves for high school, things they wish they'd done differently, as well as answering questions your students prepare in advance. We hope the event will foster a sense of perspective and encourage long-term goal setting for your student.
Please join us ​June 8th from 6pm-7pm in the Echo Lake library​. If you are unavailable, your 6th grader is welcome to come on their own. Please contact me with any questions and we look forward to seeing you on the 8th!
Best,
Cher Anderton
Counselor
Echo Lake Elementary 
cher.anderton@shorelineschools.org 
206.393.1265 

The End Is Near!

Hi Room 21 Families!

I hope you and your student had an excellent Memorial Day weekend. I know most of the kids used the time to catch up on much needed post-camp rest. Hopefully, they've filled you in on their camp experience and told you all about the raccoons, the zip-line and their opinion of the stir-fry.

We are now in the last few weeks of school and we have a lot of things coming down the pike:

• We have SBA testing this Thursday and Friday. We need to make sure that all of our students are here, if possible, for those days, to minimize the amount of make-up testing. We also need to make sure the kids have a good night's sleep before tackling the SBA.
• We have a math test at the end of next week. It will be our last Envision test of the year and will cover all the topics in our data/graphing unit.
• This week, my class will start their last cycle of Interactive Read-Aloud with Mrs. Stenfjord.
• Next week, we will begin our health lessons. I'll be sending home a letter about that today, and you will be able to opt out if you don't want your student studying the Flash curriculum.
• The first draft of our persuasive letters need to be done this week and we'll be finishing them up by next Friday, 6/9.
• The school will be hosting a Moving Up night on June 8 from 6-7; it's a chance for our sixth graders to hear from high school students about how their work at Einstein prepared them for high school. I'll be sending more information about that this week.

As we get closer and closer to June 23rd, please take a moment to remind your student that expectations for classwork and behavior have not changed from how they've been all year. We don't want a massive outbreak of Senioritis to disrupt what has been an excellent year.

Thanks!

Camp Talk

Hey Room 21 Parents,

A couple of reminders before Monday's departure for Camp Orkila:

• We are leaving from Highland Terrace Elementary, not from Echo Lake. Students need to be at Highland Terrace by 7:15 Monday morning. Highland Terrace is located at 100 N. 160th St. in Shoreline. It's right near Shoreline Community College.
• Parents are reminded that anything sent to camp with your students should be clearly labeled with their name. 
• Rolling luggage is fine, but students need to be aware that the ground at camp is uneven and they will have to carry whatever bags they bring for at least a portion of their journey.

Test Talk

We have successfully completed our first day of SBA testing. Thanks so much, Room 21 families, for sending our students prepared. Thanks, also, to Mai Tran and Gergana Genadieva for sending snacks to keep the kids energized during testing. 

We finish up the ELA SBA on Thursday. The math SBA happens June 1st and 2nd. 

Busy, Busy Week

Hey Room 21 families!

We have a lot of stuff coming down the pike in the next couple of weeks.

Starting today, we're taking practice tests for next week's Smarter Balance Assessment in Reading. The actual test will be next Tuesday and Thursday. We sent home letters today asking for families who are willing to donate snacks so that we can make sure all students have some healthy food in them before they test. If you wish to donate, please refer to the list and let me know as soon as possible what you'll be sending. I will be bringing breakfast snacks as well, so no worries if you can't.

We still have some families who have not filled out the online waiver for Camp Orkila. If you have not, please visit this site as soon as possible. The waiver only takes a few minutes to fill out. Also, a reminder that we need to have any medications you'll be sending to camp to the health office by May 15th. 

We have two tests coming up this Friday. We'll be wrapping up a short unit on measurement with a unit test Friday morning and, Friday afternoon, we'll have our last science test of the year on Hazards in the Household.

Have a great week!

Test Alert

Sixth graders have a test tomorrow on equations. They need to know how to solve one- and two-step equations, use a table to solve equations for a variable, graph a linear equation and find solutions to inequalities.

This Friday, students will bring home a homework problem from the week to solve with you.

Also, a reminder: next week is Spring Break. Hope you have fun plans.

Spring Fever

Hey Room 21 families,

My apologies for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks. It's been hectic around Echo Lake and I've been trying to keep on top of a number of things that pulled my attention. Here, then, is a short list of things to be aware of:

• Thank you to all of the families who were able to attend last night's Open House. It was great seeing all of you and so fun to watch the students fill you in on what's been happening in the classroom. Special thanks to the families who donated books to our class library. 
• Tests: We are entering the downward slope in math, and we'll have a lot of tests coming at us. We had our unit test for percents this week and many students struggled with some of the concepts. I'll be taking time to go back and revisit some of the unit in the next few weeks. Our next unit test in math will be next Friday.
• Writing: We have been hard at work on argumentative presentations; students picked a controversial topic and took a stance on it. They have been gathering evidence to back up their opinion. They'll take their research and use it to create a slide show on Google Slides and write a spoken presentation to go with it. Those presentations will begin next week and will likely wrap up after Spring Break.
• Spring Break is just a week away. I will be sending home a very small math packet and instructing students to read an hour every day.
• We start our final unit in science next week. We'll be spending two weeks looking at household products and the dangers they present.

Hope you are all enjoying the slightly warmer weather and the little bits of sunshine that are starting to pop up. Have a great weekend.

Camp Orkila Medication Information

Hey Room 21 families,

Nurse Kathy in the health office sent along the following information. Please take a moment to read:

Hello from the Health Office:

If you have already completed and returned the Camp medication forms, thank you! Please have all medications to the Health Office by May 16. You can disregard the rest of the email! 

This is a reminder that if your student will need to take medication at Camp Orkila we must have this form completed and return to the Health Office by May 1, 2017.    This includes all Over- the- Counter medication  (such as Vitamins, Pain relievers or Seasonal Allergy medications) as well as Prescription medication that they don’t already use at school.     You should only send as much medication as needed for Camp and bottle sizes should be small (Please do not send a C”Costco- size” bottle for 4 days of medication!).  All medication must be in the original container with your student’s name on it.   Medications must be in the Health office by May 16 unless other arrangements have been made with Nurse Amy or Nurse Kathy.

If you need another medication form, please let me know and I will get one to you.

Thanks!

Thanks and Heads Up

I wanted to say thanks to all of our Room 21 families for coming in for parent-teacher conferences last week. It was great to sit down with you all and discuss what we've been doing in class and where your students go from here.

I wanted to remind all families that this Thursday, March 16th is the deadline for turning in your student's registration for Einstein. Ms. Flatters, the seventh grade counselor from Einstein will be coming on Thursday to pick the registration up. If you and your student have not had a chance to complete the form, please do so today or tomorrow and send the form in to me by Thursday.

Thanks!

Double Test Alert!

Hey Room 21 Families!

Sorry for the length of time since the last post. Last week, with parent-teacher conferences, I simply did not have a moment to blog.

I wanted to remind families that we not one, but two math tests this week. We will be re-testing Unit 11 on Thursday and we have our unit test on Unit 12 on Friday. Unit 11 was our basic geometry unit and there were some concepts the class as a whole struggled with, so we've been going back over the information. Unit 12 is on rates and ratios. Students need to be able to compare ratios, determine if two ratios form a proportion, find the unit rate and find the distance, if given the time and rate.

Parents' Night at Einstein

Hey Room 21 families!

Our students met this morning with Ms. Flatters, the counselor from Einstein Middle School. Ms. Flatters, along with two fantastic Einstein 8th graders, came in to discuss middle school with our class.

They will be bringing home a registration form, along with a class catalogue. The form is due back to me by March 16th. I'll be using parent-teacher conferences to discuss class choice with your and your student.

To get more information, you can attend Einstein's Parent Night this coming Tuesday, March 7th from 6:30-8:00. For more details, contact the office at Einstein.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Three posts in one day? Sometimes, that's how we roll here in Room 21.

We have so much coming down the pike that I wanted to make sure everyone was up to date.

This Thursday, we have counselors from Einstein Middle School coming in to talk with the sixth graders about next year. Then, on Friday, we'll be taking a trip to Einstein so the students can get a look at where they'll be spending the next two years of their educational lives.

Next week, students are off on Monday. Tuesday through Friday are half days, as it's once again time for Parent-Teacher Conferences. If you haven't had a chance to sign up for a conference, please do. We'll be discussing students' current progress in their studies, Camp Orkila, SBACs and middle school scheduling.

Test Alertses

Hey Room 21 families!

We have some tests coming up. 

My class will be taking the next unit test in math this Friday, March 3. The test is on Geometry and covers lines, rays, angles, angle pairs, triangles, quadrilaterals, and problem-solving. Students seem to have a good handle on the subjects so far, but, if you have a moment, get your student to tell you the difference between an isosceles triangle and a scalene triangle.

In science, Mrs. Stenfjord's class has a test this week on the Solar System. They'll need to know the difference between the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt and be able to tell me why Pluto and Titan aren't planets. Fun, cosmic stuff!

Writing About Reading

Good afternoon Room 21 families!

Sixth grade students have been working for the last couple of weeks on a writing assignment. We finished reading the book Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. It's the story of a young girl dealing with her mother's departure and how it affects her approach to the world. We read the book over several months and now students are finishing up a deeper look at the work.

Students chose a writing prompt to respond to. Each prompt focused on a different literary element: theme, setting, conflict or subplot. Students used evidence from the book to discuss their chosen element. We've been through the process of drafting and finding supporting details; we've conferenced and we've had peer feedback. Now, we're getting down to the end of it and students are going back and revising/editing their work.

The finished product is due on Tuesday of next week. If you have a few minutes, ask your student to share their work. Or, if they have trouble accessing their work from a home computer, just have them tell you about what they've written. We've got some keen literary analysis going on in room 21 and I'd love for you to learn more about what they've learned.

Test Alert

Room 21 students have a math test on Wednesday. The test will cover our unit on integers. Students need to know how to compute operations with positive and negative integers, as well as how to graph points on a coordinate plane.

Updates. So many updates.

Room 21 Families, we have been and continue to be super busy and there's a whole bunch of things I want to update you on today. So here we go:

• Report cards: Report card will be going home tomorrow. Please check with your student to make sure they have it.
• Valentine's party: Letters went home this week about next week's Valentine's party. We're looking for parent volunteers to come in and assist with the party and we're asking for contributions of snacks and such. 
• Conferences: Parent-teacher conferences are early in March. I emailed all Room 21 families with a link to our on-line conference schedule. If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to schedule a conference.
• Middle-high: Early in March, 6th grade students will be meeting with counselors from Einstein Middle School and will be touring the school the next day. Now is the time when we'll need to start thinking about your student's class schedule for next year. You'll have the opportunity to go to an information session at Einstein and we'll be discussing scheduling in conferences.
• Camp Orkila: Letters went home this week updating families on how much your student still needs to pay for Camp Orkila. If payment is going to be a problem, please contact me and we can figure something out.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

We are now in the second semester of the year. Grades for the first marking period have been entered and report cards will be heading your way next Friday.

With the second marking period, we will see changes to some procedures here in Room 21. I thought I'd take a moment to briefly go over these changes with you.

Reading logs--Until now, I've had students keep their reading logs in the back of their notebooks. Starting next week, reading logs will get a little more complex. Students will have a packet for their reading log and they'll be responsible both for writing one reading response per week and also for evaluating their own responses.

Writing--Students will be keeping a journal this semester. They will be writing journal entries about whatever topic they choose 2-3 times per week. They will also be given an assigned writing piece every Friday, which will vary from assignment to assignment.

Grammar--We will be putting more emphasis on grammar this semester, with daily grammar exercises.

Math homework--Every Friday, in lieu of the worksheet that comes with our math program, students will be assigned one problem that ties in with our work that week. Their task will not be to simply solve the problem; they will be required to teach the problem to a family member. This will require a little bit of time from families, so I thank you in advance. The problem can be taught to a parent, grandparent, sibling, friendly neighbor or whoever the student chooses. The person being taught needs to sign off on the problem and the student will get credit when the sheet comes back Monday with the signature.

I hope that these changes will help deepen our students' understanding of the material and propel them to even greater heights.

Planet Brochures

As part of our unit on the Solar System, students were assigned an object to research. They looked up facts about their given object (planets, moons, the asteroid belt, etc.) They then took those facts and created brochures to advertise their object. 

I was so impressed by the students' work! They made great-looking brochures and they used their information to write interesting ad copy.

Have your student point out their brochure and enjoy!

Test(s) Alert!

Room 21 students have two tests coming up this week. Our unit test for Unit 10 in math will be tomorrow. Students need to know all about dividing fractions and mixed numbers, solving equations that involve fractions and spotting patterns.

We also have a unit test in Science. On Friday, students will take a test on the Solar System.

Project: Solar System

Room 21 families: your student might be bringing home some homework this evening. In science, we've been working on a brochure advertising objects in our solar system. If students didn't finish it in class, today, I asked them to bring it home. If you have a chance, ask your student about it. The work the class has done on these is pretty cool.

(Students will also have homework in their Springboard books tonight, which is also unusual, but doesn't look nearly as cool.) 

Test Moved to Tomorrow

Just a heads-up to Room 21 families: The math test that was scheduled for today has been postponed until tomorrow to allow for extra review. 

Popcorn!

From Kristie Brown, our popcorn guru:

Happy New Year 6th Grade Families!

 We will be starting the popcorn sales this Friday, January 6th. This fundraiser helps fund the transportation costs to Camp Orkila for our students and we are in need of volunteers. The sales occur every Friday from 11:30a-1:30p during the 3 lunch recess periods. 6th Grade students come out to help collect money and distribute popcorn bags so you are not alone. An adult must run the popcorn machine though and that is where your volunteer time is needed.

Please take a look at the dates we have coming up and see if you can fill a spot. Two volunteers are ideal during a shift but even one allows us to run the sale for the day.

Here's how it works to sign up in 3 easy steps:

1) Click this link to see our SignUp on SignUp.com:   http://signup.com/go/re7zbv

2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.

3) Sign up! It's Easy - you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on SignUp.com.

Note: SignUp.com does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me and I can sign you up manually.

Test Alert!

Hey Room 21 families! We've just gotten back to school and already we have a test coming at us. Unit 8--studying how to multiply fractions--is fairly short and so our unit test will be next Wednesday, January 11th.

By next Wednesday, students should know:

• how to multiply a whole number by a fraction
• how to estimate products of fractions
• how to multiply fractions by fractions and by mixed numbers
• solving multi-step story problems.

If you have a moment, check in with how your student is doing so far in this unit.

Welcome Back!

Happy New Year! I hope all of our Room 21 families had a relaxing and fun Winter Break. I hope, as well, that students are coming back ready to hit the ground running for our new year.

We are starting new units in Science and Math and we are continuing work on the novel Walk Two Moons in Reading.

In Science, we'll be spending the next few weeks studying the solar system. We'll discuss models of the solar system, how accurate they are, how accurate they should be and we'll learn lots about the objects that make up our local galactic neighborhood.

In Math, we'll take the work we've done so far with fractions and translate that into multiplying fractions by whole numbers and by other fractions. We'll explore different ways to approach these problems and find a way that works for each student.

I'm super excited to be back at work and look forward to a focused start to the New Year.