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.