ELearning Update #3

Hello again, parents:

With the announcement of school continuing remote instruction for the remainder of the year, we are continuing to adjust our schedule to meet the needs of as many students and parents as possible. As noted in Mrs. Estes’ email Friday evening, we will need to switch our Mondays and Fridays for our fifth-graders. Please refer to this document regarding the most recent schedule for our students. Not all students meet during all of our scheduled times, so be sure to ask your child which math group and which reading group to which they belong. Also, please know that by using the calendar feature of Classroom, students only see the assignments and Zoom times that have been assigned to them. We have set aside dedicated times for each core subject within the four-day week. These times may involve being part of a Zoom meeting, require students to work on an assignment on their own, or they may involve a combination of online and offline work. We feel very strongly it is also important for all students to have plenty of time to get outside, partake in family activities, and enjoy their own hobbies and interests. We hope that our revised schedule reflects as such.

We have also factored opportunities into our weekly schedule to offer support to you and your students, such as time to receive extra help on assignments, as well as one on one check ins. We hope that these blocks will provide your students the time needed to progress on their class assignments, check in with us, and receive the help they might need. We have also created a system which we hope will allow for a more direct way for each student to correspond with us directly in lieu of having email. We will be sharing this with our students on the Fifth-Grade Classroom page.

We will continue to gather feedback and tweak the schedule as needed. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns as we move forward.

Thank you for your continued support,

Kimberly & Tim

ELearning Update #2

Please know this is solely a copy of the email sent out on Friday, March 20, 2020 in an effort to keep record of emails that are sent directly to parents. If you read this already, please disregard. Stay healthy!

Hello, parents:

Thank you for all of the cooperation and feedback you’ve offered to us this week. Though our days have been very different from our usual school days, we have seen a lot of great work and effort from everyone as we’ve adjusted to these digital spaces and online instruction. We are truly enjoying the maturity and excitement your students are showing as they rise to this new challenge.

As we move into our next week, we wanted to provide some updates to help streamline the experience for not only our students, but you as well. We recognize that everyone involved is balancing multiple responsibilities between parenting, working, facilitating student learning, and so much more. In light of this, please know we are appreciative of whatever amount of support you are able to give your child from home. In the next few days, we will be organizing check-ins between each student and their homeroom teacher. Our hope is that this might serve as an outlet for your child to share concerns and ask questions about how to navigate this new learning environment.

In fifth grade, Google Classrooms will serve as our primary source of information for you and your child as we continue our online learning. We certainly don’t want to inundate you with information spread across several different platforms, so we believe the accessibility of Google Classroom will be most efficient for you and your child. Each Monday, we will update the Google Classrooms for each of your student’s core subjects with assignments, online meeting times, and any other relevant information for the week. The general Fifth Grade Classroom page will be used for updates from Specials teachers, non-subject specific interactions, general well-being links, and links to our weekly grade-level Zoom calls. Students should get in the habit of checking each of their Google Classrooms twice a day. Setting a specific time first thing in the morning and another time in the afternoon or evening might be helpful. This way, they can be aware of any changes that are made to their weekly schedules, as well as check in on the other comments and questions made by their classmates.

We highly encourage you to follow up with your student as they record these responsibilities in their agenda just as you did throughout the year. This will continue to help them develop their own accountability and scheduling skills, while also having the assistance of their team of parents and teachers. In Middle School, students are expected to check each teacher’s Veracross and/or Google Classroom pages for all assignments. While parents do have access to their Veracross accounts, in order to support their child’s growing independence they are not directly notified of assignments unless there is an issue in which a student is having difficulty and needs more support. Keeping track of assignments for their own classes is an important step for your student, especially as they continue to build ownership of their own learning in the years to come.

To help with the adjustment to online classes, we will be offering an open Zoom meeting for parents through the link posted in the Fifth Grade Google Classroom tomorrow, Saturday, March 21, at 3:00 p.m. We welcome you to join us so we can help clarify any confusion or answer any questions you may have.

We hope to see you Saturday at 3 p.m.!

Take Care,

Kimberly & Tim

ELearning Update #1

Please know this is solely a copy of the email sent out on Monday, March 16, 2020 in an effort to keep record of emails that are sent directly to parents. If you read this already, please disregard. Stay healthy!

Hello, parents:

Thank you all for bearing with us as we figure out the best way to support your children as we navigate the instructional shift in the wake of FA’s closure. We wanted to touch base to provide more information on how this next week is going to look for you and the students. By now, you should have received a detailed email from Sheila Wimble for PE and either Jesica Lontor or Abigail Ibarra about their expectations for Foreign Language this week. 

We have posted our assignments for this week and will continue to post assignments, links, and any online meetings to the Google Classroom for each specific class as listed below. All students already have access to these classrooms at this point, so they should know where to go.

 

  • Fifth Grade
    • *This is a page for us to keep in touch with each other as a whole class. As Mrs. Estes mentioned in the recent video of our Division Heads, it is important for our students to “maintain a sense of belonging”. As we practice “social distancing” in the coming weeks, we know it will be important for students to have this sense of community. As such, we will be posting the links to our online meeting space here. 
  • Math
  • Language Arts
  • Science
  • History

 

We will have the week’s assignments, meetings, and activities posted to the above sites by 10 a.m. each Monday. Please have your child use their agenda to write down and plan their week on this day. We ask that you review your fifth-grader’s agenda each Monday evening to help keep them accountable and so that you are aware of what they are doing for their classes. Students could also be working on any long-term assignments on Monday and throughout the week. Each Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. we will hold a weekly morning meeting for all fifth-grade students. This will begin tomorrow, March 17.

This week, students are continuing to work on assignments they started last week for our core classes. Please have your student check the Google Classroom sites above to see specific details. As we move forward, we may need to make adjustments. Lessons in the classroom don’t always go as planned, so we are used to making adjustments as we teach. Learning how to teach virtually will be a bit of a learning curve and certainly may need some tweaking as we continue. We are here to support you and your child for the weeks to come. Please don’t hesitate to email us should you have any questions, concerns, or feedback. Once more, we appreciate your patience and flexibility not only in starting up, but with any adjustments that we need to make as we proceed through these new learning spaces and opportunities.

We know many students have been very eager to get started, so we look forward to connecting with our class tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m.!

Take care,

Kimberly & Tim

Week of February 9-13

WOW! What a beautiful day! We hope you were able to get outside a little to enjoy it. It seems as though winter has just completely passed us by this year. 

Here is a look at what we are doing in our core classes this week:

Language Arts: This week, we’re picking up where we left off with our Spinelli novel work from last week. Rather than push onwards to the next set of chapters, we’ll be meeting in our reading groups to discuss the content of last week’s reading, practice using RACE to work through our Comp Q, and perform some comprehensive character sketches for each book’s protagonist(s). Since we’re working with the same chapters from last week, there will not be a vocabulary quiz this week, but students should certainly expect one next Friday.

We’ve also been practicing effective revision and peer editing techniques to channel towards the final drafts of their D.A.R.E. essays, which are due by the end of the day this Friday. Today, after looking for areas of concern in their own drafts, the students focused their editing and revising skills towards another student’s draft. This allows them to know how an outside audience is receiving their writing while also having the opportunity to help each other along in their writing process.

Math: This week in math we are continuing our work with decimals. Our main focus will be on finding patterns, using these patterns to solve problems involving modeling as well as real-world applications (such as buying in bulk). We will also continue working on comparing, ordering, and finding relationships between decimals and fractions. Our toothpick project will be taking place this week. That is always a great way for students to understand the depth of our number system.

In your child’s agenda, you will find a list of topics he or she might want to review (this is not required) using Khan Academy based on their performance on the weekly quiz from Friday. Please see the blog post from February 2-6 regarding login information and the “assignments” in Khan Academy. You can find this list on the far right side of this week in their agenda, and you should be able to find the quiz in their math section of their binder.

History: By now, the students should have already conducted their relative interview and taken some solid notes. If they haven’t yet, then they should really coordinate with you all to help get that finished in the next few days.

From here on out, the students will continue to work on this project in class (whether they’re working on a poster board or a slideshow presentation), and while they may do some work on this at home, we’d encourage that they do the bulk of the project here. The students will have ample time to complete it during the school day, so taking it home shouldn’t be necessary. That means that they should be bringing any and all supplies that they need to class every day or be leaving their materials in their locker/homeroom.
Science:  Students are continuing their human body booklet as we learn about the respiratory system this week. With the weather beginning to turn for the better, we are hopeful our garden teams will make more progress in their research and planning as well.

Spring Conferences

Happy Friday!

As promised, here is the link to the document to sign up for a conference. If none of the dates or times listed work for you, please email us so that we can find a time that works for all of us. We hope to see you soon!

Have a great weekend,

Kimberly & Tim

Week of February 2-6

Happy Wednesday!

It was a BEAUTIFUL day so our fifth-graders enjoyed a little extra recess today. We were amazed at how this changed their mindset for the rest of the afternoon in a positive manner. There is a lot of research that suggests time spent outside helps all of us with everything from lowering our stress hormone, to increasing our ability to focus, to helping us communicate better and be more empathetic. Today was a good reminder that we all need to take a break to enjoy the world around us when possible!

Here are a few important items to note:

  • Swimming starts the week of March 16 and continues through April 3. Please see the letter that came home with your child from Mrs. Wimble regarding exact dates and other details.
  • There will be no classes for Lower School students on conference day Friday, March 13. Mr. Barzditis will be celebrating in his brother’s wedding out of town on that day, so we are working on creating a conference schedule in order to still be able to meet with each of you. Be on the lookout for a link to this schedule in the next few days. Please know that we continue to welcome you to contact us at any time throughout the year should you have any questions or concerns. We would be more than happy to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress, as well as our goals and objectives for this year.
  • Our D.A.R.E graduation will be held at 2 p.m. on March 31 in the Reed Theater. Our fifth-grade students have been learning from Deputy Young all year and are working hard on their essays in order to graduate from the program. We hope you will be able to join us for this event. Please know, you are welcome to sign your child out following the program and pictures (which should conclude at about 3 p.m.
  • Our field trip to Richmond and Williamsburg will be April 23-24. It is very important that all fifth-grade students join us for this overnight trip. Upon returning from our trip, each student will write a reflection paper about their experience. Students will need to be here at 7:45 a.m. the morning of Thursday, April 23, and will arrive back to school in time for carpool on Friday, April 24. We are still waiting on the pricing confirmation from one of our stops, but the cost of our trip will be no more than $65/student. As soon as we confirm our lunch pricing for Friday, we will send home exact details.
  • Don’t forget to check out the Google Drive folder which we upload all of our pictures to in order to share them with you. There are several great pictures (like these) from our with spend celebrating the 100th day as well as from the exciting Angry Cats game that took place before winter break.

 

 

Congratulations are again in order for Elizabeth and Cabell as they put on an outstanding performance in CYT’s recent production of Frozen, Jr.

 

 

 

Here’s what has been happening in our classes this week:

Language Arts: As the students continue working through their Spinelli novels, we’ve also been extensively covering the different kinds of sentences (Simple, Compound, Complex). This approach connects back to our review of prepositions from a while ago, but became incredibly relevant as they’re putting the finishing touches on their rough drafts of their D.A.R.E. essays. In addition to their Reading Logs this week, their homework has been a series of exercises reviewing the differences between these kinds of sentences, working with independent and dependent clauses, and reinforcing punctuation rules when working with compound and complex sentences. We’ll conclude this week with a short quiz on Friday in which each of their homework assignments will prove to be effective study guides.

Math: Following break, we have picked right back up with our work on our base-ten number system. We had an interesting conversation about why the “units, rods, and cubes” they have been using are called “base-ten blocks”. We discussed why these manipulatives would not be helpful in dealing with our clock system, and briefly discussed the binary numeral system. By extending students’ thinking to these other number systems, it helps them see the patterns within our own numerical system. One of the topics we have been working on this week, is the importance of always knowing what we are referring to when we refer to a “whole”. For example, it is a common misunderstanding for students to write 0.45 cents (as opposed to 45 cents or $0.45). If the unit is considered to be a dollar, then 45 hundredths of a dollar would be a correct notation. When students write 0.45 cents instead, they are really referring to less than half of a penny! By changing units (and which base-ten block represents the whole) students begin to think much more flexibly about numbers. As a former middle school math teacher and math specialist for 15 years, I cannot express to you how crucial this flexibility is as students prepare for more complex work with fractions and percentages in the upcoming years. I have to admit, this part of the year and the fifth-grade math curriculum is my favorite. I absolutely love seeing all the pieces of the solid foundation students have built all year, and in previous years, come together. This is the time of year when I can almost actually see light bulbs turning on in students’ eyes as I walk around the room and as we hold class discussions.

As a side note, some parents have asked for a way to review concepts their student might be struggling with from earlier in the year. Each student has a Khan Academy account which we have used some this year. I have added all of the concepts we have worked on this year to their assignments. These are NOT actually assignments, but a way for you to see what should be review at this point in the year. As we move along, I will continue to add to the assignments so you know the topic has been covered. Please let me know if you have any questions at all. I am still learning how to best use this site, so please feel free to send any feedback you have my way!

Here are instructions for how to log on and use the site:

  1. Go to https://www.khanacademy.org/
  2. Click Login (in the top right corner)
  3. Click “Continue with Google”. When the login for Google comes up, it is your child’s normal login that he/she uses to get on his/her Google account at school- probably first initial, then last name@fredericksburgacademy.org      (for example, kmcgehee@fred…) The password should be: falcon2027
  4. Once logged in, in the top right corner go to the drop down from the login name and choose “Learner home”
  5. On the far left column choose “Assignments”
  6. There are several (again, I added everything just in case anyone wants to practice anything from so far this year). In the list of assignments:
    • a triangle means it’s a video to help get an overview or review
    • the star means it’s a practice set
    • the notebook paper symbol is a study guide

History: We’re very glad to see that so many of the students were able to conduct their Relative Interviews over the break. If your student did not, then no worries, as they’ll have until March 18th to work on the project. The students will have time to work on this project in class, but plan on some outside planning, especially in regards to the interview, transcription, and possibly some posterboard progress if they choose to go that route.

We’ve also recently been bringing our Immigration unit to an end, reviewing the Ellis Island process and thinking critically about Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus,” which has been inscribed on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty’s base since 1903. Working individually and in groups, the students have carefully read through the poem, making theories and connections between its poetic qualities and the immigrant experience we’ve been learning about in class, and then articulating how the poem speaks to the lives and struggles of those who made the journey.

Science: Unfortunately we were not able to complete the online activity I had planned before break about the circulatory system, so we will finish this system up on Thursday. We will then dive in to the respiratory system.

Thank you for your continued support! We look forward to talking with you during conferences in a few weeks.

Kimberly & Tim

 

Week of February 17-21

Happy Wednesday! The impact of the rain all last week, coupled with this being the week before Winter Break, is taking a toll on all of us. Be sure to have your student get as much rest as possible…they will not want to miss our big event planned for Friday afternoon!

There are a few special items to note this week:

  • This Friday our fifth-graders will be participating in a game of “Angry Cats” with the Middle School Tacocat teams. If you have not heard yet, Tacocat is a very special part of being a Middle School student here at FA. Please note the colors of your child’s team for Friday below. They should wear as much of their color as possible, comfortable clothes, and sneakers.
    • Red- Amelia, Ethan, Jack
    • Yellow- Kat, Vika, Will
    • Black- Chance, Elizabeth, David
    • White- Tina, Xavier, Hunter
    • Green- Claire, Ayaan, Scarlet
    • Blue- Arav, Olivia, Connor
    • Purple- Cabell, Finn, Isla
    • Orange- Savannah, Silas, Hayley
  • Report cards and comments will be available for you to view via Veracross Friday afternoon. Please keep an eye out for an email from Mrs. Estes for details.
  • Agendas: We are working on helping your child learn to use their agenda for more than just homework. This is an important skill because they will need to keep track of all of their assignments from several individual teachers next year. We encourage you to help them use their agendas for other outside events as well. So far, they should have added the due dates for their D.A.R.E. essays, as well as back-filled the days leading up to the due dates with reminders. Please know this is an essay that will be written during class and should not be done at home. Thank you!

Here’s what is going on in our classes this week:

Language Arts: This week, we’ve continued to practice our skills with utilizing evidence from source texts, moved onto the next chapters in our Spinelli novels, and prepared for our impending vocab quiz this Friday. For this quiz, the students should be studying the words they’ve defined between this week and last, and it will follow the same “complete-the-sentence” format as the previous quiz. Finally, depending on how the students progress by the end of the week, we plan on utilizing some of the new material from our Spinelli novels to reimagine their content as a “found poem” and small-group discussions about each of their processes.

Math: The understanding of a decimal as something beyond “cents in a dollar amount” is difficult. In fifth grade, students move beyond the hundredths position in our number system to the thousandths. It is mind-boggling that we can infinitely keep zooming in on our numbers to make them more and more precise. We are working on making sense of this throughout the week and will be returning to this when we come back from Winter Break. 

History: As the students have likely mentioned to you already, we soft-introduced our next project within History. As a way to cap off our Immigration unit, the students will be conducting an interview with a family relative to learn more about their history, their culture, and where they came from. This project won’t be due until after Winter Break and they’ll have plenty of time to work on it in class, but because the students will likely need help in contacting their (potentially distant) relatives (whether by phone, email, snail mail, Skype, in-person, etc.), we wanted to put it on our all of our radars now.  

Science: Students practiced counting their heart rates and also felt a little snippet of what it would be like to work like our cardiac muscles do every day. We will be finishing up our sketch notes and doing an online activity which will help students realize how much our circulatory system affects our entire bodies. Stay tuned…a new body system will be discussed after the break!

As always, please know that we welcome you to contact us should you have any questions or concerns. We would be more than happy to meet with you to discuss our goals and objectives for this year.

Have a great week and a wonderful break!

Kimberly & Tim

 

Week of February 3-7

Welcome to the first week of February! How is next Friday already Valentine’s Day? A big thank you to all who are sending in snacks or treats for our upcoming party. All parents are welcome to join us starting at 2 p.m. for the Valentine festivities. We will be sending home our most recent class list with the students tomorrow in case they would like to make or bring Valentines for their classmates. We ask that if your child is planning to bring in cards or treats, they bring enough for everyone. We currently have 26 fifth grade students.

BIG NEWS! Please be sure to put April 23 and 24 on your calendar. These are the dates of our fifth grade overnight field trip. We will head to Richmond and Williamsburg on Thursday, then back to Richmond on Friday. More information will be coming soon, but we wanted to be sure to get the date posted. We are VERY excited to be going on this trip in April rather than in March like previous years. Hopefully, the weather will be much more comfortable, and, as an added bonus, Maymont will likely be even more beautiful at this time of year! 

Here is what’s going on in our core classes this week:

Language Arts: Rather than progress onto the next section of our Spinelli novels, we used this week as an opportunity to hone our skills and comfort with using RACE when answering questions about our novels. After using a rubric to self-evaluate how well each of the students were using the RACE approach, nearly every student found that they could have been far more successful in their attempts, especially when it came to using evidence from the text and explaining how the evidence helps answer the question. So, rather than trudge ahead, we used this week as a mulligan to help further our understanding. With the comprehension questions due by the end of the day tomorrow, each student will reevaluate their progress with last week’s rubric to guarantee they’re on the right path.

Additionally, due to a mistake that occurred on the vocab quizzes last week, the students retook the corrected quiz, albeit through a different format. With the previous version, they matched the vocabulary with the definition provided. This time around (and likely for the future), the students will utilize a word bank to complete a series of sentences that make use of each of the words. Not only does this approach require the student to know the definitions, but it also familiarizes them with the way in which these words are used (as well as their usual contexts). In a quick poll, nearly all of the students were favorable about this amended approach.

Math:  In math this week, we continued to practice adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers with regrouping. Many students are struggling to use fractions and decimals within word problems. This is not a surprise, as students have a difficult time with word problems in general through all grade levels. We will continue to work on this skill in every unit, as we have all year. We are currently preparing for a test on Tuesday. In your child’s binder, you should find a  plastic sheet with all of their quiz scores for each of the sections that will be on Tuesday’s test. If your child does not yet have a percentage score for a specific section (with the exception of comparing and ordering fractions), then that means the have not developed their understanding of this concept enough for me to take the a quiz grade yet. 

A small handful of students have mastered all of the basic concepts of fractions as well as the addition and subtraction of fractions and mixed numbers, including those in word problems. During workshop times, these students have been working together to start making the connection between fractions, decimals, and percents. 

History:  This week, we’ve been learning about the waves of immigration seen in the United States between the 1880s and the 1920s. To aid in our discoveries and discussions, the students have been engaging with a variety of sources and activities, such as making inferences based on photos of various immigrant families and a virtual tour/scavenger hunt of Ellis Island.
As the students have worked together through these lessons, they’ve learned about the harsh travelling conditions, the reasons why a family would make the journey to America during this time, and some of the challenges these migrants might face in their new lives. Much of what is learned here will serve as a foundation for our subsequent units, particularly Westward Expansion and the Industrial Revolution.

Science: In science this week, we have been building on what students already know about our circulatory systems. Each student is creating their own book of “sketch notes”. These notes include how blood, blood vessels, and the heart work with the rest of the circulatory system. We will create a model of the components of blood, and use tennis balls to help students get an idea of how much force it takes to squeeze blood out of the heart. As we continue these investigations into next week, we will wrap up by seeing how the circulatory system works with the rest of the body systems.

As always, please know that we welcome you to contact us should you have any questions or concerns. We would be more than happy to meet with you to discuss our goals and objectives for this year.

Have a great week!

Kimberly & Tim

 

Week of January 27-31

It is incredibly hard to believe this week brings January to a close! On Friday, we will spend some time celebrating the 100th day of school with the Junior Kindergarten class. We hope you and your family will be able to come see the Middle School play, Annie, Jr., this weekend. Although we are excited to see the play this year, we have to admit we are even more excited to see next year’s play to include this current fifth grade class. There certainly is a lot of artistic, musical and theatrical talent within the class of 2027!

Mrs. Wimble has asked that we please remind all of our students that they need to wear appropriate athletic shoes and clothes on P.E. days (Monday & Wednesday for Mr. Barzditis homeroom, Wednesday & Friday for Mrs. McGehee’s homeroom). It is also important for all students with long hair to put their hair up. Thank you in advance for helping our students come to school prepared on all P.E. days.

Here is what’s going on in our core classes this week:

Language Arts: As we’ve been gearing up towards our small-group discussions with our Spinelli Reading Circles, the class has been reviewing effective skills for answering discussion questions fully and utilizing evidence from the text. By use of a handy acronym (RACE – Restate the question in your answer; Answer the question; Cite evidence from the text; Explain), the students practiced this approach in small groups with the myth of “Theseus and the Minotaur,” which resulted in a demonstrably thorough and excitable large-group discussion.

In addition to the Spinelli small-group discussions, the students have been preparing for their first vocabulary quizzes, which are coming up on Friday. Many of these words are incredibly useful and applicable, not only because they occur in the novels they’re reading, but because of how the students will be able to use them in their verbal and written expression. These quizzes will occur every two weeks, meaning the students will be responsible for roughly 10-15 new words by the time each quiz rolls around.

Math: This week in math students have been practicing addition and subtraction of fractions, especially involving regrouping, simplifying, and renaming. They were challenged to explain in either words or models, the math behind a strategy with regrouping of mixed numbers with subtraction that was shared with me by one of their peers. Many students worked hard to prove the mathematical reasoning behind the “trick” which worked every time. This discussion even brought about negative rational numbers, and the relationship between addition and subtraction of negative numbers. Students are also focusing more on word problems involving fractions this week. As we head into next week, our fifth graders will need to rely on their previous understanding of unit fractions and whole number multiplication to begin developing their understanding of multiplication of fractions.

History: This week in History, we’ve been continuing along with our 50 States Presentations. As the songs and presentations have gone by, the students have also been jotting notes based on the interesting facts they’ve learned, such as a state’s official animal, bodies of water, and famous individuals from that state.

Next week, we’ll shift away from US Geography and dive headfirst into the Industrial Revolution. Before we can get there, though, we’re going to finish up this unit with a final US States quiz, which we mentioned in last week’s blog. This final quiz will be Friday, and though your students won’t be responsible for knowing the capitals, they will have to identify all of the fifty states on a map. We know many of them have been studying hard for this final assessment, so we’re excited to see them put their knowledge to the test.

Science: In science, we will still be working on our garden project, but we have also begun our unit on health and the human body. Students have already begun to learn about the systems within the human body, but soon they will know the main organs of each system, as well as how they interact to keep our bodies functioning at it’s best.

We hope that this blog is helpful in keeping you up to date on what is going on in each of our academic classes. Please know that we welcome you to contact us should you have any questions or concerns. We would be more than happy to meet with you to discuss our goals and objectives for this year.

Have a great week,

Kimberly & Tim

Upcoming Performance

Good evening parents!

Our fourth and fifth grade classes will have their annual joint performance April 9th at 9 am and again at 7 pm. This is the Thursday before spring break. If you anticipate your child not being here that day, please let us know. We truly hope this is not the case, though. Both classes have already been working very hard to prepare during music class, so it is important that all students are here for the performance.

As a tradition, it has been up the fifth grade class to coordinate any costumes for the show if they choose. This year a large percentage of the fifth graders are choosing to participate in this student-led, volunteer, “costume committee.” This committee will take care of whatever they decide to create during some of their recess time between now and April. Please know, we have explained to the group that this should not involve group texting threads. While some students have and responsibly use their own devices at home, other students were not using the text string in a productive manner, and furthermore, many students do not have their own devices. Thank you for supporting us on this decision. Our fifth grade class has a lot of talent and excitement for theater, music, and costuming so we can’t wait to see the show in April!

Have a great night,

Kimberly & Tim