TESTS AND QUIZZES
This section will update you on upcoming long term assignments including long term homework assignments, book reports, projects, and writing assignments. Each student needs to keep an up-to-date student planner, but you and your child may refer to these academic areas for clarification on dates and the core of the assignments.
Please make sure your child is doing his/her own work so I may assess the progress of the children accurately.
Here is an explanation of how I handle missing assignments. If a student does not do a graded assignment, one reminder will be given to him/her. It is expected that the assignment will be made up in GOTCHA, if it was given, or on the student's own time. Once grades have been entered into PowerSchool, if the grade is missing, you will most likely see an NHI. This code means the assignment was not handed in. This is computed in the total points as a zero which can significantly affect a grade. If the student hands in the assignment, the grade will be eventually entered. If a student is absent, sufficient time will be given for assignments to be made up. The missing assignments during an absence may be marked as Absent in PowerSchool. Those assignments need to be made up so they do not become NHI. Please make sure your child sees me at recess on the day that he/she returns from being absent so I can work with him/her to get on track for assignments and assessments.
The Language Arts subjects include:
Vocabulary Review Units 4 - 6 will be covered this week. Several pages from the review unit are used as a quiz. On Friday, November 20, a sentence dictation test covering all words from Units 1 - 6 will be given.
Literature Poetry will be completed this week. A test on poetry terms and forms will be given on Wednesday. This will not be open book or open notes. Then the short story "Thank You, M'am" will be read and analyzed.
Grammar We will continue Unit 3 on verbs, with coverage of simple tenses, forms of the verbs be, have, and do, and principal parts of verbs. A quiz on the work we have done so far related to verbs will take place on Tuesday. On Wednesday the students will work on sentence writing with ideas related to nouns and punctuation.
At least two times a week homework will be assigned in the English textbook. This means the students can take advantage of having the book at home so concepts can be reviewed.
Writing The good copy of the poem to be submitted to the poetry contest is due Wednesday, November 18, 2009. After I check these poems, some may be returned for completion of another draft so the best version of each poem will be entered in the contest. Each student has specific direstions for the final copy.
Every few days or so the students are required to write in a notebook as a LA journal. They will be asked to respond to various questions, artwork, or words, state their opinions about different topics, make lists of likes and dislikes, etc. Journal writing is a good way for them to express their ideas without being held accountable for using correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling. The journal is collected periodically and graded based solely on completing entries thoroughly, organizing, and being up-to-date. Once the students have expressed themselves in writing they may use the rest of the time given for journaling to draw or to write about a topic of their own.
Please make sure that you have a computer at home that your child can use to type writing assignments. The optimal use of this is to type a draft and save it as well as print it. Once we have proofread and edited it in school, each student will be required to type a good copy at home. This means you will need to have a printer that works effectively. If you do not have access to a computer with a printer, your child can e-mail his/ her writing assignment to me as an attachment or bring it to school on a pen drive so it can be printed out in the classroom.
