Where you can find (almost) everything you need to know about the EI/BC at Whitmore-Bolles!
Today we are going to share our Thanksgiving Soup, which was made with a little something from each of us! We also are going to create recycled Thanksgiving turkeys! I hope that each of you have a very safe and wholesome Thanksgiving with your families! See you on Monday!
Whitmore-Bolles will be “mixin’ it up” at lunch this Thursday! Students will have the chance to sit with new friends and get to know the people in their school a little better. I can’t wait!
Hello, all.
This week’s spelling words will be posted tomorrow.
Today we began publishing our spooky stories. We used the portable laptops to type up our revised and edited versions. Currently we’re working on illustrations. I expect that they’ll be finished this week and you’ll be able to share them soon.
Arbore
Michigan Educational Assessment Program (M.E.A.P.)
As usual, it’s been very busy here! Today the 3rd-5th graders are taking the Language Arts, Session 2 portion of the MEAP. During this time, we worked on assessing the reading fluency of our 1st-2nd graders. Their reading levels are steadily increasing! Good job, guys!
Fish Habitat In Classroom
Yesterday our class learned about habitats and animal needs. We discussed the needs of humans versus the needs of fish. Then as a class we established a fish habitat in our classroom! A big THANK YOU to Petco and Tetra Fish for donating all of the supplies our classroom needed to make this amazing experience for the students! We are currently waiting for the habitat to stabilize and then we will add some fishy friends.
Fall Festival
Don’t forget that each year the PTA sponsors a Fall Festival at Whitmore-Bolles. This year the Fall Festival will take place from 6:30-8:00pm on Friday, October 24th! Dress up in your Halloween costumes and come join in the fun. If you’d like to volunteer or have any questions, please contact Pattie Skelly.
Recess Attire
A kind reminder from Mrs. Kilbertus: “Students need gloves, hats, and warm coats for recess. It’s hard for the kids to play when they’re shivering so much and it’s too cold to hold onto the swings or ladders! Then as soon as they get into the classroom they start sneezing! Let’s keep the kids healthy and allow them to have an enjoyable recess by dressing them appropriately for the weather.” Thank you, Mrs. Kilbertus!
School Improvement Plan
Our School Leadership Team presented our School Improvement Plan to the Dearborn’s Superintendent, Mr. Brian Whiston and committee comprised of seven other administrators both at the building and district levels. We presented the two goals that Whitmore-Bolles has developed. Professionally we are collaborating with Nowlin Elementary to focus on writing within our buildings. The administrative committee seemed quite pleased with our plan to improve student success in writing. We are hoping to have parents support these goals at home as well as intensive instruction and support here at W-B. The goals are listed for you below:
Goal One: Students will improve their use of language and conventions in writing in core content areas as measured by improvement on the 6+1 Writing Rubric (fall to spring) and a 5% increase in proficiency in grade level scores on the Writing section of the MEAP.
Desired Learning Results:
- Students will demonstrate increased accuracy in use of correct style and syntax.
- Students will demonstrate increased accuracy in correct punctuation and conventions.
Goal Two: All students will improve their use of author’s craft in writing in core content areas as measured by improvement on the 6+1 Writing Rubric (fall to spring) and a 5% increase in proficiency in grade level scores on the Writing section of the MEAP.
Desired Learning Results:
- Students will demonstrate increasing proficiency in their writing using voice and style.
- Students will use figurative language in their writing.
Parent Support:
Parent Professional Learning:
I am really going to make an effort to post a blog entry each day. For today, I will try to get you caught up with what we’ve been up to. I’m hoping that my students and parents will be able to access this from home to gain any information they may need or want.
Last week our class began pre-writing for our haunted Halloween stories. We used the poem Five Little Pumpkins to help us learn about writing dialogue, creating an interesting setting, using sound words (Ooooo went the wind), and emphasizing important words by capitalizing them (and OUT went the lights)! Today we began to put all of the different components of our pre-writing together to draft our stories. We will continue working on this for the remainder of the week and will probably begin revising and editing Monday.
To enhance our reading comprehension skills, our class has been responding to reading assignments in a Reading Response Log. Lower elementary students are identifying the title, author, illustrator, and answering questions about the leveled text. Upper elementary students are identifying the title, author, illustrator, and then responding to one or two prompts in paragraph format about their chapter books. As we have discussed before, students should be reading at home EVERY night for at least 15 minutes.
Each student is working on their grade level content expectations in mathematics, science, and social studies. Mathematics home/study links typically go home with the student two or three times a week. At the beginning of each unit, parents will receive a letter explaining the unit content. Please visit: http://www.michigan.gov/mde/ for more information about grade level content expectations. The link for Parents & Family is on the left side of the screen.
Yesterday our fourth and fifth grader began the MEAP (Mathematics). Tomorrow they will continue with the first part of the MEAP (English Language Arts). Please make sure that your student is getting enough sleep each night and a good breakfast each morning!
Well, I think that’s enough for now. Please feel free to leave comments or questions below.
♥Arbore