Mrs. Blake’s & Mrs. Peterson’s 6 th Grade Team Connections Westside Elementary Smithfield, VA September September 8, 2014 News from Your Teachers Thank you so much for making the beginning of the year such a success! By now we expect that all students have their materials and are about the business of learning. We are already hard at work! In order to help you stay connected to your child’s education, we will be sending home a team newsletter in conjunction with the following “events”: Mon., Sept. 8 – Introduction to the Year Wed., Oct. 1 – 1 st Quarter Interim Reports Thurs., Nov. 13 – 1 st Quarter Report Cards Tues., Dec. 9 – 2 nd Quarter Interim Reports Thurs., Jan 8 – Start of the New Year Thurs., Feb. 5 – 2 nd Quarter Report Cards Mon., Mar. 2 – 3 rd Quarter Interim Reports Thurs., April 23 – 3 rd Quarter Report Cards Tues., May 12 – 4 th Quarter Interim Reports. We will let you know what we have been studying and what can be expected next. Often, we will be able to give you an idea about upcoming school events as well. Please keep in mind that scheduled “learning activities” are subject to change due to our constant monitoring of your child’s learning. Sometimes, it is necessary to delay a test a day or two when we discover that students need additional reinforcement of skills in class Upcoming Events September 10, 2014 – Science Fair Academy September 17, 2014 – 1:00 Dismissal for Elem. School October 1, 2014 – 1 st Interim Report “Bonus Points” awarded for Parent Signature by Oct. 2 October 6, 2014 – PTA Back to School Night, 7:00 pm “Bonus Points” awarded for parent participation (sign in) October 11, 2014 – Smithfield Hog Jog Power School Parent Portal Many of you are familiar with on-line access to your student’s grades. You can find the link on WSES’s website. PowerSchool allows you to view student attendance and grades as well as individual assignment results. We update grade books at least once a week and encourage you to use this tool to help your child set goals and monitor his/her academic progress. We want to encourage you to use this valuable tool so your child will receive “bonus points” towards our Fun Friday activity if you sign up for the weekly report. There are other options besides the weekly with your child’s grades. All you have to do is print out one page of the you receive and send it to school with your child as “proof”! If printing is not an option for you, stop by and we’ll help you. If you have not received your individual login name and password (or you have misplaced yours), you should contact the office. If you do not have Internet access at home, teachers may be able to allow your child to login from school, with your permission, or you can always check at the local library! To contact one of your child’s teachers, please call the school (757) or Mrs. Blake (ext ) – Mrs. Peterson (ext ) – Fundraiser Kick-Off Westside Elementary School’s annual PTA Fundraising event will begin September 9 th and will run for 3 weeks. Students will participate in an assembly to hear about the exciting prize levels being offered this year, and information packets will be sent home. Snack? Our lunch time this year is 1:00 – 1:30. Due to this late time, students are welcome to bring a small, nutritious snack to enjoy after resource (11:30) while heading off to 2 nd period. Please remember candy and other overly sugary treats do not constitute a nutritious snack. This privilege remains in place as long as students are respectful of our snack time rules, especially regarding trash and crumbs. Key Word Like the Notebook Check Card requests, you should be on the lookout for a “key word” in this newsletter! Have your child record it on the signature card. It’s worth bonus points! Good luck! Scholastic Book Order We will be participating in Scholastic Book orders this year. Your book purchases help our classrooms receive free books and supplies for student use! Please see the letter addressing the book order and send/submit your order by the deadline so your child can read, read, read!

From Mrs. Blake… Language Arts We’re off to a great start. We have set up our binders and taken our assessments. We have started our Reading Logs and are focusing on summarizing, predicting, and visualizing. Please help you child find a quiet place to read for 20 minutes every day. Reading can be a newspaper, magazine, or a book of their choice. (Even reading to younger siblings is great once in awhile.) This week, students begin using their Vocabulary folders, which will be checked and graded weekly. Monday through Thursday students are to define, draw pictures, identify related words, and create sentences for their Vocabulary words. These words come from all four subjects. Your child will have time to complete these activities as morning work and during class. If students complete all of these activities and review their words, they will be ready for Friday’s quiz. The Vocabulary quiz is a collection of 10 sentences with a word bank. Because there is a word bank, spelling counts! This 9 weeks, we will be focusing on non- fiction. We will be crossing into both Science and History as we work with primary and secondary sources, research, predictions, cause and effect, and sequencing. Get ready to read and write a lot. History This quarter, we will be studying archaeology, starting geography, and exploring with the explorers. At the end of the quarter we will be creating maps that show all we’ve learned so far. Along with hands on activities in class, students will be responsible for underlining and illustrating their notes and completing review questions for each SOL. Please be sure to look at your child’s binder on a regular basis to make sure notes are complete. Reviewing his/her notes EVERY night really helps with retention of the information. If you have any questions, please contact me via e- mail or phone. Thank you for being an integral part of your child's continued education. This month’s key word is vocabulary! From Mrs. Peterson… Math The school year has begun on a positive note. The students seem eager to learn and have settled into their routines very nicely. Math 6 students will have their first graded assignments on integers this week. They will continue with their study of numbers as they learn about exponents and square numbers. Students are excited to be participating in our Math Facts Challenge which has them working on their own goal to improve their familiarity with multiplication facts this quarter. Each class is responsible for improving their own average. When they meet that goal, they will be rewarded. I have enjoyed meeting and getting to know my students. It has been a productive first week! Thank you for a great start to the school year. Keep up the excellent work, students!! Science Science kicked off with some lab safety activities, setting up our binders, and a graphing activity with M&Ms. You will soon hear about magician’s flash paper as an object lesson to demonstrate the differences between observations and inferences. I consider it to be my job to make it explode, make it messy, and make it to the dinner table! Dinner table? That’s right! If you are hearing about our latest Science adventure at your dinner table in the evening (or some time when your 6th grader is with you and not with me), then we all win! Think about it: they’re excited about something going on AT SCHOOL, in a classroom! We’re about to begin our first lab, allowing students to examine the scientific method by participating in it. The Sticky Tape lab is just one of MANY hands-on experiments and demonstrations we’ll complete this year. We will continue to focus on Scientific Investigations (SOL 6.1) for approximately two weeks. On Wednesday, we will participate in our first Science Fair Academy session. More details will follow on the exciting things in store for Isle of Wight County’s STEM-Fest and Westside’s 4 th Annual 6 th Grade Science Fair. If you haven’t done so yet, you may want to check out my website: You might just see a picture of your child having FUN learning! As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.