- Drivers needed for our trip to Marshall Gold Discovery state park in Coloma on Friday, May 4, from 8:00am-5:00pm. Many thanks to Amelia, Anne, Aya, Max, and Milo's families for volunteering to drive. Please let us know if your family can drive to make this trip possible.
- Step Up Day: Wednesday, May 2. Stay tuned for more information soon.
- Strawberry Creek Spring Performance: Wednesday, May 23rd, 6:30-8:00 pm in the Depot. Rehearsal will be 3:30-6:30pm that day; please make plans for students to stay through after school.
- Context Clue test prep, due tomorrow.
- Scratch Animation or Game, including scripts for control, motion, and looks, due next Wednesday, April 25. See details below.
Today we began a conversation we will revisit over the next few weeks as the week of standardized testing approaches. In class we will work on practice tests with multiple choice problems, and discuss strategies that can help with tests like this. The ERB testing is May 14-16. More details will come later about this week. About once a week homework will include practice tests and similar skills to help familiarize the students with the types of problems and situations they may encounter on these tests. As there is no real way to "study" for the exam, our approach is aimed at helping the students navigate through the process.
Test Taking Strategies (our list so far)
1. Make an educated guess if you don't know the answer (A, B, C, D)
2. Eliminate an answer you know isn't right
3. Use scratch paper
4. Break the problem into pieces to make an educated guess
5. Read the question and read all the answers first
6. Re-read the question
6. Skip a problem; be careful to keep track
7. Pace yourself
8. Check over your answers if you have time
Science
The past two days in science students have become digital creators, rather than just digital consumers. The Scratch programming environment allows kids to create animations and games, with their own drawings, sounds, and ideas, as well as learn programming. It was invented at MIT, and students can download it for free. Kids were very eager to learn, and were experimenting and creating with gusto! We will work more on this in science on Tuesday, and students will share their projects with classmates on Wednesday. Some may wish to work on their projects at home--if so, it can be downloaded for free at:
http://scratch.mit.edu/
Ask you child what they created in Scratch!
