ROOM 28

OCT/NOV 2011

Newsletter
Your source for the happenings of Room 28 and its Stars! golabuenaga.wordpress.com

TAKING A STAND: PROJECT UPDATES

Nearly nished, but the most rewarding work has yet to come!
In our project, Taking a Stand, students were challenged to explore an issue of great importance to them. Such topics included: pollution, global warming, ocean trash, endangered species, equal rights in China, child labor, ethical treatment of animals, and the tsunami in Japan. Room 28 Stars certainly care deeply about what is going on in the world. From there, they wrote reports on their issues and created a proposal. In the proposal, students were to create a campaign plan for how they would get their message to the world, identify the audience they were speaking to, and outline their goals for change. Some students chose to make coloring books, if small children were their audience, or write letters to key stakeholders, if their audience was law makers or business people. Stay updated @ golabuenaga.wordpress.com Our next steps are to nalize our presentations and follow through with our campaign plans. All presentations are being created on Prezi. To learn more, visit www.prezi.com for more details about this great platform! Presentations begin the week of November 2nd. The month of November will be spent creating our campaign ideas and sharing them with their intended audiences. Much of the hard work is done but the most rewarding work, sharing our message with the world as a means to make it a better place, has yet to come.

Driving Question: How can young people take a stand using social action?

How to Google There are tricks to successful search. Here are some of things we uncovered!

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BUDDIES

Upcoming Field Trips: All Trips Need Chaperones

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 House of Blues 8430 Sunset Blvd West Hollywood, CA 90069 Monday, December 5th, 2011 California Science Center 700 Exposition Park Drive Los Angeles, CA 90037 Thursday, January 19th, 2012 MOCA @ the Geffen Contemporary 152 North Central Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012 Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 Grifth Observatory 2800 East Observatory Road Los Angeles, CA 90027 Fall Date to Be Announced John C.Fremont Library 6121 Melrose Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90038 Spring Date to Be Announced MOCA Grand Avenue 250 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012

If you are interested in attending any of these trips, please contact me at: golabuenaga2@gmail.com or 818.308.4295 or School: 323.938.6275 Look forward to sharing these amazing experiences with your child!

Kinder Buddy Time

Your child has been hard at work supporting the learning and development of the kindergartners of Room 2. Here are some of the areas we have been working on: Comic Life Storyboarding for Kinder Project Story Jumper IXL Math Read Aloud with Accelerated Reader Quizzes

MOCA Grand Avenue 2010 Permanent Collection

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ENGRADE
www.engrade.com
Your child has a unique user name and password. Because we have taken quizzes on Engrade, all children should already know this critical information.

Engrade: What it is & how to use it

This year, we are embarking on a new classroom tool that will allow students to keep track of their grades. What is Engrade? It is an secure, online grade book that will house all grades for all subjects. Each child was given a user id to set up their accounts. All accounts have been created using their LAUSD email and passwords have been recorded in a secure location. This shows all graded/ recorded assignments by subject area. It will give you a detailed, up-to-date snapshot of how your child is doing in a given subject area. Grades are calculated using the 4-3-2-1 scale, used by LAUSD. The ranges include + and to offer you a better sense of where your child falls on the range for a given grade. To be clear, there are two types of assessments: formative and summative. (1.) Formative assessments are meant to be practice, but they are recorded to give the parents/families, student and me the information we need to address academic challenges your child may face head on. For example, you notice that your child is having a tough time with place value. Now you have the information you need to support your son or daughter in mastering that skill from home. Tools like IXL math could be used, or whatever other supports and interventions you are able and willing to provide. (2.) Summative assessments are the end of unit type tests that are meant to measure overall learning. These, most certainly, count in the grade book. Summative assessments wont always be tests. They may be nal products from our project-based learning, presentations, or some other form of performance-based assessment. You may be asking yourself, are the grades I see on Engrade the exact grades that will be on the report card? Not necessarily. Grades are meant to show mastery of standards. Therefore, practice (formative assessments) should not count against them. For example, in math we take quizzes on a topic using an 80/80 rule. 80% of students must score 80% or better for us to move on to another topic. Lets stay we take the quiz two times and Student A scores a 50% on quiz #1 and a 90% quiz #2. Should the students overall grade suffer when they demonstrated that they learned the concept on quiz #2, even if it took 2 tries? How many things have we as adults done perfectly the rst time? Grades will be manually adjusted in cases like this to account for the demonstration of learning. You will be made aware of any changes that are made before report cards are issued. For more information, visit http://golabuenaga.wordpress.com/ category/grades/ or contact me with your questions.

Check Engrade Weekly!

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Accelerated Reader and Nightly Reading Homework

At Melrose, we have a program called Accelerated Reader. This program allows students to track their reading levels and progress as they take quizzes at the end of each book read. In order to take advantage of this system that we have, all children need to have a book to read, that is in the Accelerated Reader system, at all times. To help you do that, your child will be bringing home a public library card sign-up form. If you do not already have a library card, they are free to you. Fill out the form and send it back to school. With the help of Mrs. Lily Hernandez, one of our room parents, we will obtain a library card for you. Once we have received those cards, I will schedule a eld trip for our class to the John C. Fremont Library on Melrose Ave to check out books. For students who already have library cards, they will be expected to bring them to school to check out a book.

Another option would be for you to purchase a book through the book club order forms as they go home. One more note about books. Picking the right book for your reader might seem like a challenge. Here is a good rule of thumb, or hand in this case. It is the 5-Finger Rule. 1. Have your child select a book that they actually want to read. Really, we want them to like reading. 2. 3. 4. Open the book to any page. Have your child read the page aloud. If there are 5 or more words that your

CLASSROOM SUPPLIES NEEDED

Lined paper
College-Ruled or WideRuled

Copy Paper
White paper

child does not know (in terms of the denition), that book is too hard. If there are no words that the child does not know, it is too easy. Stay in that range and you will have a challenged, engaged reader Happy Reading! *NOTE: It will be your responsibility to return the books by the due date.*

Pencils

Highlighters

Each child should have a book for nightly reading

If you are able to provide any of these materials, please contact me or send them to school with your child. Your contributions do not go unnoticed. Thank you for your continued support of our classroom!

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