Sikeston 5th & 6th Grade Center

Welcome Back

2010-08-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

This is my 21st year to be involved with public education and in my 21 years, this is the best start to a school year that I have had. A lot of hard work was put in by the teachers over the summer to review our curriculum and our alignment to the state objectives. We have made changes to instruction and our practices regarding assessment.

Our instruction is better aligned to our assessments. Or in everyday terms, what we see as important for the kids to learn is what we are teaching and what we are testing.

We also will start a new practice this year. Students who do not do well on their unit tests will have an opportunity for reteaching and an opportunity to test again. Any child who scores below a 70% will be required to retest. Any child who feels that can do better has the option to retest.

Our goal in doing this is to make the learning our primary concern in our school. If students are not learning than we need to try again so that they have another opportunity to master the concepts.

School goes pretty fast and when children fall short of learning expectations, it often begins a spiraling ride of failure when the students cannot keep up. We want to address this and to provide our students more opportunities to succeed.

The reteaching/retesting procedure will be used in 5th Grade Science and Math. We will use the same procedure in 6th Grade Communication Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. (We are continuing to work on expanding this procedure to other subject areas.)

I also want to say that our students are great. I have enjoyed visiting the classrooms and seeing all the activities that are taking place and all the comments that our students are saying.

As the year progress, we look for exciting progress from our students. Stay tuned to our blog for more information.

End of School

2010-05-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

The end of a school year is both happy and sad. It is happy because we see the progress the students have made and another year of learning has been accomplished by each student. We are sad because we will miss working with the students and parents whom we have build relationships during the school year.

On May 20, our perspective will once again change. We will shift from the daily lessons and school work that have consumed us for the last several months to planning for the next school year. For parents, children who have been at school each day will suddenly be home and summer activities will be the norm. However as time slips by, it won't be long until August 18 is once again upon us.

I want to thank the parents and students for a great school year and wish all of you a great summer. As a parent, I want to remind all parents to enjoy the times that you have with your children. Too quickly they grow up and have a life of their own and you can never go back to repeat the times that you have together at this age. As a parent of an almost 20 year old, I sometimes forget that it really wasn't just yesterday that he was riding the rocking horse with the band-aid on the nose through the house. Time really does go by quickly.

Have a great and safe summer!

MAP Testing Schedule

2010-03-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

Below is the schedule for MAP testing. Please remember that the times listed are estimates of the times we will be testing. Actually testing times may vary depending on the speed the students complete the test sections. During the testing times listed, not all students may be testing. However, testing will be going on in some classrooms during the periods of time listed.

Please help us by having your children before testing begins and not checking students out during scheduled testing times. Encouragment and comments to reduce student stress are also helpful to students before and during the test. Perhaps the best assistance parents can give is to make sure your child has a good night's rest and a good breakfast each day.

Thanks for all you do.

5th Grade MAP Dates

Communication Arts

3/30/10 - 8:15-9:45

3/31/10 - 8:15-10:00

Math

4/7/10 - 8:15-10:20

4/8/10 - 8:15-10:00

4/9/10 - 8:15-10:00

Science

4/12/10 - 8:15-11:20

4/13/10 - 8:15-9:50

4/14/10 - 8:15-11:00

6th Grade MAP Dates

Math

4/07/10 - 8:15-11:25

4/08/10 - 8:15-11:00

4/09/10 - 8:15-11:00

Communication Arts

4/12/10 - 8:15-9:45

4/13/10 - 8:15-10:00

MAP Test Time is Coming

2010-03-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

   Finally spring is upon us. Birds are beginning to sing, flowers will soon begin blooming, the temperatures are going up and we are able to get outside and do more things, and...... MAP time will be here soon.

   We are putting the finishing touches on our MAP schedule. It appears that we will be starting our testing on March 30 in 5th grade and on April 7 in 6th grade. 5th grade will take tests in Communication Arts, Math, and Science. 6th grade will take tests in Communication Arts and Math.

   It's hard to predict how our students will do overall, but I do feel better about this year's testing than ever before. I see the teachers using technology frequently, the students are more actively involved this year in their own learning, and I believe having teachers specializing in math and science in 5th grade has been beneficial to student learning. All of these things I see contributing to an improvement in student learning.

   As a parent, I am also excited about my child taking his MAP test. I look forward to seeing how he performs on the test in comparison to students across the state and in comparison to what I believe his abilities to be.

We will finalize our schedule early next week and we will send it to you shortly after that. You can help us prior to MAP testing by encouraging your child to do well, but doing so without placing too much stress on your child. The last thing we want are kids getting anxious or physically sick during the test.

   Please remember to make sure your child has had plenty of sleep and has a good breakfast on days of the test. Also it is good to have the students here during testing, but if your child is running a fever please don't send them to school during MAP testing. Typically, we have at least one student vomit in their test booklet each year. We are glad that parents take testing time seriously, but we don't want students to have to try to test when they are not well.

   Also, we must start our tests on time. Once we start, we may not allow an interruption to the classrooms taking the MAP test. If your child arrives to school after testing has begun, we will not be able to allow your child to report to his classroom until after testing is complete and your child will have to take the test as a make-up test. It is also very distracting to have a child to leave the classroom during testing, so please help us by not checking your child out during testing times.

   We all want your children to do their very best on their MAP tests this school year. Thank you in advance for your assistance during our upcoming testing time.

Accelerated Reader Reward

2010-02-10T06:29:00.000-08:00

January 22, 2010 was an interesting day for us. Earlier in the quarter, Our Accelerated Reading Committee had been discussing the fact that the students had not met their goal for 1st quarter and we were discussing how to address our concern. One of our teachers, who shall remain nameless, suggested that the kids might work harder if I would wear a dress for a day if they met their goal.

The rest,as they say, is history. The kids easily met their goal. Maybe the fact that Mrs. Howe, our school librarian, allowed the students to vote on the color dress that I would have to wear after they took each quiz had something to do with the goal being met. Maybe the fact, the kids found out that I hate the color pink helped. Either way the kids worked hard and surpassed their goal.

On January 22, I dressed in the prettiest pink dress I could find. I grabbed my flowery purse. (Which, by the way, came in quite handy for carrying all my things.) And off to school I went.

Through morning car rider duty, meeting with community people, and having to explain multiple times why I thought my attire was "just the right look" for that day I struggled through my day. Every time I got up, I grabbed my purse and ran to tackle whatever was going on.

In the end, I had a lot of fun. Parents were wonderful and full of funny comments. The kids were awesome even with some good-natured teasing. And all the people who stopped by to see what in the world I was doing made it a great (though a little tiring) day.

We've recently set the goal for 3rd quarter. If 30% of the students meet their AR goal, Mrs. Branch, Mrs. Hartzog and I will sing a lovely song at the annual 5th & 6th Grade Talent Show. We're already beginning to think of a song that we might like to sing. Now all we need is for our kids to pick up their books and read. I think they can do it.

The 5th & 6th Grade Center is a great place to work and we enjoy working with your children. The fact that the kids are reading more and more books is outstanding. Again I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support and assistance in working with the kids. Encourage your kids to meet their goal. Who know what song we might sing?

eMINTS Installation

2009-12-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

I hope that you have enjoyed your Christmas Break. I know I have enjoyed spending time with my family and catching up on things here at school that I usually don't get to work on.

Currently I am listening to the sounds of tables being installed in the 5th grade classrooms and 6th grade social studies classrooms. These tables are being installed as part of our eMINTS grant to allow the students to be able to use the student laptops which will be placed in the classrooms soon.

All 5th grade classrooms have recently had SMART Boards and LCD projectors installed. These SMART Boards will allow the teachers to present interactive lessons to the students. 6th grade social studies classrooms will soon have the LCD projectors and SMART Boards installed also. (6th grade math and science rooms had SMART Boards and LCD projectors installed last year.)

All of the classroom teachers are currently receiving professional development regarding the use of the technology that has been provided through our grants. They have spent many hours learning and exploring ideas for the use of the technology in the teaching and learning process.

When the technology is all installed and the laptops are delivered to the classrooms, we will have an Open House to allow parents to see how we are using the technology with our students. We want you to be able to see how instruction is changing to embrace the technology that is so much a part of our world.

Hope you're enjoying your holidays,

Mr. Mayes