Roderick Review Week 31 (4/11/16-4/15/16)

Roderick students in every classroom had a BUSY week!  From fourth and fifth grade experiments to a fifth grade poetry slam and the sixth grade country reports, there were many opportunities for our students to shine!  Scroll down to see some pictures of this week's highlights!

Sixth Grade Country Reports
Students in every sixth grade class shared what they had learned at the Country Fairs on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of this week.  In addition to the oral presentations the students gave as though they were museum docents sharing all that a visitor needed to know about a country, presentation boards and in some cases, the research reports themselves were available for visitors to view.  While some of the work was done at home, students approached the "culture" portion of their research differently.  Teachers have been engaged in professional development all year for writing and the Lucy Calkins Units of Study lessons for information writing were used to facilitate students' writing for the culture section.  It was amazing to see how their writing has progressed in such a short time.

International Luncheon:  Students in Mrs. Fownes' sixth grade also invited other staff members to a special international luncheon featuring the appetizers, entrees, and desserts that the students had made using authentic ingredients to make traditional foods of the country they studied.  Other classes had the food displayed at each country's station.

More Country Report Pictures...

   

Owl Pellet Science Lab:
On Thursday, fifth grade scientists in Ms. Downing's class were dissecting owl pellets.  While some students were slightly squeamish at first about the thought of opening up an owl pellet, they were amazed by the process.  Students diligently and with meticulous care pulled apart the tiny fibers to reveal the skeletons of the owl's prey.  

Last Thursday, fifth graders in Mrs. Kane's class also shared this experience and found that voles were very common prey for the owls.










Roderick March Madness:
The competition continued until the "Final Four" on Thursday afternoon!  Roderick fans were full of spirit as they did "The Wave" in the stands and cheered on their classmates!

April is Poetry Month!

What better way to celebrate Poetry Month than with a Poetry Slam.  On Friday morning, Ms. Downing's classroom was transformed as the poets shared their examples of original poems that highlighted the use of figurative language including onomatopoeia, personification, metaphor, simile, in addition to alliteration.

  

Fourth Grade Science:

Students in Ms. Thornton's and Ms. Yelle's classes as well as students in Ms. Marazzi's and Ms. Kelley's classes were involved in experiments today related to the different states of matter.  Ask your fourth grader about their observations when the borax solution was added.

  

Enjoy your vacation week with your families!

Roderick Review Week 30 (4/4/16-4/8/16)

ACT Students Take the Stage by Storm!

Congratulations to the entire cast and crew of Seussical!  You all worked so hard to put on this tremendous performance!  Well done!

Parent Placement Input - 4/11/16
As promised, the online form to provide parent input on the placement process for the 2016-2017 school year will be sent home to families via email on Monday, April 11, 2016.  Please keep in mind that the online forms must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. on April 29th.  Thank you!

MCAS 2016 Update
Students in grades 4-6 took the MCAS over the past two weeks.  These were the English Language Arts tests, which included a narrative writing component.  After April vacation, we will have three more school weeks before the MCAS Math tests.  

During the ELA administration, we had quite a number of absences during the testing days.  While there are a couple of make up days incorporated into the schedule, missing the testing days themselves, means that students miss additional instruction as their classmates move on while they are making up the test session that they missed.  

As a reminder, the May testing dates are posted below:

MCAS Test Dates
Grade 4:  May 10th & May 11th (Math)
Grade 5:  May 12th & May 13th (Math)     May 18th & May 19th (Science)
Grade 6: May 16th & May 17th (Math)

While there may be a medical, excused absence that cannot be avoided, we appreciate your efforts to plan other appointments and events around these dates.  Thank you!

Roderick Review Week 29 (3/28/16-4/1/16)

Roderick March Madness!
This week marked the end of basketball season and on Monday, March 28th, the staff team faced our sixth grade players in an eight-round competition.  The game was tied up and we had to go into overtime when the sixth graders claimed their victory!

CONGRATULATIONS DESTINATION IMAGINATION PARTICIPANTS!   
On Tuesday, we were able to celebrate all of our Destination Imagination students' accomplishments. Every Wrentham team PLACED this year in the regional competition and MANY students competed in the state level competition as well.  One of our teams was even invited to the NATIONAL competition in Tennessee!  Congratulations!

 Continuous Growth and Learning...
Last Friday, Dr. Beauchaine, Ms. Fox, and Ms. Lopez along with Mr. Ahern modeled this core value at the Digital Learning Day in Medfield!  In this session, Dr. Beauchaine was learning more about the latest and greatest formative assessment strategies made easier through technology.  Other sessions included a variety of authentic assessment options, collaborative strategies, and robotics kits!

What are you eating?
These fifth graders are learning how to look at the nutritional labels of their favorite foods to assess smart choices to keep them living a healthy lifestyle in Mrs. Thurber's Health class.

Roderick Review Week 28 (3/21/16-3/25/16)

Upcoming Spirit Day!

Our Student Council (right) was hard at work this week creating the signs for their next spirit day.  During the week of April 11th through April 15th, students are invited to donate items for Cradles To Crayons.  Acceptable items include:
*New children's clothes (sizes 0-20)
*Arts and Crafts supplies
*School Supplies
*New batteries.
Then on Friday, April 15th, it will be "Backwards Day!"  Everyone is invited to wear clothes backwards or inside out.  Maybe the hood of your hooded sweatshirt is in the front.  Maybe you wear a "frontpack" instead of a "backpack" - Be creative!

Parent Information Night Recap:

 Earlier this week, there was a "cybersafety" parent information night in the Vogel Auditorium featuring our Director of Technology, Sean Ahern, our school psychologist, Kim Kost, and our Technology Teacher, Heather Fox.

Ms. Fox began by sharing the information about what the students are learning in their technology classes about safer searching online.  In addition, she also shared examples of how to keep students safe if they use social media such as Facebook or Instagram.  Not talking to strangers online, keeping their accounts on private, and having parents "follow" them will help to keep students safe.





Ms. Kost  spoke about how the adolescent brain is different than the adult brain and that the students' pre-frontal cortex is still developing until their mid-20's.  Since the pre-frontal cortex functions include personality expression, moderating social behavior, and decision making, students may not yet have the ability to completely think through how they are portraying themselves to others.  Ms. Kost shared some great advice:  when students are experiencing strong emotions, stay away from technology and social media and resist using "Facebook" like a diary.

 Continuous Growth and Learning!

 On Thursday, March 24, 2016, all of our teachers were modeling the core value of Continuous Growth and Learning during the professional development day.  Below you see Roderick Teachers working with their grade level colleagues as they develop their next writing unit!

Roderick Review Week 27 (3/14/16-3/18/16)

DESTINATION IMAGINATION - Cheer on your Wildcats!
Saturday, March 19th at Whitman-Hanson High School.

General Information:
Each year Destination Imagination challenges students with different types of problems to solve. This year’s Technical Challenge has our teams building a vehicle with two different propulsion systems. The Fine Arts Challenge is a real “Mystery” with three possible endings based upon a technical clue. Two of our teams will be having a “Close Encounter” in the Improvisational Challenge, presenting in a confined space of 6’ by 8’. The Scientific Challenge had our team researching camouflaged organisms. The Structure Challenge required our team to build a playable musical instrument, the height of which must be at least 7.5 inches and no taller than 9 inches and weigh less than 175 grams. After the team plays a melody on their instrument for at least 30 seconds it is then placed in a tester to see how much weight it will hold. During our Dress Rehearsal, their instrument held 145 lbs. and still looked strong! New this year to Wrentham was the opportunity to solve the Project Outreach Challenge, a Community Service based challenge. The team had to define a community need, design a plan to address the need and carry out a project which addressed the need. Our team chose Anti-Bullying, they discovered that 1 in 3 children in U.S. schools report that they have been bullied. The team created contracts and asked all the students in Roderick School to read the contract and sign it, thus committing to stopping bullying. They set aside a day for all the students in Roderick to wear blue, the color associated with Anti-Bullying. They even got the teachers and administrators to wear blue! This year’s team members and presentation times are listed below. For more information about DI over all, questions about this year’s challenges, or directions to our tournament, etc., please contact Linda DeVore at diwrentham@gmail.com.

Please refer to the email sent out through the Superintendent's office for specific presentation times for the various teams.  Thank you for supporting our DI participants!  An extra special thank you to Linda DeVore, our fearless DI coordinator, and all of our coaches!