The document provides an agenda and information for a first trimester curriculum night for parents. It summarizes what students have been learning in English language arts, math, social studies, and science. It discusses assessments used to measure student progress. It previews what will be covered in the second trimester. It also shares free resources parents can use at home to help their children learn, such as math and reading games, websites, and readers response forms.

1. Welcome!
First Trimester Curriculum Night
Monday, November 13th, 2017
Mr. Fiedler & Mrs. Crigger

2. Agenda
• Curriculum – During this segment, we'll discuss what we‘ve been
studying in each subject during the first trimester, and we’ll
preview what we’ll be working on in the second.
• Assessment – In part two, we'll take a closer look at the DBA, the
NWEA, and the digging deeper assessments, and how we'll use
that data.
• Resources – I'll share with you some (FREE!) resources you can
use to help your children learn at home.
• Question and Answer – Please feel free to ask any questions
about the above topics.

3. Group Norms
• Please have all cell phones on silent.
• Write down any questions that you may think of during the
presentation. I'll do my best to answer them during the Question
and Answer segment.
• Don't leave confused! If something wasn’t explained clearly, I'll be
happy to speak more on the issue.

4. Curriculum

5. Standards
• Everything we do is designed to meet a set of standards adopted by the state
of Michigan.
• Reading, writing, and math standards are based on the Common Core State
Standards. You can learn more about them at
http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/.
• Social Studies follows the Michigan Social Studies Grade Level Content
Expectations, or GLCE. They can be viewed at
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/SSGLCE_218368_7.pdf.
• Science standards will be shifting to new standards based on the Next
Generation Science Standards, which can be read at
http://www.nextgenscience.org/overview-dci.

7. ELA – What we’ve learned
Unit 1: The US Constitution: Then and Now
In this unit, students read and compared selections about the
development of laws and about people who have fought to change
unfair laws to analyze why laws evolve.
• Metacognitive Skills: asking questions
• Reading Skills: identify key details and main idea, chronological
order, and drawing inferences
• Writing Skills: writing a personal letter, verb tenses, using
commas correctly, forming complete sentences

8. ELA – What we’ve learned
Unit 2: Developing Characters Relationships
In this unit, students read selections from The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and other stories to compare and analyze the characters.
• Metacognitive Skills: visualization
• Reading Skills: identify key events and summarize, compare and
contrast characters, understanding dialect, drawing inferences
• Writing Skills: writing realistic fiction, developing dialogue,
forming and using past-perfect verb tenses

9. ELA – What we’ve learned
Unit 3: Cultivating Natural Resources
In this unit, students read and compared selections about cultivating
food in the past and today to understand how we develop our natural
resources.
• Metacognitive Skills: determine text importance
• Reading Skills: determine two or more main ideas in a text, explain
cause and effect relationships, understanding objective vs subjective
writing, and draw information from charts and graphs
• Writing Skills: writing an informational report, using conjunctions to
combine sentences for meaning, interest, and style

10. ELA – What’s Ahead
Unit 4: Recognizing Author’s Point of View
In this unit, students will read and compare the different
perspectives in selections to analyze point of view.
• Metacognitive Skills: make inferences/predictions
• Reading Skills: read and summarize two poems, describe how a
narrator’s point of view influences how events are described,
identify key events and summarize, compare and contrast themes,
determine the meaning of figurative language
• Writing Skills: writing an opinion essay, forming and using
perfect verb tense, link ideas with words, phrases, and clauses

11. ELA – What’s Ahead
Unit 5: Technology’s Impact on Society
In this unit, students will read and compare literary and nonfiction
selections about the role that technology has played in people’s
lives.
• Metacognitive Skills: summarize/synthesize
• Reading Skills: read and respond to poems, understand text
structure, determine main idea and explain how key details
support it, explain the relationship between events in a historical
text, draw information from timelines.
• Writing Skills: write an opinion essay, understanding modifying
phrases, understanding modal auxiliaries

12. ELA – What’s Ahead
Unit 6: Up Against the Wild
In this unit, students will read and compare selections about
characters who are up against the wild and analyze how different
genres approach similar themes.
• Metacognitive Skills: make connections
• Reading Skills: identify key events and summarize, compare and
contrast characters, determine how characters respond to a
challenge, and explain the overall structure of a text
• Writing Skills: write a narrative journal entry, understand the
function of prepositions, revise to add details using prepositional
phrases.

14. Math – What we’ve learned
Unit 1: Addition and Subtraction with Fractions
Students added and subtracted fractions and mixed numbers. They
represented the addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike
denominators as equivalent problems with like denominators.
• Big Idea 1: Equivalent Fractions
• Big Idea 2: Adding and Subtracting Fractions

15. Math – What we’ve learned
Unit 2: Addition and Subtraction with Decimals
Students extended their understanding of the base-ten system to
decimals. They observed that the process of composing and
decomposing a base-ten unit is the same for decimals as the whole
numbers and the same methods of recording operations can be used
with decimals.
• Big Idea 1: Read and Write Whole Numbers and Decimals
• Big Idea 2: Addition and Subtraction
• Big Idea 3: Round and Estimate with Decimals

16. Math – What we’ve learned
Unit 3: Multiplication and Division with Fractions
Students extended work with multiplication and fractions and
explored fractions and division. Visual models and real world
situations were used throughout the unit to illustrate important
fraction concepts.
• Big Idea 1: Multiplication with Fractions
• Big Idea 2: Multiplication Links
• Big Idea 3: Division with Fractions

17. Math – What’s Ahead
Unit 4: Multiplication with Whole Numbers and Decimals
This unit emphasizes the shifting of digits when multiplying with
decimals. Students will multiply with numbers greater than 1 and
less than 1 using the traditional algorithm. Fluency for multiplying
multidigit whole numbers begins.
• Big Idea 1: Multiplication with Whole Numbers
• Big Idea 2: Multiplication with Decimal Numbers

18. Math – What’s Ahead
Unit 5: Division with Whole Numbers and Decimals
Students will extend their understanding of division to include 2-
digit divisors. They will also explore dividing with decimal numbers.
They will solve real world problems and interpret remainders in the
contexts of problems.
• Big Idea 1: Division with Whole Numbers
• Big Idea 2: Division with Decimal Numbers

19. Math – What’s Ahead
Unit 6: Operations and Word Problems
This unit focuses on interpreting problems and representing them.
It emphasizes the problem solving process and problem types using
whole numbers, fractions, and decimals.
• Big Idea 1: Equations and Problem Solving
• Big Idea 2: Comparison Word Problems
• Big Idea 3: Problems with More Than One Step

21. Social Studies – What we’ve learned
Unit 1: Our Government
Students explored our government's purpose and structure by
looking at the following big ideas:
• Why do we have government? What would happen without it? How
does the Constitution set it up?
• How does the Constitution set up the three branches of government, and
how does the system of checks and balances work?
• How does our system of Federalism divide power between the Federal
and State Governments?
• How does the Bill of Rights limit the power of government and protect
individual rights?

22. Social Studies – What we’ve learned
Unit 2: Three Worlds Meet
Students discovered how the interaction of Africans, American Indians,
and European explorers in the 1400-1500s transformed human societies.
We focused on:
• Questions historians ask and how they study history.
• The cultures of diverse American Indian tribes and how they interacted
with their environment.
• The rise and fall of the East African Empires.
• Reasons for European exploration and notable explorers.
• Encounters and exchanges between the three cultures.

23. Social Studies – What’s Ahead
Unit 3: Colonization and Settlement
Students will examine why different colonial regions developed in North America.
We’ll focus on the following developments:
• Early English settlements at Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth.
• The push and pull factors – what made people want to leave England and what
was it about the Americas that made them want to come here.
• The settlement of the Southern Colonies – Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Georgia.
• The settlement of the New England Colonies – Massachusetts, Connecticut, New
Hampshire, and Rhode Island
• The settlement of Mid-Atlantic Colonies – New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Delaware.

24. Social Studies – What’s Ahead
Unit 4: Life in Colonial America
Students will study how life in the three colonial regions set the
stage for colonists to join in the cause for Independence. We’ll focus
on the following questions:
• How did economic activities contribute to the significant
differences among the colonial regions?
• How did colonial political experiences influence how colonists,
viewed their rights and responsibilities?
• How did the institution of slavery affect colonial development and
life in the colonies?

25. Social Studies – What’s Ahead
Unit 5: Road to Revolution
The students will explore why some colonists from different regions
joined together to create an independent nation.
• How did economic issues and political experiences and ideas affect
the relationship between Great Britain and the colonies?
• Why were some colonists unhappy with British rule after the
French and Indian War?
• How and why did people in different colonial regions unite against
Great Britain?

27. Science - What we’ve learned
Unit 1: Studying People Scientifically
• The first activity(Save Fred!) introduced students to the scientific
method and how to form and test a hypothesis.
• The Pellagra story examined a case in which people were studied
and explores the concept of ethics in science.
• The Testing Medicine Scientifically and the Data Toss experiments
explored the concepts of variables and their effects on the results
of an experiment. We also took a look at how placebos and
controls are used to account for them.

28. Science - What we’ve learned
Unit 2: Body Works
• The students began the unit by working together to draw a diagram of
the human body and its major systems.
• The Breakdown experiment allowed the students to explore and observe
the effects of mechanical breakdown on chemical breakdown during
digestion. We then deepened that understanding with a couple of
reading activities.
• During the Gas Exchange experiment, students quantitatively measured
the amount of carbon dioxide in their exhaled breath by using an
indicator to perform a titration.
• We then performed several laboratory experiments and other activities
to study the heart and the circulatory system.

29. Science - What’s Ahead
Unit 3: Evolution
The students will work to understand concepts of species adaptation and
survival. They’ll focus on the following objectives:
• Explain how behavioral characteristics of animals help them survive in
their environment.
• Describe the physical characteristics of organisms that help them
survive in their environment.
• Describe how fossils provide evidence about how living things and
environmental conditions have changed.
• Analyze the relationship of environmental change and catastrophic
events to species extinction.

30. Science - What’s Ahead
Unit 4: The Earth in Space
The students will study the effects of the Earth’s location and motion
through space with the following goals:
• Demonstrate (using a model) seasons caused by the tilt of the Earth on
its axis and revolution around the sun.
• Explain how the revolution of the Earth around the sun defines a year.
• Explain moon phases as they relate to the position of the moon in its
orbit around the Earth.
• Explain lunar and solar eclipses based on the relative position of the
Earth, moon, and sun.
• Explain the tides of the oceans as they relate to the gravitational pull and
orbit of the moon.

31. Science - What’s Ahead
Unit 5: Exploring the Solar System
The students will study the history of human exploration in space,
and they’ll examine objects found in our solar system.
• Design a model that describes the position and relationship of the
planets and other objects to the sun.
• Describe the motion of planets and moons in terms of rotation on
axis and orbits due to gravity.
• Describe limitations in personal and scientific knowledge.

32. Assessment

33. Assessments - Beginning of the Year
• We have been working to complete a number of assessments to
find out exactly where our students are academically and what we
need to do to help each individual be successful.
• This includes a District Benchmark Assessment (DBA). During
this test, the students spent a couple of days taking notes on
multiple sources about a given topic. They then used those notes
on the third day to respond to a prompt.
• The students will take the exact same test in the spring, on the same
topic, so that we can compare their beginning of the year writing to
their writing at the end of the year.

34. Assessments - Beginning of the Year
• The backbone of our assessment program is the NWEA Measure
of Academic Progress, or MAP. This test is given multiple times
throughout the year to measure student growth.
• The NWEA MAP is a norm referenced test. That means that the
test is given to a large group of students. The scores are then
ranked from top to bottom to find a normal distribution.
• If your child scores in the 65th percentile, for example, it means
that they scored better than 65% of the students that took the test.
• Cleveland Students are assessed in Reading,Language, and Math.

35. Assessments - Beginning of the Year
• Any students that score below the 40th percentile in reading or
math will be assessed further with a variety of digging-deeper
assessments. These tests are designed to diagnose exactly what
gaps exists and what we need to do in the classroom to help.
• When students are found to be in need of intensive
intervention,we will refer them to the Student Support Team
(SST). This team meets often to discuss the progress of the
students and what we can do to help them. The team consists of
Ms. Crigger or Mr. Fiedler, Mrs. Kristick, Mr. Wallace, Mrs.
Cansfield, and Mr. Stewart.

36. Resources

37. Resources to Use at Home
6 Super-Fun Ways to Learn Math Facts:
• Let’s try it.
• 1. Play with dice. Really. Toss the Dice and practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing using the
numbers you roll on dice.
• 2. Flashlight math. Use the flashcards and flip two cards at a time. Kids shine a flashlight on the one they know
and answer that one. Simple. Don’t have a flashlight? Make a math wand. Bumblebee wand, perhaps? Use a stick
or a light saber. Anything that works for your kid.
• 3. Use electronics. We love My Math Flash Cards App on the iPad and Math Practice Flashcards on my android
phone. There are a gazillion flash card apps out there. I’m sure any would do the trick, and if you have five minutes
and your kid says, ‘Can I play a game on your phoooooone?’ Say ‘Why yes you may! I’m so very glad you asked. . . ‘
• 4. Write the answer. Or paint the answer. Water on cement or chalk on sidewalk or window crayon on
window. One person flashes the cards and the other guy writes.
• 5. “WAR” with Multiplication /Addition/Subtraction/Division, “WAR”. Works just like card war, except you have to
be the first one to multiply the two number cards correctly. If you shout the correct answer first, you win the
cards. Player with the most cards at the end of the deck, wins the game.
• 6. FLASH CARDS (with math facts) – Can be purchased at the dollar store or made on 3X5 cards.
Other websites available:
http://www.factmonster.com/math/flashcards.html
http://www.hoodamath.com/

38. Resources to Use at Home
READING RESOURCES:
• Encourage your child to read every night before they go to sleep.
• Book sources: School library, public library, ask teacher for a book to borrow.
• Follow the Reading Activity Calendar (provided from the classroom teachers)
• Readers Response:
• Have your child fill out a Reader’s Response form and discuss with them.
• This will help your child to read with a purpose. (ASK your child’s teacher for copies to take home)
• Time talking and spending quality time with your child. (Another Option: Invite siblings to join in the conversation)
Websites available:
https://freekidsbooks.org/
http://www.childrensbookson
line.org/library.htm

39. Questions
and
Answers

40. Thank you for Coming!
We appreciate all of your
support!