Reflections from Spencer Elementary

Teachers Count Down Final Weeks of School

From the Rocket Newsletter:

Kindergarten

We’re counting down the last 26 days of the school year and celebrating the ABC’s at the same time! Of course we are starting with A by taking a look at all kinds of amazing animals. On the last day of school, Z day, we are off to the Wildwood Park and zoo! In between, we will have so much fun celebrating things like games on G day, showing our Rocket Pride by wearing red on R day and visiting the School Forest on V day! We’re finishing off the school year in a fun and amazing way!

Its hard to believe that its time to wrap up another school year, but we certainly have grown and learned so much this year. We wish all of our kindergartners a fun, safe, and relaxing summer and all the best as you prepare for 1st grade.
Have a great summer!

Submitted by the Kindergarten teachers
Ms. Tomke, Mrs. Bezlyk, and Mrs. Wolf

1st Grade

This spring has been full of fun activities! We have been to the school forest to check out the spring flowers, visited Central Wisconsin Airport and Wildwood Park, performed our spring concert, had a blast participating in activities during Rocket Olympics, helped raise money for children in Africa and playground equipment during our Color Walk, and visited Spencer Public Library to learn about the summer reading program.

The first graders have shown tremendous growth since the beginning of the school year! Thanks so much to all of our parents who took the extra time to help their child with his/her reading and math this year. Do not forget how important it is to continue to have your child practice these skills over the summer! Visit the Spencer Public Library and help your child find books that he/she can read. Have your child practice his/her addition and subtraction through 20, tell what time it is, or count out real money to buy a treat. Summer learning can still be fun! Enjoy your summer break!

Submitted by the first grade teachers
Mrs. Kolstad, Mrs. Pankratz, and Mrs. Zuelke

2nd Grade

Our second graders are excited for the end of the school year. We are busy showing our growth on DIBELS and MAP tests. We enjoyed a trip to Nasonville Dairy where we saw feta and cheddar cheese production, Heiman Holsteins Farm where we watched calves feeding and cows get milked and the School Forest where we saw spring flowers beginning to show after our rough winter. Rocket Olympics and the Color Walk will be two more events before the year is complete. Please encourage math facts practice and reading over the summer so they will be ready for their third grade teachers. Have a great summer.

Submitted by the Second Grade teachers:
Mrs. Anderson, Mrs. Bissonette, Mrs. Guenther

3rd Grade

The school year has certainly flown by despite our many snow days. Warm weather has finally arrived, and the third graders are looking forward to summer vacation and becoming fourth graders. Once again, we finished our year with testing, a field trip, and classroom performances.

In April, we participated in the Forward Exam, which is designed to assess reading, language arts, and math skills of students throughout Wisconsin. We tried our best to read passages, answer comprehension questions, and solve some challenging math problems. We also took the MAP reading, language arts, and math tests for the third time this year, and we are proud to say that numerous students made significant gains over the course of the year.

Students have learned to read and write in cursive, and it is no longer a mysterious code. We have worked diligently to understand the new math strategies that the Bridges math program has provided us. Students have been participating in the online version of the Accelerated Reader Program, and have made strides toward meeting their reading goals thus improving their reading abilities. To reinforce and enhance our learning, we used the Compass computer program in math and reading. In science class, we recently learned about natural disasters and ways to stay healthy. In social studies, we are learning about different cultures, communities, and holidays.

Submitted by the First Grade teachers:
Mrs. Farrell, Mrs. Reckner, Mrs. Payant

4th Grade

The fourth grade is winding down from a busy but wonderful year. Our personalized learning communities have grown so much! We’ve been Forward State Testing, MAP testing, and working hard to continue our learning! We visited Madison, our Wisconsin capitol, on May 7th and had a beautiful day. We toured the State Historical Museum in the morning, the Henry Villas Zoo over lunchtime, and visited the amazing capitol building in the afternoon. What a magnificent capitol building Wisconsin has for our citizens and legislators!

We have, Rocket Olympics on May 21st, YMCA Waterwise Safety on May 24th, and the Color Walk on May 31st. These are wonderful experiences for our students to learn outside the classroom and celebrate a year of working hard.

They are ready to move on to 5th grade; well, AFTER a nice long summer break! Remember to use sunscreen, keep reading LOTS, as well as writing and studying those math facts all summer long!

Please keep collecting aluminum cans for next year’s 4thgraders to also go to Madison. Thank you for a wonderful year!

Have a safe and blessed summer.

Submitted by the Fourth Grade teachers:
Mrs. Eckes, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Fischer

5th Grade

We feel so blessed to have grown so close to each other in our 5th grade family. It is so enjoyable to see the relationships flourish between students, and we teachers are enjoying working with them in our learning community. Watching them grow and mature as the year progresses is truly rewarding. The students are learning to reflect more upon their learning, set realistic goals, persevere with learning targets, and display a growth mindset. It has been our goal to help the kids take charge of and own their learning.

Life in the 5th grade has been full of great opportunities. May brought us the Rocket Olympics, Color Walk, and the first concert for our new band students. The kids had so much fun and learned so much about the outdoors at the Taylor County Youth Expo, which was held in Medford on May 17. Thanks to all the parents who gave of their time to help us chaperone. Your support of our endeavors is always much appreciated. The fifth graders from Spencer represented our Rocket Family with great character.

We are tackling our learning targets in our classes with great attitudes. Math class challenges us with volume, geometry, and decimal division. The kids have done a fantastic job of exploring math concepts with our new program! The work place games are an awesome way to practice skills. Reading class presents us with many strategies and skills to help us become engaged readers. We encourage the kids to log into Compass Math and Compass Reading over the summer months to help further skill development. This online resource places the students in personalized learning paths derived from results of our MAP scores.

We are learning to write with a purpose of informing our readers in Language class. Science has been fun as we have been designing and building roller coasters out of toilet paper tubes! We can’t forget about the time spent learning about history in Social Studies. It was enjoyable seeing the various projects which enabled us to present about important topics. Some of our learners are quite savvy with their technological skills and produced awesome slideshows. Recently, we spent time focusing on how to be a safe and respectful digital citizen.

As we finish up our journey with this group of young Rockets, we want them to know that we, as teachers, have learned a lot from them this year. It has been a privilege to spend the year with them! If you haven’t already done so, check out our Spencer Elementary Fifth Grade Facebook page and like us. (www.facebook.com/spencerfifthgrade)