Dear 5th grade families,

(4th grade families, feel free to skip this one unless you’d like a preview of what’s to come for your child).

This morning, your child participated in a Zoom call with the Tolt Middle School counselors to learn about registering for Tolt.  You are now, as a family, facing several registration decisions.  By April 5th, students will need to complete and submit this registration form. This form is also linked in this week’s loop. Students know where to find it. There is also some additional paperwork from the Tolt counselors available in your students loop for the week. Please ask them to share that with you.

While I can’t help you choose an elective (music! music! music!), I can provide a little guidance on the self-selection of Math and Language Arts courses for your child.  You can also find Tolt’s guidance on these decisions in this link. But first, please remember that as your child’s parent you are always allowed to advocate for your child before or during the school year. Also remember that this is a 6th grade Math decision, not a life or death decision. Whatever feels best to you, as long as you are there to love and support your child (which I know you are), is going to be okay.

Math:

This year, our Ogopogos math group has covered the following topics:

• Ratios and Unit Rates
• Arithmetic Operations including Division of Fractions
• Rational Numbers

I also plan to cover before June:

• Equations and expressions
• Area, Surface Area and Volume Problems
• (There is a final unit in the 6th grade Eureka Math Series on Statistics, but I just don’t think we’ll get there this year.)

If your student has been keeping up with all their Loops math work, scoring their own problem sets (which they should have been doing all along), asking questions at home when they are stuck and are reporting that they are 3 (practitioner) level of understanding then they are ready for either the 6th grade advanced class or pre-algebra.  Students choosing 6th grade advanced will find that the first half of the year is a pleasant review (which can be a nice and successful way to start 6th grade). Students choosing pre-algebra need to be ready to do the work and ask questions, but they should find the course rigorous and full of learning.

If your student has been struggling to keep up with our class work, either because the content has been a challenge or because the just the act of getting it done has been a challenge, I would recommend against pre-algebra. Either regular 6th or 6th grade advanced would be a good choice depending upon your families goals.  Both will give a solid, successful foundation for starting the school year.

Language Arts:

For Language Arts, your will need to decide between a regular course and the pre-honors course.  All of our 5th graders this year have the critical thinking skills to handle the pre-honors course for Language Arts.  Many of our 5th graders this year have the desire to read and write at complex levels as well. For those students I would highly recommend the pre-honors Language Arts class. The only case where I would recommend the regular Language Arts class is if your child feels that it doesn’t fit them.  They will not find success if they feel forced to take on additional challenge. There will be time later in their learner career for them to apply their abilities.

If you’d like some specific recommendations in either area for your child, please feel free to send me an email.

I hope this helps in some way!

Cheers,

Ms. I