Year End Assessments

The end of our first grade year is suddenly and surprisingly almost in sight! And with the end of the school year comes several important assessments at Wellman Elementary which help us to gauge the growth of our learners over the course of the year. Two of these assessments which are administered building wide are the STAR math test and the aReading test. You may remember hearing a bit about these assessments at your child's conferences earlier in the year, but here's a bit more information to help you understand what both of these tests look like in first grade.

STAR Math: Over the next two weeks, all first graders at Wellman Elementary will visit the computer lab to take the Star Math computer adaptive test. This is the second year Wellman Elementary has utilized this as a school wide screening tool in the area of math for all students. This will be the third time your child has taken this test over the course of the school year. This assessment touches on a variety of math skills and concepts and adjusts the difficulty of the questions to the test taker throughout the test. At the end of the test, each child is given a scaled score, this information allows the teacher to determine growth based of the students' previous score(s) as well as when compared against a national norm.

aReading: The aReading test is similar to the STAR math test in some regards. It is also taken on the computer, the difficulty of the questions increases or decreases dependent upon students' testing responses, it is also given three times a year, and it covers a broad range of literacy skills. We are in our first year of implementation for this assessment at Wellman Elementary. When students complete this test, also receive a score which will show their own growth over the course of the year, and will also be compared to a benchmark score that has been set by the state.

Hopefully this information gives you some insight into some of the testing in schools you may be hearing about on the news. We are confident that each of our first graders has grown in tremendous ways this school year and are excited to share their test scores as one measure of their growth with their end of the year report cards. They have worked tremendously hard this year to make the awesome strides they have gained and even though it's nearly May....we still have a lot of that important work yet to do!! Thank you as always, for your continued support from the home front! Your child would not be the gem they are without you:)    

Friendship Group Fun and Walk-A-Thon!!

What a beautiful day of sunshine we had to celebrate Earth Day and also raise money for Wellman Elementary!  Students helped cleaning our Earth by cleaning up litter and picking up sticks.  We then enjoyed a picnic lunch with our Friendship Group buddies!!  Last, the students and staff burnt off some energy by walking around North Park!  Here are some photos from our fun day!!

All Ready to clean and walk!!!

Students and Staff enjoying the day!!

 

That's all folks!!! 

Public Library Visit!

The First Graders had an opportunity to visit the Wellman Public Library on Monday/Thursday afternoon as a kick-off to the upcoming Summer Reading Program that will be offered!  Students enjoyed a tour of the library and playing a 'guess the spot' in the library mystery hunt.  This program is a great way to keep your little one motivated to read through the summer months, as well he/she is continuing to develop those reading skills for 2nd grade!   You will definitely want your little one to take part in this program!

Fraction Action!!!

As we near the end of our school year, students are being challenged on many levels to use their mathematical understandings of fractions to compare their parts.  We have been reviewing how to show equal parts and also comparing fractions to one another.  We decided to explore the world of fractions a little more deeply by using Hershey's chocolate bars!  First graders also used bowling sets to record how many pins out of 10 they knocked down as another fun visual to 'see' fractions.

Spring Concert

What a fun night we had at the Wellman Elementary Spring Concert.  Students did a great job of sharing their songs for all to enjoy!!  It was definitely a great way to 'Sing Your Way Home at the End of the Day!' Thank you again for your support of our Music department.

What a great lookin' group of first graders!!

 Singing for all to hear!:)

Polygons and 3D Shapes

First graders were immersed with geometry this past week as they were introduced to polygons and 3D shapes!  First, students learned three very important rules about polygons; (1) they must have straight lines, they must meet at a closed corner and (3) they can never cross.  After some creative work with polygons, students were then introduced to the following 3D shapes; cylinder, cube, rectangular prism, pyramid, cone and a sphere.  It was definitely all 'hands on deck' as students worked hard to build all of these geometrical shapes!

Polygon Creations

3D Shape Creations

And...symmetrical facial hair to wrap up our explorations in geometry;)

Reading Week Fun!

This week Wellman Elementary celebrated the birthday of the great Dr. Seuss with MANY fun activities!! First graders were thrilled to be able to take part in the excitement. Thanks to our first grade families who supported extra reading at home this week and helped your child to turn in their daily reading slips. We had several happy winners at today's assembly as proof of our hard work. Check out our smiling faces below!

We also had a blast listening to Mr. Poock read aloud from one of his Dr. Seuss favorites, Fox with Socks! He challenged us to some fun tongue twisters!

Pajama day to celebrate our last week of Reading Week!

Our photo booth provided a fun time for all as we enjoyed being 'in character' with some our Dr. Seuss props!