Week of October 26: Terra Nova testing, bridges, Halloween

Terra Nova Assessment: We spent some time looking at an older edition of the Terra Nova standardized test to familiarize students with the format, the use of answer sheets, typical questions, and test-taking strategies. Although the sixth graders did this test last year in October and the fifth graders had a brief exposure to it near the end of the year in May or June, another brief review and opportunity to ask questions seemed useful.

We assured everyone that the test is important, just as a major homework assignment is important, but it’s not the kind of thing we usually do. Therefore, a major reason for doing it is that of having the experience of a “bubble” test in a testing environment. We said that we already know a lot about them as learners, so what we will be learning from this test — mostly — is how they do on this kind of test.  Some of our students qualify for extra time on parts or all of the test, and we have discussed that entitlement quite openly. We’ve talked about the fact that we all learn in different ways, that some people need more time to do their best work, and that giving some extra time to people that need it is one way to make the test more fair.

Bridge building is slowly coming to an end. Some teams are completely finished and are focusing on their research and presentation. Others are close to finished and know that some choice time may be needed if they can’t spend more time building and less time chatting and arguing. This may be one of the years that our bridges don’t all pass the 2-kilogram weight test, but we’ll hope that some of those bridges are stronger and more carefully constructed than they appear.

bridge_jabril_django

bridge_sophie_thiago

Bridge research is also moving forward at a range of rates. We are continuing to emphasize the importance of preparing a well-practiced talk (rather than reading us text from slides) and the need for taking notes with only the essential words and not full sentences. We have a delightfully varied assortment of bridge choices and are looking forward to the presentations (many of which will not happen until after Conference Week).

Halloween is always a lot of fun at Miquon. By fifth and sixth grade, most of our students laugh off the staff’s feeble attempts to assure them that there is No Play. We are always pleased to see costumes that represent a child’s interests and imagination.

halloween_candelabra

halloween_scarecrow

 

halloween_group

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