T.I.S. Digital Backpack

April 24, 2017

T.I.S. EVENTS CALENDAR

APRIL 21 Grade 3 to Sturbridge Village 26 Early Dismissal—Release at 12:45 26 Board of Education Meeting, 7:30 p.m. 27 Koss, Wunsch, Hurley and Bockus to UCONN Greenhouses 28 Spirit Day! Wear your grade’s color (3rd=green, 4th=red, 5th=blue) 28 Lemelin, LeBlanc, Grinold and Slayton to UCONN Greenhouses May 1 PTO @ TIS, 7:00 2 Grade 4 to Mystic 3 Leser and Zangerl to Boston 4 Racco and Storozuk to Boston 5 McCarthy to Boston 8 Grabowski and Biddle to Boston 9 Campbell and Kneeland to Boston 10 Board of Education Meeting, 7:30 p.m. 11 Grade 3 Tolland Day (raindate 5/25) 11 Grade 4 Chorus and Band Concert, 7:00 AT THE MIDDLE SCHOOL 16 Grade 5 Band Concert, 7:00 AT THE MIDDLE SCHOOL 20 SPRING FLING! 24 Staff Appreciation 25 Grade 5 Chorus Step Up Concert, 7:00 AT THE MIDDLE SCHOOL 25 Raindate for Tolland Day (Grade 3) 26 Patriotic Day 29 NO SCHOOL

Staff Member of the Month: April

Mrs. Koss

Here are just a few things that students had to say about Mrs. Koss:

Mrs. Koss should be staff member of the month because she is kind, helpful

and fun.

She is also very funny!

Mrs. Koss always helps you if you are stuck with something.

Also, she can always make things fun if they’re boring.

She doesn’t care if you forget something, or if you fall she’ll give you a

band-aid. Mrs. Koss is kind, respectful, and a good member of our Hawk

community.

She’s caring, and would never yell or be mean.

She is a very fun teacher, she uses pies and pizza for fractions!

She always helps us if we are stuck with something.

Mrs. Koss is respectful because she doesn’t say that we are ever bad at

something.

She works so hard, and makes everything fun.

Third Grade at T.I.S.

Below is a group of articles written by some third grade students. The articles were written to provide people with an account of some of the things that students are involved with at T.I.S. Each week we’ll be publishing student written articles. On behalf of the third grade authors, we hope you enjoy reading the articles.

Hawk Privileges

by Mason

Why are people in the gym at recess? Why are kids on the stage at lunch? Well, these students have earned hawk privileges. To be able to do these things you have to earn hawk privileges by earning hawk cards. In order to get hawk cards, you have to follow the hawk rules. Hawk stands for: Have respect, Act responsibly, We are a community, and Keep yourself safe. You can put your hawk cards in bins at the office. There are

whole class privileges and personal privileges. One of the most popular Hawk rewards is dodgeball with the principals. Since when are you allowed to whip a ball at a

principal? Another privilege is to have lunch in the Hawk Café. At the café you can invite a friend to eat with you while you watch a movie and then you can play games too!

Another possible privilege is being on the morning announcements. Students could lead the whole school in the Pledge of Allegiance or maybe tell jokes. I think Hawk rewards

make the school day more fun!

T.I.S. Clubs

by Ryleigh

Attention third graders, do you want to be in a club at T.I.S? If you do then there are 3 clubs for third graders to join. They are GREEN TEAM, GAMES CLUB, and MUSIC TIMES THREE. In Green Team you learn about recycling. In Games Club you get to go to the gym on Mondays and Wednesdays after school until 4:30. You play tons of games until your parents pick you up to bring you home. For Music Times Three you get to go to the music room during Tuesday recess. You practice a lot of songs for concerts or sing-a-longs at assemblies. At. T.I.S. there are many fun clubs for third graders to join. Now maybe you’ll want to join a club.

Third Grade Field Trips

by Kelsey

Do you like to go on awesome trips? If you do then you're going to love third grade. During third grade you go to the Benton Homestead, learn about the charter Oak, attend old Sturbridge Village and finally you'll spend a day on the Tolland green at Holland Green Day as you can see they're a lot of fun places you go in third grade.

Recess Choices

by Anne

At TIS whenever you have indoor recess you have a choice of where you go. Because I mean, who wants to play the same old games that are in your classroom? The different choices are the Mini Gym, the Lecture Hall and the Science Lab. Every Monday you sign where you want to for indoor recess that week. At the Mini Gym you can play board games hand there is also room for running around. In the Lecture hall we sit and watch a fun movie. And in the Science lab they have board games, Lego’s, Slinkys and room to run around. I hope you learned about our recess choices.

Typing Training at T.I.S. by Dan

Do you know how to type? Students at T.I.S. are learning to type on the Typing Training program. Typing Training is super fun and it helps people get better at typing. One fifth grade student is typing 93 words per minute and fifth grade teacher Mr. Z types 113 words per minute. Typing Training has many very fun games, my favorite is Typing Racer. Typing Training is very challenging and it pushes you to be a better. It is super cool.

Music x3

by Penelope

Music x3 is our 3rd grade chorus at Tolland Intermediate School. Music x3 is getting ready for the big concert coming up on Thursday, March 30, 2017. They are practicing hard every Tuesday during recess. Music x3 takes a lot of hard work and practice. People can’t drop out after they sign up, so in October they decided to do it or not. We have had many snow days on Tuesday so we haven’t had a lot of practice time. The songs they sing are not just songs you hear every day, some songs are made by our music teacher Mrs. Baker. Mrs. Baker is teaching kids stage manors. We think about 600 people will be at the concert. 3rd graders don’t have any other concert during the year so Music x3 is a special to be in. The people in Music x3 are singing kindness, caring, and folk tales (even Christmas). Good luck to everyone in Music x3!

Greetings from the Math Lab!

In our last math department entry, we took a look at the first Standard of Mathematical Practice. This month, let’s take a closer look at Standard #4, Model with Mathematics.

SMP #4, Model with Mathematics, is asking students to make sense of math in everyday life and use the math they know to solve everyday problems. When presented with a math problem, children should be able to show their work in many ways. Students are encouraged represent their thinking using a diagram, model, graph, or visual. Students should also be able to check to see if an answer makes sense and make changes to their answer if necessary. Using math students know to solve real world problems is a critical skill found throughout the Math in Focus program.

Fluency

Across the grade levels, students here at TIS are continuing to brush up on their grade level fluency standards. Please see the grade level fluency expectations below and check out our tips for how you can help at home!

Grade 3: Add/subtract within 1000, Multiply/divide within 100

Grade 4: Add/subtract within 1,000,000

Grade 5: Multi‐digit multiplication

Fact Fluency Tip Of the Month: Looking for a quick game to help your child practice his/her facts? Try the ideas below.

Press Your Luck: (A 2 or more partner math game)

Math concepts: This game gives students practice with multiplication facts and addition. They gain experience with thinking strategically.

Object: Be the first to score 1,000 points or more.

Materials: 2 dice, scratch paper, pencil

How to play: Players take turns rolling two regular dice. Follow these rules:

1. On a turn, a player may roll the dice as many times as he or she wants. Students multiply the two numbers together to find the product. On scratch paper, keep a running total (sum) of the products that come up. When the player decides to stop rolling, he or she draws a line under the sum of the rolls for their turn.

2. If a 1 is rolled on one of the dice before the player decides to stop rolling, the player scores 0 for that round and it's the next player's turn. (All points earned for the current turn are lost.) He/She will begin his/her next turn with the score above the line that they drew on the previous turn. If this happens on the first turn of the game, the player starts over at zero.

3. If a 1 comes up on both dice, not only does the turn end, but the player loses all of their points and must start over at zero.

4. The winner is the first person to score 1,000 points. ** This number can be increased to meet the grade level expectations above.

Christine Beaulieu, Math Interventionist

Thoughts from the Reading Department

April break is coming up. Consider reading more over break, and every day! Happy reading

9 Reasons to Read More

Builds Knowledge

Improves Achievement

Increases Motivation

Increases Vocabulary

Improves Writing

Builds Background Knowledge

Improves Understanding of Text Structures

Develops Empathy

Develops Personal Identity

From Disrupting Thinking by Beers and Probst

SBAC SCHEDULE:

Math CAT SBAC Monday, April 24, 2017 4 Bockus Grinold Hurley

Math CAT SBAC Tuesday, April 25, 2017 4 Make-up LeBlanc Koss

Math CAT SBAC Wednesday, April 26, 2017 4 Slayton Wunsch Lemelin

Math CAT SBAC Thursday, April 27, 2017 5 McCarthy Racco Storozuk

Math CAT SBAC Monday, May 1, 2017 5 Zangerl Biddle Grabowski

Math CAT SBAC Tuesday, May 2, 2017 5 Campbell Leser Kneeland

Math CAT SBAC Wednesday, May 3, 2017 3 Arner Kogut Sikoski

Math CAT SBAC Thursday May 4, 2017 3 Cyr Babiec Fischer

Math CAT SBAC Friday, May 5, 2017 3 Make-up Williams Silberberg

Math PT Monday, May 8, 2017 4 Bockus Grinold Hurley

Math PT Tuesday, May 9, 2017 4 Make-up LeBlanc Koss

Math PT Wednesday, May 10, 2017 4 Slayton Wunsch Lemelin

Math PT Thursday, May 11, 2017 5 McCarthy Racco Storozuk

Math PT Monday May 15, 2017 5 Zangerl Biddle Grabowski

Math PT Tuesday, May 16, 2017 5 Campbell Leser Kneeland

Math PT Wednesday, May 17, 2017 3 Arner Kogut Sikoski

Math PT Thursday May 18, 2017 3 Cyr Babiec Fischer

Math PT Tuesday, May 23, 2017 3 Make-up Williams Silberberg

ELA CAT – English Language Arts Computer Adaptive Test

Math CAT – Math Computer Adaptive Test

A core feature of Smarter Balanced assessments is that they are customized for each student

for a more accurate measurement for every student. To accomplish this, the computer-based

test adjusts the difficulty of questions throughout the assessment based on the student’s

response. If a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be harder; if a

student answers incorrectly, the next question will be easier. This system is called computer

adaptive testing, and it is part of the summative (end-of-year) assessments.

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/assessments/testing-technology/

Math PT – Math Performance Task

Performance tasks measure a student’s ability to demonstrate critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. Performance tasks challenge students to apply their knowledge and skills to respond to complex real-world problems. They can be best described as collections of questions and activities that are coherently connected to a single theme or scenario. These activities are meant to measure capacities such as depth of understanding, writing and research skills, and complex analysis, which cannot be adequately assessed with traditional assessment questions. The performance tasks are taken on a computer (but are not computer adaptive) and will take one to two class periods to complete.

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/assessments/sample-questions/

For more information on the SBAC, please visit the following website:

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/parents/

Tolland Public Schools 51 Tolland Green, Tolland, Connecticut 06084

Grade 5 Promotion Ceremony

February 27, 2017

Dear Fifth Grade Families,

In just a few short months, your fifth grade student will be getting ready to leave Tolland

Intermediate School and continue their educational adventures as a middle schooler. As the year

comes to a close, we will be hosting a Fifth Grade Promotion Ceremony. More information as to

the date and time will be forthcoming as we get closer to June, but there are many preparations

that we begin now in order to provide a wonderful experience for our students and their families.

Each year, we create a slideshow with student photographs that will be presented during the

promotion ceremony. As part of the slideshow, we would like to show a baby picture of each

fifth grader. Please use one of the two following options: Send in a printed photograph of your

child OR e-mail a baby picture to jkirk@tolland.k12.ct.us. Please be sure to check which option

you are using on the form below. Each printed picture will be scanned and returned. Your

child’s name and teacher’s name should be on the back of the picture or included in the subject

line of the e-mail.

Please return the lower portion of this document, as we do need written permission for using

your child’s pictures (baby and candids) in the slideshow. Please be advised that granting

permission also pertains to allowing your child’s photograph to be distributed, as copies of the

presentation will be available to each fifth grader after the promotion ceremony. The release

form below needs to be returned to school even if you e-mail your child’s picture. Please return

the form and submit your picture by Friday, March 31, 2017.

Sincerely,

James Dineen

Principal

Please sign the slip below and send it in with your child’s baby picture:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grade 5 Promotion Ceremony Photograph Release Waiver

Student Name: ________________________________

Homeroom Teacher: ____________________

_____ I want photographs of my child to be included in the presentation.

_____ I do not want photographs of my child to be included in the presentation.

______I have e-mailed my child’s picture as instructed above

______My child’s picture is enclosed

Parent/Guardian Signature:

_________________________________________________________

Tolland Public Library will host

Geni For Kids: An Introduction to Genealogy for Family History Detectives

for children 9 and up

on Thursday, April 27th,

6 to 7:45 p.m.

This program may help qualify participants for a scouting badge in genealogy, and has been

developed and will be presented by members of the French Canadian Genealogical

Library. Sign up is required; participants should pick up a "homework" sheet at the library desk

to fill in before the program.

For more information, call 860-871-3620 or contact vbrousseau@tolland.org.

It’s that time of year again! Spring Fling is just around the

corner. As you start your spring cleaning, please consider

donating your used books to The Book Nook. Collection

boxes will be located at Birch Grove and TIS beginning

Monday, April 17th. Mom & Dad books are also

welcome!

If you have any questions please contact:

Nicole Cadman (nicolecadman@yahoo.com)

Thanks in advance for your donations!

TIS MILEAGE CLUB

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

FOR THE SPRING SESSION!

Last year’s Mileage Club was a fun, successful program! We need your help to keep their feet moving! Mileage Club provides an opportunity for 3rd-5th Grade students to run or walk outside during recess. As students accumulate mileage, they can earn toe tokens, carabiners, and even trophies. It’s great exercise too!

We are in need of parent volunteers to encourage the kids and help track their mileage. It’s also a great way to see your child and their friends at school. Their smiles are well worth it.

The Mileage Club typically goes from September to mid November and then from mid April thru June. The recess schedule has remained the same from last year. We are looking for people that are willing to volunteer for a recess slot (or more) for one day a week. Younger siblings are welcome.

If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out the form below and return it to your child’s teacher as soon as possible. Then we will contact you regarding a start date.

If you have any questions, call Cecilia Klember at 860-729-0249 or email at ceciliaklember@gmail.com.

PLEASE FILL OUT THE SLIP ON THE NEXT PAGE AND RETURN IT TO THE SCHOOL

WE CAN’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU!

RETURN TO SCHOOL C/O MILEAGE CLUB

Parent’s Name: ____________________________________________________________________

Phone: ______________________________ Email: _______________________________________

Child’s Name: ________________________________Teacher: __________________________

Please select/circle your preferred day and time:

Mon. ( ) 5th Grade Recess -11:50-12:10 ( ) 4th Grade Recess – 12:25 – 12:50 ( ) 3rd

GradeRecess – 1:00 – 1:30

Tues. ( ) 5th Grade Recess -11:50-12:10 ( ) 4th Grade Recess - 12:25 – 12:50 ( ) 3rd

Grade Recess – 1:00 – 1:30

Wed. ( ) 5th Grade Recess -11:50-12:10 ( ) 4th Grade Recess - 12:25 – 12:50 ( ) 3rd

Grade Recess – 1:00 – 1:30

Thur. ( ) 5th Grade Recess -11:50-12:10 ( ) 4th Grade Recess - 12:25 – 12:50 ( ) 3rd

Grade Recess – 1:00 – 1:30

Fri. ( ) 5th Grade Recess -11:50-12:10 ( ) 4th Grade Recess - 12:25 – 12:50 ( ) 3rd

Grade Recess – 1:00 – 1:30

***Please make sure you complete the online volunteer registration ASAP if you are interested in

volunteering for Mileage Club***

COFFEE WITH THE PRINCIPAL

2016-2017

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Wednesday, November 16, 2016 Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Wednesday, December 14, 2016 Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Save the Date!!!

4th grade Band AND 4th grade Chorus

In concert together

Thursday night, May 11, 2017

Tolland Middle School Auditorium

Concert begins at 7:00 p.m.

Band members report to the TMS Band room at 6:30

p.m.

Grade 5 chorus

Step Up Concert

As a part of the stepping up process to the middle school, the

fifth grade chorus will be performing at the sixth grade chorus

concert Thursday, May 25 at Tolland Middle School. All fifth

grade chorus students are asked to attend. The fifth grade chorus

students need to report to the auditorium by 6:50 pm (concert

begins at 7:00). They need to sit in the reserved seats with Ms.

Baker until it is time for them to sing “Footloose”. They may go sit

with their parents after they have finished singing. Appropriate

concert dress is required. All family members are welcome to

attend.

Please fill out the permission slip below for the May 25

concert and return to Ms. Baker by May 11.

Thank you, Ms. Baker

Detach and return by May 11

Students Name: _________________________________

Parent’s signature: __________________________________

__________ My son/daughter will be attending the Grade 6

chorus concert on May 25 at the Tolland Middle School Auditorium.

The End