News From Mrs. Graves

Upcoming Events
Thursday, 3/28  Teacher Appreciation Luncheon, hosted by 1st grade
Friday, 3/29  Spring Holiday
Tuesday, 4/2  Report Cards go home; STAAR 4th & 5th
Wednesday, 4/3  STAAR 4th & 5th
Friday, 4/5  PTO Meeting, 8:10 a.m.
Saturday, 4/6  Spring Community Night

New Website
Our new website will go live this week!  On Wednesday morning you will receive an email with the web address and your log in credentials.  You will be given a temporary password.  You should log in and change the password at your earliest convenience. 

You will notice that the Parents tab has a great deal of information available to you after you log in, but that information is not available to the general public.  To reach your child's classroom blog, you will use the Staff Directory to search for your child's teacher.  The blog link associated with each classroom is on the teacher's directory page.

If you don't receive an email on Wednesday, you should email our webmaster at  information.services@robertselementary.org to ensure we have your accurate email address.

IB Self-Study Parent Survey
Thank you to those of you who took time to complete our short survey earlier this month.  We are able to use your responses to help us evaluate our work, but also to help us in identifying the components of our 3-year plan.  There were some common themes that you may want to know about:

• parents generally understand the IB Learner Profile and IB Attitudes;
• parents appreciate the inquiry-based, collaborative approach to learning;
• parents aren't as familiar with the structure and philosophy that drive an IB academic program;
• parents are happy with the education their child is receiving at Roberts; and
• parents value the Roberts community.

One critical element of an IB program is the use of the Action Cycle.  Choose. Act. Reflect.  There was one comment that warmed the hearts of the faculty and I think it will warm your heart too.  This IB learner is fully engaged in the action cycle.

Our dog recently died. My 1st grade daughter's response was to make a book with photos and pictures she has drawn and short memories of our dog, and she also wanted to make T-shirts that said "Remember Hassan." She wanted very much to "do" something about our situation. I think she has been very influenced by the IB culture as practiced at Roberts, where students are always learning about the world as a global village, and discovering that they have an active part in it. My kids understand that their actions have an impact, and that they can have a positive affect, a negative affect, or do nothing. I think this is such an important component of education: that instead of keeping the bigger picture and the reason for all this learning to ourselves, we are daily involving the students in it, and guiding them as they learn how to process their own emotions and responses to the world around them.

 

Testing Calendar
April 2-3 4th grade STAAR Writing
April 2-3 5th grade STAAR Math/Reading
April 23-24 3rd & 4th grade STAAR Math/Reading
April 24 5th grade STAAR Science
May 6-10 Stanford (1st - 5th)