Students in all classes grades 3-5 will be taking their Standards of Learning (SOL) tests online this year. This will eventually be done across the district but Mary Williams students are in on the forefront. This will enable us to receive the results faster and help us be able to more effectively meet the needs of our students. My homeroom students will take the Reading test on Thursday May 20, their math test on Monday May 27th, and their science test on Tuesday June 1. It is important students get a good night's sleep the night before the test. I have noticed some drooping eyes lately, so I thank you in advance for supporting me in my wish that your child get the most sleep possible. It would also benefit your child to eat a good breakfast the day of the test. As you may know, there is not a Virginia SOL test for fifth graders for social studies. However, there is a district test, and that test date has not been determined as yet, but should be sometime in June. These results will be compiled and reported to the district office, but they do not factor into the Adequate Yearly Progress measurement for the school and individual reports will not be distributed to parents. If you have any questions about SOL testing, please feel free to contact me.

As my students get ready for the Reading and Math SOL tests coming up later this month, I want to challenge them all to knock me off the high score table when they play review games on the Study Island website, www.studyisland.com. This week's math challenge is Mean, Median, Mode, and Range and the game of the week is Home Run Derby. In language arts, the challenge skill is Drawing Conclusions Next week there will be a new skill for each subject and a new game for you to try your luck with. I hope as many of my students can knock me off as possible...really! Have fun getting ready for our SOL tests, which will be taken online this year!

This is a Power Point presentation I used in class that gives an overview of complete sentences, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences and allows the students to practice several times at the end of the presentation. This is great preparation for the writing SOL test which is coming in the first week of March. Feel free to open or save it to your desktop from this file.

This is a study guide for the SOL Science Test on the subject of Magnetism and Electricity which is a fourth grade standard but tested in fifth grade.