Updates and Announcements

What a wonderful week! We are loving the cooler weather and using the outdoor spaces on our campus more and more every week.

The tutoring sessions on Thursdays are going to no longer include math. Instead, Mrs. Anderson will be tutoring on Grammar. I know our students will benefit from this extra instruction.

Please send water bottles to school with students. Most of our students have them, but we are encouraging students to use their water bottles instead of taking class time to go to the water fountain.

We are going to start having “Free Choice Friday” during our bell-work time on Fridays. Students will be able to bring in their favorite non-pop culture games, read, or talk with friends before the bell rings instead of doing bell work. This is an activity that can be earned throughout the week. Students will know at the end of the day Thursday if they earned this privilege.

Our week in learning

Our students worked diligently on their descriptive writing paragraphs last week.  We have discussed how to use the writing process to make revisions and this week we will take our papers to publication by creating a class book.  We will also introduce compound elements and conjunctions in grammar.  We have had several requests for grammar tutoring, so beginning next week, there will be grammar tutoring on Thursdays (instead of Math) from 3:05-3:40 pm.  

We have also completed our 25 roots for the first quarter.  Students will receive a root review which they should begin working on.  We will take a test over roots 1-25 on Wednesday, Oct. 5th.  Please begin studying now!  

In Literature we are almost done reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  We will finish the book this week and are looking forward to literature celebration on Friday, October, 7th.  More details are forthcoming!

All of our students did a lovely job on their recitations last week, and we also introduced our next poem, “Narcissa,” by Gwendolyn Brooks.  Students should be prepared to recite their poem by Wednesday, October 5th.

We are continuing the chemistry unit this week. We will be reading The Mystery of the Periodic Table and taking notes throughout. We finally learn how the modern Periodic Table was organized.

The due date for the Science Fair Essay is quickly approaching! Please ensure that your child is working on the project such that they will be able to turn their essay in the last school day before Fall Break!

This week in history, we will continue learning about the Aztec culture and cover the Incas. Students will get their study guides on Thursday for their unit test. The unit test will be on Friday, October 7th. Note that this test is the day before students leave for Fall Break so students can partake in rest and relaxation! Students will continue journalling from the perspective of an Aztec or Inca at the end of each lesson.

This week we will review all of the material in Unit 2, and will take the test on Thursday.  We will complete in class review of multiplication and division on Monday, and will then review order of operations as well as bar models on Tuesday.  During our Wednesday math groups we will complete the Unit Cumulative Review. If your student needs extra help, please be sure they attend tutoring on Monday and Wednesday!

Study Skill of the Week

Flashcards can contain many different types of information. Many students think we just use them for math facts, phonograms, and vocabulary words. We can also write the questions for study guides on one side and the answer on the other. For example, one side says “Which civilization developed an accurate calendar based on the sun?” and the other side says the answer, which is “Maya”. Encourage your children to make flashcards based on study guides or worksheets that are send home. They will get to review the information while creating the flashcards, then a valuable resource to quiz themselves when they are done.

Updates and Announcements

I look forward to teaching parents about our Singapore and Spalding curricula this Wednesday for Math and Phonics night. Parents will get the opportunity to work through word problems and mark words-just to name a few things. I hope to see many 5A parents there!

Our week in learning

This week in writing we will begin our first formal piece of writing, a descriptive paragraph.  Students will choose a topic and will then go through the writing process to revise and edit for a final copy.  In literature we will continue to study characterization by finding textual evidence to support our inferences about the characters.  Students should be working to memorize their poems, and recitations will begin on Wednesday!

We are continuing the chemistry unit this week. We will be reading The Mystery of the Periodic Table and taking notes throughout. We will learn about the pitfalls and successes of the early chemists.

Students should continue be working on their project at home!

This week in history, we will continue learning about the Maya culture. Students will get to participate in a friendly game of pok-ta-pok and engage in a socratic discussion involving the disappearance of the Maya. Students will continue journaling from the perspective of a Maya person at the end of each lesson.

All of our students did a wonderful job working through various types of word problems last week!  This week we will begin reviewing and practicing long division and multiplication and will review bar models that use these operations.

Study Skill of the Week:

Starting this week we will begin to introduce new study skills to help the students as they prepare for Prep!  This week we will focus on using flashcards to aid in studying.  Students will practice pulling seven cards to study at one time, putting the cards to the side that they show mastery with, and focusing on the cards that need more review.  They can repeat that process with the remainder of the cards until they have gained mastery of all!

Updates and Announcements

I am so happy that our class is thriving this year! We have such a dynamic group of students who all contribute to our calm and safe classroom atmosphere.

We all loved seeing grandparents on campus for Grandparents Day on Friday. We are so grateful for their wisdom and expertise. We even had the opportunity of having a grandparent volunteer to help us prepare for our next history unit.

Thank you to the Kleenex and hand sanitizer classroom donation!

We began our typing unit last week. We get to use the computers every Friday to complete a typing lesson as a class. We are focusing on keeping fingers on the right spots on the keyboard. If your child would like to work ahead, email me and I can send you the link and their login information.

As this is the first “normal” week for a while, we will have our spelling test on Thursday instead of Friday.

Our week in learning

It’s back to grammar this week as we introduce our next part of speech, pronouns.  We will also be reviewing collective nouns and the simple subject and simple predicate.  In literature we will learn how authors use different methods of characterization to help the reader understand characters in the story.  Our new poem, “A Bird Came Down the Walk,” by Emily Dickinson was introduced last week and students should begin memorizing it.  I was very impressed with all of our recitations last week!

  

We will be reviewing the Scientific Inquiry process. There will be a test on Friday. This will cover the vocabulary words we have learned so far and asks students to apply the to the experiments we have done together in class. Keep in mind that Science Notebooks will be collected and graded on test day. This is a big science grade! The 5th Grade Science Fair project will be assigned this week as well. Be on the look out for it, as the packet requires a parent signature.

This week in history, we will be reviewing for and taking our unit test on World Lakes (Tuesday). We will set up our notebooks for our new unit on Ancient Meso-American Civilizations and begin studying the Maya. Students will have the opportunity to journal from the perspective of a Mayan person.

Our focus this week will be understanding different types of bar models and how to use those models as a way to help us solve word problems.  We will also be reviewing how to use different mental math strategies.  

Updates and Announcements

We look forward to Grandparents’ Day and our first school-wide assembly on Friday. The virtue award for Responsibility will be awarded at that time.

Our week in learning

In writing and grammar this week we will be taking a break from grammar and will spend the week discussing how to write paragraphs that show instead of tell.  In Literature we will continue to read Voyage of the Dawn Treader and will discuss the difference between flat and round characters. We will continue to complete our Spalding note set-up and will receive new words on Tuesday and Wednesday, and will take the test on Thursday. Make sure to keep reviewing our newest roots for the quiz on Wednesday. Stu

We will be reviewing the Scientific Inquiry process. There will be a test on Friday. This will cover the vocabulary words we have learned so far and asks students to apply to the experiments we have done together in class. Keep in mind that Science Notebooks will be collected and graded on test day. This is a big science grade! The 5th Grade Science Fair project will be assigned this week as well. Be on the lookout for it, as the packet requires a parent signature. 

This week in history, we will be continuing our new unit on World Lakes. Students will learn about the lakes of North America and Eurasia. Students will also be taking several short quizzes and creating notecards to prepare for their upcoming test. Study guides will be sent home on Thursday and their test will be on the following Tuesday.

Thank you so much to the parents who volunteered their time to get our math groups up and running.  They were a success thanks to you!  We will begin our next unit covering order of operations, mental math and the distributive property on Monday.