Dear 5A,

Thank you for such a wonderful semester! Ms. Vaughn and I would like to thank you for your generous presents. We feel so loved and appreciated this season. One of my favorite holiday traditions is taking all of the presents from students home and putting them under our tree. With Paul (Mr. Lynch) working as an assistant in 3C, our tree was overflowing!

The students left our classroom in beautiful condition. I hope everyone has a joyous and restful Winter Break! We will be traveling to Montana to visit Paul’s family. Have a wonderful and well earned break!

Best,

Brianna Lynch

Updates and announcements

What a wonderful time of year! I hope everyone’s weekend was restful and fulfilling. This weekend, the fifth grade teachers got together and made the kids holiday presents. They will be passed out today at the end of school.

This Wednesday, we will clean out the students’ desks and put the contents of their desks in a bag so the cleaning crew can move the desks easier for carpet cleaning. On Wednesday, please send in either a reusable grocery bag or 2-3 plastic grocery bags for students to put the contents of their desks in.

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “Read between the lines”.

In Literature, we will finish the year with a poetry unit. Students will learn about different literary techniques, such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, metaphors, personification, and symbolism. They will also find these literary devices in poems.

In Writing and Grammar, students compete with a fun diagramming wars activity.

We are finishing up our unit on plant and animal cells this week as the quarter draws to a close. Monday will be a hands on review day-students are very excited to build their own plant or animal cells out of candy components! Tuesday, students have a quiz over the plant and animal cells. Because it is so close to the holidays and this was a short unit, this quiz will be open notes. Students may use any of their study materials in their own science notebooks. If they are missing any notes, students should be sure to find a friend whose notes are complete before Tuesday.

This week in History, students will finish presenting their State Brochure projects. It has been a joy to hear those who have presented already, and we look forward to hearing from the remaining students.

In math, we will have our test over the unit on perimeter, area, and surface area on Monday. We will play review games on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Updates and announcements

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Mine was full of candy making and eval writing. One of my favorite parts of the season is making candy for my private violin students and co-workers. I can tell the students are excited for the holidays coming up.

Check out the wish list! We are running very low on hand sanitizer and kleenex.

Please continue to let me know if you student will be out of school. My goal (same as every year), is to have my evaluations done before we all leave for Winter Break. My biggest obstacles are make-up assessments and we are all caught up as of today! I love getting to write about your children and I want to make sure they are a true reflection of your children’s hard work this year.

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “A penny saved is a penny earned”.

The roots test over #26-50 will be on 12/12.

In Literature, we will finish the year with a poetry unit. Students will learn about different literary techniques, such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, metaphors, personification, and symbolism. They will also find these literary devices in poems.

In Writing and Grammar, students will take their mid-year grammar test on Tuesday, 12/4. Throughout the week, we will finish our fun essay “Wait, wait, don’t shoot!”. The students will take on the point of view of a turkey around the holidays who is trying to convince the farmer to eat something else for dinner. Students will hand write their final drafts in class, then type them. Students will also have their first writing workshop of the year. On Wednesday, students will spend most of the day going through the writing process and getting feedback throughout the steps. This is in preparation for AZMerit, where students will be expected to write a 5 paragraph essay in one sitting in April.

Students will continue studying cells this week. We will learn about the organelles in the plant cell and how it differs from the animal cell, and learn about how cells divide in mitosis. On Thursday, students will do a cell cycle activity in to help solidify the steps of the cell cycle. Due to how short this unit is, students will have an open notes assessment on the 18th. We are looking forward to seeing all our families at the 5th grade science fair on Wednesday, December 12th from 5:00PM to 6:30PM in the Arete gym to display all of the 5th grades science projects!

This week in History, students will present two times. On Monday and Tuesday, students will present their group projects on feudal Japan. Chapters 1-3 will present on Monday, and chapters 4-5 will present on Tuesday. Wednesday there will be no History, as it will be a day for an extensive writing workshop. On Thursday and Friday, students will present their State brochure projects, which are all due on Thursday.

In math, we will continue our unit on Perimeter, Area, and Surface Area. We will look into the area of a parallelogram, and the surface area of rectangular prisms. The final test of the quarter will be on Monday, 12/17. Please note that we will have frequent quizzes in math. When a “b” quiz comes home for homework, that means there will likely be a quiz the next day. This means there will be frequent, low stakes math quizzes. There will be no math groups this week.

Updates and announcements

Can you believe we only have 2 ½ weeks left before Winter Break? Wow! Our students have grown so much and still have a lot to accomplish before then! If there are any planned absences, please let me know and I will accommodate tests for students to make up before they leave.

With the season of giving upon us, students in the past have enjoyed exchanging Secret Santa gifts. While this is sweet for the students to do, it does cause problems for the functioning of our class. We end up with the presents crowding the backpack area, some hurt feelings when some students are not included, then a whole new round of gift giving to fix the hurt feelings! I kindly ask that if students choose to do a Secret Santa exchange, it takes place outside of school. If students would like to give a present to everyone in the class, they may do so during our party on Wednesday, December 19^th .

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “Out of the frying pan and into the fire”.

Students will recite “The Snowstorm” on 12/5. We extended the due date due to the complexity of the poem and our Thanksgiving break in the middle. PLEASE NOTE: though it is not long, this is a tricky poem to memorize last minute because it does not rhyme. Students should work a little every night to memorize this beautiful poem. Students picked groups in which to recite their poems together.

The roots quiz for last week’s roots will take place on Wednesday. Students will turn in their 2nd Quarter Roots Study Guide on Wednesday, 12/5, and review it in class. The roots test over #26-50 will be on 12/12.

In Literature, we will finish reading “Where the Red Fern Grows”. Students will continue their journal entries. For every chapter, students will write one 5-6 sentence paragraph about a virtue a character showed during that chapter. Notebooks will be collected on Friday, 12/7, so all journal entries should be done by then. Please note, the last two chapters are very sad and we may have some weepy students after school. They grow so attached to the story and the beautiful characters.

In Writing and Grammar, students will take their mid-year grammar test on Tuesday, 12/4. Throughout the week, we will learn about persuasive essays and begin work on the fun essay “Wait, wait, don’t shoot!”. The students will take on the point of view of a turkey around the holidays who is trying to convince the farmer to eat something else for dinner.

We will begin our study of cells this week with a review of the differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, with a deeper dive into the characteristics of each. We will also study the layout of plant and animal cells, and learn what each of their organelles does. Students should pay careful attention to their in class notes, as they will be able to use them on their assessment on the 18th.

This week in History, students will learn about feudal Japan by completing a group project. This unit has 5 chapters, and the class will be split up into 5 groups. Each group will be assigned a chapter, and create a presentation to share with the class. Presentations will take place next Monday and Tuesday (December 10th and 11th). All work will be completed in class. Students have also been individually assigned one of the United States, and will create a brochure on said State to present in class. Students will have some research time in class to work on this assignment, including an opportunity to do research on computers. The brochure is due on Thursday, December 13th, and presentations will take place that Thursday and Friday, as well as the following Monday (12/17).

In math, we will continue our unit on Perimeter, Area, and Surface Area. We will look into the area of a rectangle, and explore the reasons behind the equation for the area of a triangle. Please note that we will have frequent quizzes in math. When a “b” quiz comes home for homework, that means there will likely be a quiz the next day. This means there will be frequent, low stakes math quizzes. We will continue our normally scheduled math groups on Wednesday, 8:00-9:15.