Dear Parents and Students,
We had a great field trip last week with awesome weather. Thank you to all the chaperones that came to make the trip a success.
Scholastic book orders are due on Thursday. Today Rosa Parks will come to give registration cards to all 5th graders. I am not sure of the timeline, but those forms will be due back soon. Report cards are distributed tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a slightly crazy day in the am because we have club pictures.
We have started another book club last week and each child will have a book and an assignment. They have a week to complete the assignment. We will be meeting every Thursday. They should have a syllabus in their reading section.
It is important that the children be here on time in the morning. If your child is absent you need to send in a note, even if you have called the school.
We are always in need of donations. If you would like to send in tissues, liquid soap, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes (to clean desks periodically), baby wipes for the white board we just got and Ziploc bags that would be great, but it is not required.
Every Friday you should be signing the Behavior Sheet. Also please check your child's planner daily for stamps that indicate homework has not been done.
Every day the students will have time to eat a small healthy snack since we do not eat lunch until 1:00. The students might also find that my room is a little cool and they can wear a sweat shirt or sweater during class.
The independent reading log is next Friday. Each student is required to read for 20 minutes at least 4 times a week for a total of 8 times in two weeks. Please sign your name on the paper to verify that your child did the required independent reading. They can “count” any reading that they do for school as part of their reading time. The students will be given their independent reading log. After reading a novel they need to complete the assignment in a mini journal they need to get from me.
Math: we have been working on geometry. We have measured angles and discussed the different types. We have also used supplementary, vertical and complimentary angles to determine the measures of missing angles. We started naming triangles based on their sides and angles. Today we will work with the different types of quadrilaterals to classify them. Later this week we will calculate the different sums of interior angles of various polygons.
Reading: In whole group we are working on specific reading strategies and test taking skills. We will have our test on Call it Courage and Trumpet of the Swan on Friday. One Eyed Cat has read through the middle of ch. 4 should finish the book this week and there will be a test next week. We have been working on placing sticky notes as they are reading for discussion points when we meet as a group. Each child has a packet with vocabulary, literary devices, questions and writing activities. They should be writing the assignments to be completed in their reading journal’s table of contents. They are also writing their homework down at the beginning of the day and then I told them to mark a check if they completed the assignment during reading time. You should always be able to find all of the reading work in their notebook which should be taken home nightly.
Science: For the rest of quarter 3 we will be having science on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. We have been looking at what makes our planet unique to support life as we know it. We have also completed research about other planets as well as meteors, comets and asteroids. Tomorrow we will be discussing the phases of the moon and then getting into solar and lunar eclipse. There will be a quiz on Thursday (hopefully) about: rotation vs. revolution, how our planet is unique, nonrenewable/ renewable resources, moon phases, eclipses, and shadow tracking from the field trip.
Spelling: This week the spelling will be lesson 10 traditional. All four assignments are due on Thursday. Remember if they choose to type their work, they need to print it out and staple it in their spelling journal. We have been doing spelling from Thursday to Thursday. So the tests will typically be on Thursday and the homework is due on Thursday too. We made this change because as a fifth grade we had to regroup some of the students because of their reading levels. Thursday will be our only homeroom time after whole group reading lesson.
Language arts: We are continuing to focus on word choice this week. We also are continuing to “take apart” the pieces to an essay and focusing on topic sentences and supporting details. We will work on correcting/editing their work to correct punctuation, capitalization. We will have a grammar (DOL) quiz on Thursdays.
Important Dates:
February 1: Club pictures
February 2: Scholastic book orders are due
