Thursday, December 9, 2010

December 9, 2010

Well, we've been busy! Here are a few upcoming events that need your attention. Notes went home today about both events.

HOLIDAY CELEBRATION
It's hard to believe the holiday season is here! We will be celebrating our holiday celebration on Friday, December 17th, 2010. A note went home about lunch for that day and about sending in a few special treats for your children. Please read the note (it's on green paper) and send it back tomorrow.
SCIENCE FAIR
Science fair will be held at Gibson on January 18th. ALL fifth grade students are required to complete a science fair project. A packet of science fair information went home with your child today. It has very helpful information as well as the rubric and a diagram of how the board should be laid out. It also contains a "worksheet" for your child to organize his/her thoughts before creating the layout of the science board. PLEASE take the time to read through this packet. This project will counts towards your child's science grade.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

October 13, 2010

Well....it's hard to believe that the first quarter is almost over! The first quarter ends on October 28th. We will have Quarter Testing the week of October 25th.

Progress reports went home today and I will send another report next Wednesday. As we move through the school year, the work will become more challenging for the students. With challenging work comes the need to study nightly. I stress the word nightly because a student who reviews nightly will most likely feel less stress and pressure before taking a test or a quiz. The information will become like second nature to them when daily reviewing is occurring. Please encourage your child to look at and study spelling words, vocabulary words, math concepts/math notes, science vocabulary.

Also, if a "YES" is listed in the late column on the progress report, your child does need to turn in the assignment in order to receive credit. A "YES" in the exempt column on the progress report means that your child do not need to turn in the work and the score will not be averaged into your child's grade.

Much of our Reading strategies occur in the classroom through oral discussion. This is what most adults do anyway when they are in a book club, or when the same book has been read by two people. Much, much discussion is happening in our classroom. This is a different strategy than most students are accustomed. Please encourage your child to give their utmost attention to the listening skills they need to succeed in reading comprehension.


Behavior reports also went home today. These reports reflect the work habits and behavior habits of your child from October 4 - October 8. Many of these habits are part of our Classroom PRIDE. These include following directions the first time given, talking at the appropriate voice volume, etc. While these habits may seem minor (if checked on the report), please know that if your child has a checked habit, it has occurred in the classroom more than once. The Classroom PRIDE rules are posted and students do know the rules....now they just need to apply the rules to their own behaviors.

Fundraiser information went home in the Wednesday folder. Please do what you can to help raise money for our school....thank you!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Working Hard!

We have been working very hard in the classroom!!

In math, we are working on learning how to solve for unknown numbers, solving math word problems, and reviewing median, mode, and range. Upcoming topics will include interpreting graphs and a review of coordinate graphing.

In reading, we have busy beavers! We are learning about word structure, studying new vocabulary words, adn learning about the parts of speech. We are learning what words are nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. We are also reviewing prefixes and suffixes. We have read 2 selections that focus on heritage. One story took place in Vietnam and the second story took us on a trip to Senegal! What fun!!

In social studies, we just finished learning about the 5 Themes of Geography. We will have a study guide to work on and then a test to follow shortly.

In science, we are continuing our work on food chains and food webs. Students will be constructing a food web based on a group of animals that they have researched. We also have been learning about how humans affect an environment, and also about the living and nonliving organisms that are in an ecosystem.

In writing, we are continuing our work on our writing menu. The students have been working very hard despite the technological slowness of our computers! This is very trying for some of the students, but they are working through the difficulties and coming out ahead! We will finish our writing menu on October 5th.

We have our first Grizzly Den Store visit this Friday. The students are looking forward to spending their hard earned Den Dollars!

Lastly, I just have a few things in which I would like to touch base with you:
  • Progress Reports go home tomorrow. These are for you to KEEP. You do not need to send these back to school.
  • Graded work does not to be returned if it is in the "Take Home and Keep" pocket of the Wednesday folder. However, any work that is stapled and requires your signature needs to be returned in the Wednesday folder and brought in on Thursday. All Wednesday folders need to be brought to school on Thursday.
  • Curriculum Night is Thursday, Sept. 30th from 6-7pm. We will give an overview of the curriculum for this year during this time.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back to a new school year! I have enjoyed meeting many of you and your children at Open House. I look forward to a great school year.



There are a few items which I believe will help with this school year.


  • Grading Scale: The grading scale is a 7 point scale. All graded items will be graded according to this scale. The scale is posted on the side of the blog page, but it is as follows:

A 100 -- 93


B 92 -- 85


C 84 -- 78


D 77 -- 69


F 68 -- below



  • Tests/Quizzes: By now, your child has already had a test and/or quiz in one or more subject areas. Every Friday your child will have a Weekly Math Quiz. This quiz will cover a majority of the material that I teach in class. A good resource for reference/study is the daily Math Calendar. I also will give a Study Guide for MOST Science and Social Studies tests/quizzes. The students keep these guides in their notebooks. These guides are a great tool for reviewing the material.

  • Calendar Math: Daily Calendar Math is the first item your child completes in class. The amount of time it takes to complete this work depends a great deal on the amount of time your child actively works at his/her work. There is about 25 minutes for Calendar Math to be completed. Calendar Math is a daily REVIEW of concepts that are taught during Math class, so completing Calendar Math should not be difficult. Please encourage your child to come to school and focus

Monday, February 22, 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

Today's Homework:
Take Home Reader 20 minutes
Reading
  • Esperanza Rising -- assignment due tomorrow -- check your child's response journal for his/her assignment
  • Riding Freedom -- no homework

Math -- Angles WS

Today's Objectives:

Math -- took a test on Angles, Triangles, Polygons; reviewed Calendar Math

Reading -- worked on Writing Menu and our Hard Bound Books -- we will be working on these for the next few weeks

SS -- worked in pairs to take notes on "Americans and the Revolution"

Science -- took a test on Weather, Clouds, Weather Fronts

FREEDOM TRAIL field trip money AND permission slip due Tuesday, February 23, 2010. Our trip is Friday, February 26, 2010. Thank you to all who have already sent in their child's money and permission slip.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Today's Homework:
Take Home Reader 20 minutes

Reading ~
  • ER -- finish summary; collecting journals tomorrow
  • RF -- read chapter 5; collecting journals tomorrow

Math ~ text pg. 402 (#4-15)

SS ~ finish "Declaring Independence" notes WS

Today's Objectives:

Math ~ discussed polygons -- types of polygons, number of degrees in each polygon, how to find the degrees in a polygon; regular and irregular polygons

Reading ~ worked on our Word Study book -- focusing on the suffix "s"; began a discussion on finding the main idea and supporting details and how these differ when reading fiction and nonfiction; read Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday to prepare for finding main idea and supporting details from this story tomorrow; students worked on writing menu; met with Esperanza Riding group and had a great discussion regarding the Great Depression, dust storms, migration, and the Mexican Revolution

SS ~ students worked in groups of 3 and took notes on the text they read yesterday pg. 88-89

Science ~ students worked in groups of 3 and began working on their study guide for Clouds, Weather Fronts, Atmospheric Movement -- Coach book pg. 101-107

UPCOMING EVENTS:

We have 2 reading programs (in addition to our AR program).

The first, EBOB -- Elementary Battle of the Books, began right before winter break. For this program, students need to read the 12 EBOB books and have an average of 85% or higher to qualify for the competition, which will be held after spring break.

The second, WS Dash -- students read 5 books within a time frame and score 80% or higher on each of the 5 books. The students receive a special prize after each set of 5 books.

Please encourage your child to read. These are excellent programs and they are FREE to you!

FREEDOM TRAIN field trip money is due by February 24th. The trip costs $9. We will be going on our trip on Friday, February 26th. This information was sent home in the Wednesday folder.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Today's Homework:
Reading ~ Take Home Reader 20 minutesLanguage Arts ~

  • ER (Esperanza Rising) group complete Word Wizard
  • RF (Riding Freedom) group complete chp. 3 and questions due tomorrow

Math ~ Triangle WS complete triangles B,C,D,E (measure the interior angles of the triangles)

SS ~ complete textboxes on pages 84-85

Today's Objectives:
Math ~ continued Triangles....measured the interior angles of a triangle; went over HW

Reading ~ completed our Word Study book (totally completed in class through class discussion) page 19 using the prefix "out"; worked on our next Writing Menu (again, a classroom assignment);

read The Giving Tree -- we are working on inferences this week (drawing conclusions) and I am using this book to have the students draw conclusions about love, gifts, and happiness. We are working on this all week. At the end of the week, we will write about the love, gifts, and happiness the Boy received in the book and draw conclusions about our own lives and how and why we show love, happiness, etc. This is a "deep" concept for the students, but I know they can handle it and the thoughts that go with questions such as, "how do you know you are loved?" -- "can you be happy without getting gifts?"

SS ~ students read about the colonists preparing for war (text pg.84-85); went over HW

Science ~ continued classifying clouds based on their height in the atmosphere (refer to Coach book pg. 101-103)