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

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

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)

Monday, February 8, 2009

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

• ER (Esperanza Rising) group complete Passage Master
• RF (Riding Freedom) group complete chp. 3 and questions

Math ~ text page 397 (#3-10)

SS ~ Define vocabulary from "Problems of Colonists" notes

I am going to make a point to update you, the parents, with the topics we have covered in class. I have gotten requests from many of you that you would like to help your child, but you don't know what we talked about in class. Or, more commonly, that your child "didn't learn anything", or "didn't do anything", or "doesn't know what we did" today. So, hopefully this will help you. Like I stated, I am working really hard to update you as often as I can. Please keep in mind that our days need to be flexible and can change at any moment, so please bare with me. Send me an email if you have specific questions.

Today's Objectives:

Math ~ talked about the types of triangles and classified them based on sides and angles; talked about the number of degrees in a triangle and how we came to this conclusion

Reading ~ completed our Word Study book (totally completed in class through class discussion) page 18 using the prefix "out"; worked on our next Writing Menu (again, a classroom assignment); gave time to complete their Literature assignment (see HW for Lang. Arts)

SS ~ talked about and took notes on the problems of the colonists; text pg. 82-83

Science ~ talked about and took notes on the types of clouds; classified clouds

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Today's Homework:
Reading ~ THR 20 minutes
Spelling ~ Choices due on Friday
Math ~ Mrs. Gumbs' group text pg. 279 set E
Science ~ Vocabulary Quiz tomorrow

SMART BOARD

We have a Smart Board in our room! A smart board is like a big computer on a big screen. It allows the students to be more interactive in the lessons during class. We have already completed a graphic organizer on the smart board using our novel The Landry News. We have also used a virtual fractions on a math website. The Smart Board is very cool and so much fun!!

SCIENCE FAIR

Thank you to all who completed a Science Fair project! They are currently on display in our hallways and they look great! Job well done!!

UPDATES

Whew! It has been a crazy month!!! Here are the latest happenings:

• December 4th - 5th grade sleepover with Ms. Ayers (music teacher)
• PTA holiday program is Thursday, December 10
• Our holiday celebration will be held the week of December 14th. More details to follow.
• Mid term reports go home December 9
• December 15th - eye screening for 5th grade
• December 17th - PTA Father/Daughter -- Mother/Son dance 6:00 - 8:30pm
• No school for students December 21-January 1

Monday, November 16, 2009

Today's Homework:

Reading ~ Take Home Reader 20 minutes
Spelling ~ Spelling Activities due on Friday (2 activities need to be complete)
Math ~ Mrs. Gumbs' group WS 9.8 (#10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
Science ~ Science Project due December 1st.

Newspapers

For our next Writing Menu, the students are searching newspapers for their activities. If you have extra used newspapers lying around, please send them in, as we will be using them for the next month. Thanks!

Canned Food

The Student Council is collecting Canned Food until November 20th. Please be considerate and donate a can or two. Thanks!!

Spelling

Your child has 5 words for the week. The 5 words vary from student to student. The words are in your child's binder. They are highlighted. Our focus this week is "r" sounds with a vowel. Here is the entire list for this week:

snore

spare

appear

prepare

pioneer

smear

ignore

engineer

volunteer

declare

Enrichment words: impair, directory, hardware, clearance, porpoise

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Today's Homework:

Reading ~ Take Home Reader 20 minutes
Vocabulary ~ 4 Box WS for the word "weathering"
Math ~ Mrs. Gumbs' math group WS 9.8 circled problems only

Spelling

I have revised Spelling. Each child was given a Spelling pretest on Monday on 10 words. The first 5 words that are incorrect are your child's spelling words for the week. If they got all 10 words correct then their spelling words are the enrichment words. They will be tested on only these 5 words. My purpose in doing this is to create mastery. I felt that by having 20 words, many students were not mastering the phonics that the words had (example: short "a" sounds) and they were not mastering the SPELLING of the words. There will be a test each Friday, which I feel that is a good goal for all students since they are working on knowing their 5 words.

This weeks words focuses on Consonant Blends (sh, ch, ph, etc):

shovel

chapter

hyphen

establish

although

approach

astonish

shatter

charity

pharmacy

Enrichment words: emphasis, sophomore, athlete, phenomenal, chimpanzee

Vocabulary

I have also revised the vocabulary. Your child will need to know 5 words. These words are taken from our content areas: Reading, Math, Social Studies, Science, with a heavy emphasis on S.S. and Science words. I felt the students needed to focus on content vocabulary as I have seen a weakness with these words. I also cut the list down to 5 for each week. They will be tested every Friday on these 5 vocabulary words.

The vocabulary for this week is: weathering, abrasion, erosion, meander, tributary.

Wednesday Folders

PLEASE send back all work for your child's portfolio on Thursday. Be sure to sign the portfolio page, or the progress report that is attached to your child's work. Please go through your child's Wednesday folder. I do not need anything from the "Take Home and Keep" section. Going through your child's folder keeps you informed about the happenings at Gibson.

Cookie Dough

Cookie dough pick up is Friday, November 6 at Gibson from 2-7pm. All cookie dough must be picked up by 7pm on Friday.

UPDATES

Lastly, November is a crazy month with the days off from school. Your child should be reading EVERY night....including weekends. Also, your child should be working on their Science Fair Project. This is due in December, and December will be here before you know it, so don't let time slip away. Remember -- the project MUST be an experiment....NOT a model. Your child will need to TEST something. If your child is having difficulty, ASK. A GOOD science fair project does not have to be difficult. Judges (including myself) are looking for a well thought out plan on something the student has tested and recorded data (pictures, graphs, conclusion, future thoughts as to why or why not the experiment went as planned).

THANK YOU for all that you do for your children.