Week of October 25th

Conferences:
This was an unexpectedly short and fast week! I enjoyed meeting with all of you at conferences.
Please know that you may contact me at anytime with questions or concerns!

Next Week:
- Next week will be a bit different. I will be out Monday and Tuesday for meetings at the middle school. If you need to contact me, please use email, and I will be able to get back with you! Friday all three of the 5th grade teachers will be out for a conference on differentiated learning.

Writing: We have been writing narratives and are now going to be starting expository pieces. We will begin with biographies: students will be interviewing a partner and writing this information into a biographical pieces.

Math: Next week we will begin the first of 2 units on division. We will continue to review multiplication.

Reading: Students will be broken up into 4 groups and reading various novels for Guided Reading. The focus will be on comprehension strategies, vocabulary, and topics such as simile, metaphor, personification, etc.

Science: Monday students will wrap up there projects and present them by Tuesday.
The test for Objects in the Sky will most likely be on Friday, October 15th.

Homework: I generally don't give homework over long breaks.

                     Reading: I have spoken about this with the class, but probably should discuss again.       Reading at least 4-5 days each week should be considered homework. Whatever your child prefers to read- magazine articles, short stories, novels, fiction, non-fiction - is fine. They should read what interests them in order to encourage the joy of reading. At school students are reading what is chosen for them (other than their SSR book). They may bring their SSR book back and forth to school or choose something else. I have many magazines at school that they may check out.

Have a great weekend!!

Week of October 25th

Orange Day:
Wednesday was "Orange Day" our version of a Harvest party. Thank you to Jenn Eastman's parents for getting 18 pumpkins for our classrooms. We estimated and then got the actual weight of our pumpkins. We then created a graph to show results. Students guessed which pumpkin had the most seeds-not the largest as they thought. Thank you to all the parents who came to assist groups in carving and counting seeds. We also appreciated the cupcakes and candy for the guessing jar.

 

 

Conferences-Tuesday

In case you are checking the blog this morning about conferences:
YES- we are having conferences tonight (Tuesday 26th).
Thank you to everyone who came on Monday night!

Next week: 


Monday:      Math Test
                     Spelling Test
                     Reading and math homework due.
                     Conferences


Tuesday:       Conferences


Wednesday:   ORANGE DAY! Wear orange, black if you don't 
                         have orange!
  
                      Release Time 2:30-3:30
                      Last day of school for the week!
                      FRIDAY SCHEDULE: We will run a Friday 
                             specials this day- we'll have Art instead of Music.


PENNY WAR: I will send home a note about the penny war soon as well as post to the blog. But if your child is talking about it-
   In brief, it is our fifth grade fundraiser for the end-of-the-year field trip to the dunes.
   The classes compete to raise the most money-pennies count for you, other coins against you.
   It is the last 3 days of school before Thanksgiving break.


I'm sure the kids were happy to be done with MEAP this week! They completed the math and science MEAPs.  Because of this testing we had loose ends to wrap up each day which made for a bit of a strange week for them.


Math: We have been reviewing concepts and completed the study guide. I always review any problems students had difficulty with as a group and/or individually. The test over Chapter 2 is Monday. We will begin our division unit Tuesday.
MANY students need to practice multiplication and division math facts. They will need to know them for all future units and knowing them well will save them time and stress.   


Writing: Students should be completing their "River Tour" narrative pieces by next Tuesday.


Reading: We finished reading "Guests" which is the focal novel of our historical fiction genre unit with a theme of dealing with change. We also read "Brother Eagle, Sister Sky" this week, an adaptation of Chief Seattle's speech when asked to allow our government to buy their lands. We writing written responses to focus questions which requires students to follow an answer plan and write from what they  learn from reading and discussing the text.
We will begin guided reading groups after the break.


Science: Students are working in groups to make a poster that gives information about a planet that they chose to research. They will present these on Tuesday.

In the Classroom

Spelling: We learned about silent letters and the different ways to make the initial sound in the word "kite". We have also been continuing to review nouns, pronouns, common nouns, and proper nouns. Students had a quiz on Friday over this topic.

Writing: Students are writing a narrative story about a trip down a river of their choice. Along the way they will encounter animals and will describe their trip. We are focusing on narrative, writing inviting introductions, and using strong detail to show not just tell what is happening.

Reading: We continue reading Guests from our historical fiction genre unit. We have been pre-reading comprehension questions, discussing them as we read and marking the places where we find possible answers or clues to answers. We have learned about the genre of legend and about Pour Quoi tale elements.

Math: We have been reviewing concepts learned each day. New concepts this week are multiplying whole numbers and relating them to the distributive property, multiplying decimals and looking for decimal patterns when multiplying decimals by 10, 100, and 1,000. The test over multiplication will likely be Friday, October 22nd.

Science:  What causes the ocean tides? The gravitational pull of the moon as it moves around the Earth. There are 2 high tides and 2 low tides each day. We watched a video clip to illustrate this concept and looked at an interactive of the Bay of Fundi's high and low tides.

CONFERENCES: A reminder that 5th grade students will be sitting in on his/her conference this year. IF you would prefer that your child not be included in the conference, please let me know. I will still share the information your child gives me.

MEAP TESTING

This week students took the reading sections of the MEAP test. Next week we will do the math and science sections. Please be sure your child has a good breakfast and snack as they should each day.

Outdoor Discovery Center

Despite a little rain in the morning, we had a great day! What students learned will be excellent background knowledge for upcoming social studies curriculum. Students had the opportunity to play a game called Double Ball and try their hand at the atlatle, which is something like shooting a bow and arrow. They also looked at several artifacts and worked together to decide what they were made from and what their use was. We learned about Native American homes from our area and even made a 3 pole house! Those are just a few activities from a fun and informative day!

Black and Gold Day!

Today our 5th graders sponsored Black and Gold Day to support our Hawkeye football team. They went into the lower El. classrooms to help them make black and gold necklaces which was fun for them! It was a sea of black and gold at school! GO HAWKEYES!

Delta Math

Delta Math:

We began our math groups this week. We will be breaking up into groups each Wednesday and Thursday to focus on math needs in small groups. This week we focused on subtraction with regrouping as we are seeing some areas that need to be “cleaned up”. 

Groups will be fluid and everyone will not be working on the same skill at the same time as we continue throughout the year. We will still be continuing our usual math schedule.

Student-Led Conferences

CONFERENCES:  If you haven’t sent a conference form in, please do so. We will call if we don’t hear from you.

This year all 5^th grades at Hamilton El.  will be having STUDENT-LED conferences. I will begin by sharing what I need to share with you, but hopefully your child will be available to join us. He/she will be filling out information about him/herself ahead of time and will share this information with you.

Fied Trip Reminder

FIELD TRIP MONEY IS DUE MONDAY OCT. 11^th!

Wednesday, October 13^th, 5th grade classes will be going to the Outdoor Discovery Center. We will be learning about Native American cultures and history which is a large part of our social studies curriculum this fall. Students always enjoy this field trip.  A separate reminder note for this trip will come home next week, and we will collect money at that time. Here is what you can plan ahead for:
   *The cost for each student is $5.  > If this is an issue, please let me know!
   * Students should bring a completely disposable sack lunch
   * PLEASE dress in layers! DO have a jacket or sweatshirt. We will be outside all day.
   * Wear comfortable shoes.