DATES:
Oct. 25 and 26............. No School
November 1st.............. Field Trip 

I am so glad that all of you were able to come to conferences! Please know that if you felt that you needed more time that you are welcome to call or come in at another time!

My Blog gives information about the week, pictures, etc.

My fusion page has links for learning, calendar, sometimes announcements.. please check this out.

http://homeroom-grad.hamiltones.hamiltonschools.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/integrated_home.phtml?gid=2239663&sessionid=9fb6e2fef5193652e81294865f4aa881

HOMEWORK: DUE WEDNESDAY!

Reading at home: I am hoping students have been reading at home frequently. Monday, October 1st we began our first monthly reading assignment. Students chose a novel and will read this over the month of October. We discussed the assignment again today to remind and review.   

Math:   

We have been focusing on decimal place value, comparing decimals, and rounding decimals. I am looking to have the test next Friday. There will be a study guide for this.

LOOK AT MY FUSION PAGE!                                                
If you click the "Place Value" link, several tutorials and practice sites will be there. This would be good review for those who need it. 

MATH FACTS: Please practice math facts with your child. Keeping a set in the car may be a good idea. A few minutes frequently during the week will be quite helpful. Division is something most students need to work on.

Reading:
We continue in our  genre unit reading Guests, a historical fiction novel. We have talked about legends and pourquois, or "why" stories this week and had a lot of discussion about the book plot, character motives and actions, as well as vocabulary in context. We also worked on a summary of the legend from the book.
Writing:
River Tour pieces are due Monday- students who feel unable to reach that deadline know that they should be discussing this with me so we can work out a plan and there is no stress. We also discussed a new short Spooky Halloween story that uses onomatopoeia, or sound words, such as "crash", "boom", etc. Next week we will also write a short persuasive piece.

Spelling:  No spelling this week, except for review.

Science:
 Research projects on the solar system are due Tuesday.

Enjoy the long weekend!!

Oct. 15th - Oct 19th

DATES:
Oct. 25 and 26............. No School
November 1st.............. Field Trip 

Math and Reading Homework due Monday Oct. 22nd


MEAP took up much time this week so it slowed us down a bit. I was very impressed with my class as they really gave this assessment a good amount of time, and were respectful and quiet for others when they were finished!

MORE Field Trip: Normally we don't have two field trips so close together, but we will be going on November 1st to the Planetarium and to a play about native Americans and the museum. We will be putting in a WISH request for parent volunteers for this trip.


HOMEWORK: Reading at home: I am hoping students have been reading at home frequently. Monday, October 1st we began our first monthly reading assignment. Students chose a novel and will read this over the month of October. We discussed the assignment again Today to remind and review.   


Math: We have investigated all concepts in our Place Value unit and will be reviewing next week. Students need to know place value to 100 billion and decimals to the thousandths. They should be able to write numbers in standard, word, and expanded form, round whole numbers and decimals, and compare and order whole numbers and decimals.
We have watched tutorials- most are on my fusion page- worked whole class, in small groups and individually. I have students fix mistakes with me to be sure they are on the right track and see who I need to assist further. I am trying to help students understand that just because they finished the paper or tutorial, or website, doesn't mean they are done- if we struggled, were confused, etc. we need to ask for extra help, extra practice activities, watch the tutorial again, etc...

MATH FACTS: Please practice math facts with your child. Keeping a set in the car may be a good idea. A few minutes frequently during the week will be quite helpful. Division is something most students need to work on.

Reading:
We continue in our  genre unit reading Guests, a historical fiction novel. This novel is a little more difficult read as it contains quite a bit of inferencing. We are having a lot of discussion along the way. We have been noting the author techniques of  personification, metaphors, and similes as there so SO many of them!


Writing:
 Students have completed their plans and are drafting their river tour pieces. Students will be able to choose how they wish to share their final drafts- write it, put it on a google doc, Power Point, digital flipbook, or some other digital format. Anything digital will be uploaded to their personal websites. 
  Friday we also reviewed similes and descriptive language. The class used these skills to write a poem about fall which you can check out on the bulletin board outside our classroom.

Spelling:  Next week's skill for lesson 7 is compound words.
  Spelling tests are every Friday. Monday begins the new lesson. The spelling list will be sent home Monday.  If you go on my fusion page, there are directions to get to Spelling City where students can play games and take practice tests over the spelling lists for each week.


Science:
We had our quiz on Wednesday- we reviewed 2 days in class and students were to study at home. Students will be began research projects on the solar system, working in pairs or threes to research a planet and present their information in a poster or digital format. 

Have a great weekend and I will see you at conferences!

Field Trip photos!

Making fire!

Making fire!

Summer home-wagenogan

cooking area

throwing tomahawks

Snow goggles

This basket smelled like maple syrup!

A bladder used for a canteen!

Preparing to throw tomahawks

WEEK OF OCT. 8-12

DATES:

Friday, Oct. 12.............Outdoor Discovery Center Field Trip
Oct. 16th and 17th.......MEAP Testing  (math and science)
November 1st..............Field Trip 2

MEAP Testing is Tuesday and Wednesday. Please be sure your children are well-rested, have a good breakfast, and a snack. I keep animal crackers at school all of the time for those who need snacks!


Field Trip- I will post pictures from the Outdoor Discovery Center on Sunday with some information about our trip.
 
MORE Field Trip: Normally we don't have two field trips so close together, but we will be going on November 1st to the Planetarium and to a play about native Americans and the museum. We will be putting in a WISH request for parent volunteers for this trip.

Math:We continue in our Place Value unit and are now working on decimals. This will include place value , rounding and comparing decimals. We have been working in centers most of the time this school year. This consists of a few minutes of introducing a concept to the whole class, then groups where students work with me, watch a video tutorial, work on a paper assignment, practice on a website, play a game focused on that skill, etc.


MATH FACTS: Please practice math facts with your child. Keeping a set in the car may be a good idea. A few minutes frequently during the week will be quite helpful. Division is something most students need to work on.

Reading:
We began reading Guests this week. This novel is a little more difficult read as it contains quite a bit of inferencing. We are having a lot of discussion along the way. We have been noting the author techniques of  personification, metaphors, and similes as there so SO many of them! We began a story map and worked on vocabulary. (MEAP was two days of our reading)

HOMEWORK: Reading at home: I am hoping students have been reading at home frequently. Monday, October 1st we began our first monthly reading assignment. Students chose a novel and will read this over the month of October. We discussed the assignment again Thursday to remind and review.   


Writing:
 Students have completed their plans and are drafting their river tour pieces. Students will be able to choose how they wish to share their final drafts- write it, put it on a google doc, Power Point, digital flipbook, or some other digital format. Anything digital will be uploaded to their personal websites.

Spelling:  This week's spelling test will be given on Monday!
  Spelling tests are every Friday. Monday begins the new lesson. The skill for Lesson  is there, they're and their. The spelling list will be sent home Monday.  If you go on my fusion page, there are directions to get to Spelling City where students can play games and take practice tests over the spelling lists for each week.


Science:
We reviewed the moon phases eclipse, and tides information we have been learning about. We will have a quiz on Wednesday and will be reviewing each day in class.
Students will be beginning research projects on the solar system, working in pairs or threes to research it and present their information in a poster or digital format.

Week of Oct. 1 - Oct. 5

DATES:
Saturday Oct. 6.............EVERYTHING FOR KIDS SALE - 9am -2 pm
Friday, Oct. 12.............Outdoor Discovery Center Field Trip
Oct. 9th and 10th.........MEAP Testing


MEAP Testing is Tuesday and Wednesday. Please be sure your children are well-rested, have a good breakfast, and a snack. I keep animal crackers at school all of the time for those who need snacks!


READ-A-THON: Thank you so much for your support! The kids relaxed and read today. It is good for them to be able to have sustained reading time and build that stamina!  We will let you know about a field trip we are planning for 4th and 5th graders.

Field Trip- We have a field trip to the Outdoor Discovery Center on October 12th. A note was sent home again today on a pink half sheet. We will not need parent volunteers for this event.
  
iPADS:  Your child may have mentioned we  used iPads Thursday. 4th and 5th grade have 30 to share. We are planing to each use 5 in our classrooms in order to have them in our rooms every day. We are waiting on information as to how we should download apps, etc. before we can do much else. Hopefully next week, we will be using them!

Math:
We continue MEAP review prep. Students took the test for Patterns and Relationships which required them to use function tables and coordinate graphing. I am very proud of how well they did! Our next unit is Place Value. This encompasses more concepts and the test will be a little longer. I will post tutorials on my fusion page as well as sites for them to practice. 
 Students also took the 6th grade Delta math assessment as a pretest for when they will take it in May.


MATH FACTS: Please practice math facts with your child. Keeping a set in the car may be a good idea. A few minutes frequently during the week will be quite helpful.

Reading:
We have continued to work on MEAP Prep., comprehension strategies, and reading for information strategies this week. We read Encounter by Jane Yolen which is the first book in the genre unit we are beginning. The central theme is Dealing with Change. We discussed character, setting, events, problem, resolution, and theme. Students incorporated this into a flipbook. This story also had a lot of imagery which we discussed by using background knowledge, picture, and text clues.

HOMEWORK: Reading at home: I am hoping students have been reading at home frequently. Monday, October 1st we began our first monthly reading assignment. Students chose a novel and will read this over the month of October. They will create a project in order to share their book with the class. Presenting a project to the class can be quite stressful for kids. I try to make this as comfortable as possible!    



Writing:
  I am keeping your child's summer writing piece as I will use this to show them their growth as the year progresses. I will share it at conferences. This week we have practiced writing a persuasive piece and a summary. I will keep these for now and these are practice, not graded pieces. We also began a narrative piece that is based off of the book, Daisy Comes Home.

Spelling:
  Spelling tests are every Friday. Monday begins the new lesson. The skill for Lesson 5 is the sounds of /k/. The spelling list will be sent home Monday.  If you go on my fusion page, there are directions to get to Spelling City where students can play games and take practice tests over the spelling lists for each week.


Science:
We have been learning about the moon phases and the solar and lunar eclipses.