September 30th - October 4th

Upcoming Dates: 

Wed., Oct. 2 Count Day! Picture Day!
 Thurs., Oct. 3 PTO Salem Corn Maze – 5-9PM
 Friday, Oct. 4 Homecoming 
 Tues., Oct. 8 MEAP Testing Begins
 Friday, Oct. 18 PTO Popcorn - $.25/bag 

Homework:  
Reading: Reading at least an average of 20 minutes at home most days of the week is homework all year.
 Math: Students have a review with multiplication and division problems.They know it's only 1 side of the paper. I'm trying to save paper by copying most things double-sided.

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                           Homecoming is Friday!  
          We will be dressing in BLACK and GOLD!!
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             1st Annual Hamilton El. Walk-a-Thon…
                           The Hawkeye Hustle
The Hamilton El. PTO is happy to announce an all-new fundraising event…a school-wide Walk-a-Thon! This event, called The Hawkeye Hustle, will take place on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 during the school day and all Hamilton El. students will have the opportunity to come out and walk around the track for a specified period of time. This will be a great way for kids to have fun, be active and raise money for our school at the same time! Since this will replace the fundraiser that we usually participate in through The Goodies Factory, we are hoping that it will be a huge success so we do not have to do another fundraiser later in the year! At this time, the PTO is looking for local businesses that may be willing to help sponsor this event. If you know of anyone who may be interested, please have them contact Ronda Hulst at 616-218-3542 or at rondahulst@gmail.com for further details. Our goal is for every Hamilton El. student to receive a walk-a-thon t-shirt! More details on the walk-a-thon, along with other ways you can help, will be coming home soon, so please watch for it!
              THE SHIRT ORDER FORMS THAT CAME HOME ARE YOUTH SIZES.  
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 MEAP PREP SITE:  MEAP PREP
Click on the purple link above to have your child practice MEAP Prep material.

 MATH:
The class took the test over Order of Operations on Friday. Most had theirs sent home. I had a few that I didn't get the opportunity to meet with so I will send those home on Monday. We will begin our next unit, Patterns and Coordinate Graphs on Monday and continue review work.

 How can you help at home:  
Have your child practice math facts.

READING
  During Read Aloud the past 2 weeks, we have been reading Guests which is the focal book in our first genre unit series. During this time we work on comprehension strategies through discussions. We also have been doing a character study and discussing character traits, working on literary devices such as personification, and doing vocabulary work. 

  During reading we read 2 books this week: So Far from the Sea and The Bracelet. Both center around Japanese internment camps in the U.S. in the 40's. We had a lesson about comparing and contrasting and began to compare these books. We will write a compare and contrast piece Monday.
  The students in this class have a lot of stamina during reading! I am very impressed and proud of them. They love to read! 

How can you help at home? Reading daily builds fluency and comprehension. A 5th grade level goal is to read 130 words per minute by the end of the year.
  
WRITING:
   We looked at caption writing this week. We practiced by having everyone write captions for what I put on the screen. Then students found their own pictures from a site I gave them, followed the checklist, and wrote their own captions on the laptops. I will be putting these together in a book this week which I will share with you.
* Most students are finished with our "Bad Case of..." stories. I am giving a few a couple extra days to complete their typing.

SPELLING:
  Students will take the Lesson 3 Word and Skill test on Monday. The skills we practiced was irregular verbs. 
  Monday I will send the word list for Lesson 4 home- I have it ready to go so it won't be late! The skill we will work on is silent letters: listen, folk, etc.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City 

Spelling City Directions

-Go to:  http://spellingcity.com

-Click on "find a list".  

-In the "search" section, click on "teacher" and then type in "Maxson". 

-Click on Robin Maxson at Hamilton Elementary.

  You may try any lesson.  Try each area:   Teach, Test & Games.  You must go through each of these activities in order.

SCIENCE: 
We have been learning how to get the speed of an object. Tools needed: stopwatch, measuring tape. 
Formula: Distance/Time= Speed 
We have been playing some vocabulary games as well.

Students can practice their science vocabulary by going to this site.Study Stacks
I will be adding terms to science and math throughout the year.