Thanks for sending in kleenex! We will be needing that this winter!

TURKEY TROT:
This is an event put on by the Fuel-Up program that Mr. VanHekken and Mr. Sikma lead with student members. Tuesday afternoon students and teachers will participate in a walk/run outside to get moving and be healthy. Dress appropriately. If it looks like it will be poor weather, the event will be inside.
 
CHRISTMAS GIFT GIVING:  
Your child brought home a note about there being NO CHRISTMAS GIFT EXCHANGE IN 5TH GRADE. We will instead be gifting a charitable organization. Details are in the note but in case you didn't get it:
     In place of gifts, teachers, students, and parents will be able to purchase a ticket(s) and mini candy-cane(s) for a teacher or friend (or themselves!) Each ticket/candy-cane combination is $1. The ticket with the gift receiver's name on it will go into a bowl, the candy cane to the receiver, and the dollar set aside for the charity. (Each teacher will buy a ticket for every student in his/her homeroom so each child has their name in the drawing.) 
     All 5th grade students will research a charity and write a persuasive speech persuading others to choose their charity as one of the charities we will donate to. We will then have the top 3 charities chosen. On the last day before Christmas Break, a ticket will be drawn. The person whose name is on the ticket gets to choose which of the charities the donation will go to. 
    We will let you know when tickets will be able to be purchased in December. If you have questions, please contact me or Mrs. Maxson as we have experience with this event.

  *Homework this weekend- WRITING.  (NO MATH)
Students should complete their drafts, edit and revise their "Turkey" story. If they want to type the draft in google docs I will look it over this weekend.  

Students should be reading each day in their book for their book project. * November Book Project: It is due December 1st.

There are 4 choices for this month's project. 

MATH: 

  We continue with multiplying whole numbers and fractions. We added in multiplying fractions by fractions and continue to review fractions as division as well as work on problem solving with fractions.

LANGUAGE ARTS  
  Falling a little behind in A Long Way from Chicago with the 2 snow days. We continue with this novel and working on reading comprehension strategies. Students have grades in for their 2nd compare and contrast. After practice with a first one, reviewing what is needed, and what the standards say, I saw improvement with this second one. 
  We began working on a short story about a turkey that needs to disguise itself in order not to become Thanksgiving dinner. Students have a page of directions, a planing page and the rubric that they will be graded with ahead of time as always. We have reviewed these and I am reminding them to continue to look at these as they write.

SCIENCE 

We have been studying magnetism as a non-contact force and done some investigations with this concept. We will discuss electricity as a non-contact force next week.

Spelling: We took the skill and proofreading tests Friday. This will come home Monday. Students typically have a lesson, homework page (which often gets completed in class) 

No Spelling Test next week.

Monday, November 10th & Friday, November 14th

KLEENEX: If you would like to donate a box, it would be appreciated by all the noses in our class! :)

If you click below you will be able to look at our class caption book.
Class Caption Book 


*Homework this weekend- There is math homework this weekend. It should be highlighted in planners. 
Students should be reading each day in their book for their book project.
* November Book Project: It is due December 1st.

There are 4 choices for this month's project. 

 Students received the paper for this last week and we went over each option. 

TCB: In order to earn the next TCB trip, students can't miss ANY homework assignments in ANY class, get sent to the office, or have numerous behavior issues or issues with responsibility. Students can lose this opportunity from any one or more teachers. I routinely ask students if they have their homework, to doublecheck, to highlight it in planners, to check their planner EVERY DAY at home even if they think there isn't homework, etc. 
  ADVICE TO PARENTS FROM ONE WHO HAS THROWN AWAY HOMEWORK TWICE AND LEARNED HER LESSON:  Don't throw any papers out for your children- they should know what can be thrown or not and should do it on their own to prevent mistakes. If they are unsure, they should hold onto the papers and ask the teacher of that class.  

MATH: I will add video tutorials to the Math Tab & email when these are ready.

Your child should have brought his/her PLace Value test home last week. Decimals come back again soon and PLace Value will be reviewed again. We began our unit on Multiplying and Dividing Fractions on Thursday. Wednesday we took a little review "quiz" just to see where we are with the basics of fractions that we have already been through. I will be assisting students that need it with review. Thursday we began multiplying fractions and whole numbers and did this with Skittles which made it fun, visual, and yummy! We will do a lot of drawing and explaining situations along with the basic algorithm. We will continue with multiplying whole numbers and fractions and move into multiplying fractions by fractions next.

LANGUAGE ARTS  
 Students will complete their compare/contrast piece about Auggie from Wonder who has a facial deformity and Ethan from a factual article we read who has a deformity of the hands and feet. We spent a lot of time looking over our previous compare/contrast piece and discussing ways to improve in several areas.  We began reading the book, A Long Way from Chicago and will be dividing up into groups for book club to read this novel. It is set back in the Depression Era so we spent some time going through a presentation about this time period to give students some background knowledge. This novel is always a favorite.

SCIENCE 

We spent time learning about flight and how lift, drag, thrust, and weight are all involved. We watched a good Bill Nye video that explained well. Then students had a coulpe days to desighn and test paper airplanes, redesign and test, and then we will have a final competition for fun on Monday. Tuesday we will begin our investigation of magnetic force.

Spelling: We took the skill and proofreading tests Friday. This will come home Monday. Students typically have a lesson, homework page (which often gets completed in class) 

The skill this coming week is prefixes and their purpose.

Grammar: we learned about prepositions this week and will learn more about verbs next week.

Week of November 3rd

FYI: I found out on Friday after school that we will have an additional student beginning Monday. Our class size is still 27 as we also had a student move.

CLUB TCB:  Don't forget Club TCB is Friday for all those attending. 

*Homework this weekend-
There is math homework this weekend. It should be highlighted in planners. Students should be reading each day in their book for their book project.
November Book Project: It is due December 1st.

There are 4 choices for this month's project. 

 Students received the paper for this last week and we went over each option.

MATH:   We have been reviewing all Place Value concepts preparing for Tuesday's test. There are 5 standards on this test- I think I said four previously. On each test I will write the grade next to each standard. There are three standards where a '3' is the highest score and two standards where '4' is the highest  score. Our next unit is Multiplying and Dividing Fractions.

 
LANGUAGE ARTS 
We finished reading Wonder as a class and discussed theme and plot. We wrote our information on a graphic organizer to keep in there Daily 3 binders as a reference. We will discuss characterization, summary, and retelling next week in reference to this book. I went over compare and contrast papers with students sharing examples of what I am looking for for each standard and how students can improve when writing their next compare/contrast pieces. We discussed the purpose of captions, practiced writing captions as a class, and then each student chose a couple of pictures and wrote their own. I am making this into an interactive flippable book. We continued our work on vocabulary in context and reading in read to self books.

SCIENCE Simple machines has been our topic this week. Simple machines make work easier by changing the distance and/or direction of the force. Students participated in investigations, interactive websites, and watched a Bill Nye video in order to learn about this concept.

 

Spelling: We took the skill and proofreading tests Friday. This will come home Monday. Students typically have a lesson, homework page (which often gets completed in class)

Grammar: we have been working on nouns, coordinating and correlative conjunctions, and interjections.