Week of October 26th

Week of  October 26th

Thank you for coming to conferences! It was good to meet with you and discuss your child's progress. If you have any further questions, please contact Mrs. Custer or myself.

CONTACTING US>   Email:  lblowers@hamiltonschools.us                                              lcuster@hamiltonschools.us                         

Phone:
269-751-4436
   
HOMEWORK: 
Math:
   2 pages- ODDS only

Social Studies:

    The tri-fold pamphlet categorizing ideas from chapter 4 is due Monday morning.

Writing:   

   SOME students have to finish up their final drafts for Mrs. Blowers.

Reading:  
    SOME students need to finish up their summary of Chapter 2-Guests. If the HW applies to only some students, they know this and were told to write it in their planners.
 
Blowers Book Report This is due Monday, November 2nd for presentations. You should see your child reading their book most nights for homework I went over the assignment and showed an example.

MATH   - Mrs. Custer

This past week we did a lot of decimal work, including how to compare, add and subtract them.  The kids have two worksheets that are due on Monday.  They only have to do the odd numbered problems, and we have a quiz over comparing decimals on Monday.

Language Arts
BLOWERS Writing: 
 Students completed their  Bad case stories this week. A few students need to complete this over the weekend. Students who wish to read theirs to the class will have the opportunity to do so. This coming week we will be doing book report presentations, reviewing sentence structure, where to break for paragraphs, and editing. We will begin an opinion piece as well.

READING: with Mrs. Blowers
We completed Chapter 2 in Guests. Again we practiced pre-reading questions and leaving sticky notes in the book in places that would help us write quality responses. We practiced using text clues to figure out the meaning of vocabulary and how to use the dictionary to find the correct meaning as it is in the text. We also practiced writing notes for the big ideas to summarize the chapter and students used those to write their own summaries.
 
Social Studies with Mrs. Custer
We learned the three different reasons why Europeans began to explore outside of their continent beginning in the 1400s.  The tri-fold pamphlet categorizing ideas from chapter 4 is due Monday morning.

Science with Mrs. Blowers
Science tests were handed back.  We continued our investigation of balanced and unbalanced forces. Students made balloon rockets two ways to show these forces. We discussed the terms and how they applied to the investigation. We will continue our balanced/unbalanced forces investigations this week and there will be an assessment coming soon. I will be sending Study Stacks vocabulary to students this week for this section.

Spelling:   No spelling because of the short week.
  We will begin Spelling Lesson 7 on Monday. The skill is compound words.

Week of October 19-October 23

CONFERENCES: October 26th and 27th.

These are 15 minutes and there is no break built in between, so we will need to stay on schedule. If you need more time, I am happy to schedule additional time with you!

Field Trip Tuesday: Tuesday we will go on a field trip to Saugatuck where students will learn about Native American Culture which connects to our Social Studies units. We will leave at 11:30 and return by 2:30. Students will eat lunch at school.

CONTACTING US>   Email: 

 lblowers@hamiltonschools.us                                              lcuster@hamiltonschools.us                         

Phone:
269-751-4436
   
HOMEWORK: No Homework except to work on the Book Report.
Blowers Book Report This is due November 2nd for presentations. You should see your child reading their book most nights for homework I went over the assignment and showed an example.

MATH   - Mrs. Custer

The kids have done a great job with our new unit on place value.  We have moved into place value of decimals.  There is no weekend homework.

Language Arts
BLOWERS Writing: 
 Students are going to be finishing their Bad case stories this week. Students who wish to read theirs to the class will have the opportunity to do so. We are focusing on using a variety of word choices, editing and revising more thoroughly, and adding details to help reader's visualize what is happening. I have been showing examples of this and have seen students put a lot of effort into making quality revisions to their piece!

READING: with Mrs. Blowers
Thursday and Friday we began our genre unit novel, Guests. This is a historical fiction work that ties in with their Native American social studies curriculum. We read chapter 1 as a class and discussed story elements, paying attention to unknown vocabulary, and strategies for make inferences. We practiced pre-reading questions and leaving sticky notes in the book in places that would help us write quality responses. As a class, we wrote a response to a Focus question to practice. We will continue with this novel next week.
 
Social Studies with Mrs. Custer

We have finished our study of Native American cultural regions using the strategy of GSPEC.  On Friday we started reading about the reasons why European countries began to explore, starting with Christopher Columbus traveling for Spain.

Science with Mrs. Blowers
Science tests will be handed back next week.  We began our next section, balanced and unbalanced. We talked about the definitions, drew a picture, and acted them out. We arm wrestled to demonstrate unbalanced/unbalanced force which they all thought was great! Friday we played "Kahoot!" as a review game of vocabulary terms. Next week we will continue our balanced/unbalanced forces investigations.

Spelling:   Students took the Lesson 6 test on Friday.
The Lesson 7 word list is in the "Spelling" tab above.  I recommend that students review the words as they frequently come up in the 2 assessments!
The skill next week is compound words.  We will continue to review nouns, pronouns, and verbs.

Week of October 12

CONFERENCES: October 26th and 27th.

These are 15 minutes and there is no break built in between, so we will need to stay on schedule. If you need more time, I am happy to schedule additional time with you.

CONTACTING US>   Email: 

 lblowers@hamiltonschools.us                                              lcuster@hamiltonschools.us                        

Phone:
269-751-4436
   
HOMEWORK:
Blowers Book Report This is due November 2nd for presentations. You should see your child reading their book most nights for homework I went over the assignment and showed an example. I discussed this assignment again Friday and reminded students to make sure they have the necessary papers.
  MATH   - Mrs. Custer

Math - We finished our first big unit in math with our test on adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers.  Next week we will spend time looking at our test, going over any areas that are still tough for many of us, and then we will move on to place value.

Language Arts
BLOWERS Writing: 
 Students are working on their "Bad Case" stories based on the book, "A Bad Case of Stripes". Our goal is to have the draft, revising, and editing done by Tuesday at the end of class, Wednesday at the latest. We are focusing on using a variety of word choices, editing and revising more thoroughly, and adding details to help reader's visualize what is happening.
 
READING: with Mrs. Blowers 
We discussed what a fluent reading sounds like. We talked about plot vs theme and discussed examples. We read a fiction piece and are practicing using sentence starters (STEMS) that can be used to write complete sentences. Vocabulary, finding clues to make inferences, and skimming for information are some of the strategies we are practicing. Next week we will begin our Genre unit.
 
Social Studies with Mrs. Custer
This week we learned the acronym GSPEC to help us organize our study of different groups of people and countries in social studies this year.  

Science with Mrs. Blowers
Our first science test will be on Tuesday. This will cover our first 4 lessons. Students have vocabulary from Study Stacks that I sent to them by email. We studies for the test on Thursday and Friday and will also do this on Monday. Balanced and unbalanced forces is next.

Spelling:   Students took the Lesson 5 test on Friday.
The Lesson 6 word list is in the "Spelling" tab above.  I recommend that students review the words as they frequently come up in the 2 assessments!
The skill next week are the homophones their, there, and they're.  We will continue to review nouns, pronouns, and verbs.

Week of Oct. 5th

Wednesday Oct. 14 - 2 Hour Delay

** I added some Pep Assembly photos to the PHOTO tab.

CONTACTING US>   Email: lblowers@hamiltonschools.us                                                           lcuster@hamiltonschools.us                        
Phone:
269-751-4436
   
HOMEWORK:  
MATH:  Page 55 EVENS only is DUE MONDAY  Don't forget to check out the MATH tab for assistance! 

Blowers Book Report This is due November 2nd for presentations. Most students gave me the title of their books already. You should see your child reading their book most nights for homework.                                                                              
  I went over the assignment and showed an example. I sent the assignment page and the example home on Monday.
 
MATH    with Mrs. Custer We have worked hard on addition and subtraction of fractions and mixed numbers this week. Miss Rogers, our assistant from Hope College, had fun helping us on Thursday. Math homework this weekend is Lesson 55, evens only.

Language Arts
BLOWERS Writing: 
  I put the link for the digital caption book on the Parent email so be sure to check this out! We used the tow articles about the inventions of the toilet and Peepoo to write a compare and contrast piece together. We practiced setting this up in an outline format. We then wrote our notes into a compare/contrast format using signal words such as alike, different, same as, however, etc. They have this example in their binder for future reference.
  We read, "A Bad Case of Stripes" and students will base their next narrative piece off of this text, writing their own "Bad Case of____" stories.
 
READING: with Mrs. Blowers This week we continued to work on inferencing, vocabulary, and other comprehension strategies. After students performed their Reader's Theater plays (very fun!) we spent time discussing strategies for making inferences. The questions they responded to were primarily inferencing-type questions. We met together in groups and reviewed responses and discussed how/where to find text clues. We also practice how to write thorough responses in complete sentences. We will continue to begin to focus on fiction next week and begin our first genre unit.
 
Social Studies with Mrs. Custer
Our first history lesson covered the Bering Land Bridge Theory and American Indians and their land.  The Rip Books were so well done and a lot of fun! 

 Science with Mrs. Blowers
How to calculate speed was our focus this week. Students performed some investigations and calculated their speed. We set up our graphs and are preparing to graph our average speeds from investigations.

Spelling:   Students took the Lesson 4 test on Friday.
The Lesson 5 word list is in the "Spelling" tab above.  I recommend that students review the words as they frequently come up in these 2 assessments!
The skill next week is the various spelling of the /k/ sound. 
We will continue to review nouns and pronouns and talk about verbs and adverbs.
       

OCTOBER 3

Oct. 5......................Homecoming week  
Oct. 8 .....................5th/6th Grade Bingo Bash
 More info. to come about these events.   

CONTACTING US>   Email: lblowers@hamiltonschools.us                                                           lcuster@hamiltonschools.us                        

Phone:
269-751-4436

REMIND: More of you have signed up for Remind text messages! It's an easy way to get reminders for tests, field trips, and last minute items if you don't look at your email routinely. Signing up takes seconds to do! Enter this number: (424) 835-7621
Text this: @1458b  
   
HOMEWORK:  
MATH:  Page 53 ODDS only is DUE MONDAY 
Don't forget to check out the MATH tab for assistance! 


Blowers Book Report This is due November 1st for presentations.
Most students gave me the title of their book on Friday so they are able to start reading this weekend. Now that I know students better and have information about their reading, I am checking to be sure their book choice is appropriate. Some students had to choose different books. You should see your child reading their book most nights for homework.                                                                                 
  I went over the assignment and showed an example. I will send the assignment page and the example home on Monday.
  Students' summaries and presentation speech were the 2 grades given for the October Book Project.

MATH    We tackled greatest common factors, how to form equivalent fractions and the process for comparing fractions that have uncommon denominators.  
 
Language Arts
BLOWERS Writing: 
This week students completed their captions. I made these into a digital flipbook and students will share on Monday. I will email the book to you as well.
Next week we begin writing a compare and contrast piece. We will be focusing on how we compare/contrast in our everyday lives and using the appropriate structure and signal words for writing this type of piece. These informational pieces are often a little more difficult for students at first.
 
  READING: 
This week we continued to work on inferencing, vocabulary, and other comprehension strategies. Students did more independent work to practice what they've learned. We read "Yesterday and Today" articles about how toilets have changed the world which they thought was funny to discuss. We talked about how other parts of the world still don't have this type of sanitation and the problems created. We will be using these two short articles to write our compare/contrast piece. This week we will focus on short fiction pieces and do Reader's Theater.
 
Social Studies
 Students are beginning the history portion of Social Studies and discussed the land bridge among other topics. There was a quiz on Friday and you are able to view scores in PowerSchool.

Science
This week was very fun in science! We have been discussing motion and forces. The objective in our investigation this week was, "How can we make a marble roll from one end of a table to the other moving as slowly as possible without stopping?" Students had to collaborate, problem-solve,test and retest their ideas, and make revisions. We will watch video on Monday and have a wrap-up discussion.

Spelling:   Students took the Lesson 3 test on Friday.
The Lesson 4 word list is in the "Spelling" tab above.  I recommend that students review the words as they frequently come up in these 2 assessments!
The skill next week is  verbs.
   This week's skill is silent letters.