CONTACTING ME: You may contact me by calling the middle school or by email. lblowers@hamiltonschools.us If we need to talk at length on the phone, I will generally call after school or in the evening. My cell is a 231 area code so if you see that, it could be me.

CONTACTING ME: You may contact me by calling the middle school or by email. lblowers@hamiltonschools.us  If we need to talk at length on the phone, I will generally call after school or in the evening. My cell is a 231 area code so if you see that, it could be me. 

SNACKS: Please send a snack with your child each day. Many students are not bringing one with them and 3-4 hours since breakfast is a long time! 

SPIRIT WEEK! Next week is spirit week: here is the schedule:

Monday:  WEAR YOUR "BE THE GOOD" T-SHIRTS

Tuesday:  COLOR DAY- Wear your 4th Grade Track & Field shirt- if you are from another school, wear a shirt from there. OR you can wear RED that day.       

Wednesday: WACKY WEDNESDAY- wear mismatched clothing.

Thursday: Sports Teams- Wear clothing from your favorite team of any sport.

Friday: HAWKEYE DAY!

CAMP MANITOU-LIN - We had a great day! Everyone was pretty tired by the time we left. I have pictures in the photos Tab.

JRT - Just Right Time (This is like RTI)

JRT begins next week. Monday/Thursday is Reading JRT and Tuesday/Friday is Math. Students have been assigned teachers based on need in reading and math and will be going to class with those teachers after lunch from 11:25-12:00.

HOMEWORK:
Math: "Remembering 1-7"  #'s 9-15 and 19-21 only
Social Studies: 3 Branches Quiz on Tuesday

Reading a minimum of 20 minutes each day is always Homework
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 MATH:   
  This week we continued to practice adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. We added in adding and subtracting mixed numbers. We will practice adding and subtracting fractions fractions requiring renaming this coming week.
  We continue reviewing parts of a fraction, fraction as division, converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and visa versa, how to find the Greatest Common Factor of two denominators in order to simplify a fraction, and how to to find the Least Common Multiple in order to make a common denominator. We have been drawing pictures, looking at interactive visuals, and discussing situations where we would use fractions in order to connect the fractions to what it looks like and uses.
  You can find tutorials in the MATH Tab under where it says "Current Unit".
LANGUAGE ARTS 
Writing: We have discussed what a complete sentence and sentence fragment are. We have also discussed parts of a paragraph and used our experience at Camp Manitou-Lin to write a paragraph with a topic sentence, details, and closing sentence. Next week will finish. We will do caption writing in order to practice Google Docs. features, sentence structure, and meaningful punctuation.

READING:

We have been learning about/practicing strategies for finding the Main Idea and details, using context clues to discover vocabulary meaning, and background knowledge and text features to help with comprehension. Next week we will continue practicing by working in pairs reading nonfiction. 
SCIENCE  
We are investigating motion by working in groups to design an obstacle course that will cause a marble to go the SLOWEST possible from one of the table to the other. Kids are designing, testing, discussing problems and redesigning. We will have a competition next week.

Social Studies:

Mrs. Custer teaches this and I will put her information on the blog each week when she gives it to me.  

Word Study

We took the Lesson 2 test Friday. These will come home on Monday. Our next skill is irregular verbs. The word list is in the SPELLING Tab.

CONTACTING ME: You may contact me by calling the middle school or by email. lblowers@hamiltonschools.us If we need to talk at length on the phone, I will generally call after school or in the evening. My cell is a 231 area code so if you see that, it could be me.

CONTACTING ME: You may contact me by calling the middle school or by email. lblowers@hamiltonschools.us  If we need to talk at length on the phone, I will generally call after school or in the evening. My cell is a 231 area code so if you see that, it could be me.

Home Folders/Organization/Homework   *Your child chose a folder to label as their "HOME" folder. This is where to look for notes, homework, and completed work.
  

SNACKS: Please send a snack with your child each day. Many students are not bringing one with them and 3-4 hours since breakfast is a long time! 

Constitution Day We wore red, white, and blue! We red an article about the constitution and it's importance, students practiced the Preamble in social studies, and we ate red, white, and blue cupcakes!

Camp Manitou-Lin is September 21 from 7:20 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. You received a note about this next Tuesday. The lunch form, $26, and the Liability form are due Monday.

  We will do a ropes course, canoeing, and other team-building activities. So far weather is looking good! I will email and send a note next week about what to bring.

 

HOMEWORK:
Math: Reteach 80 only #'s 3-6. 
Reading a minimum of 20 minutes each day is always Homework
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 MATH:   
We have been reviewing/learning some 4th grade concepts: part of a fraction, fraction as division, converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and visa versa, how to find the Greatest Common Factor of two denominators in order to simplify a fraction, and how to to find the Least Common Multiple in order to make a common denominator. We have been drawing pictures, looking at interactive visuals, and discussing situations where we would use fractions in order to connect the fractions to what it looks like and uses.
  We are beginning to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators, doing a lot of practice together, with partners, and in small groups.
  You can find tutorials in the MATH Tab under where it says "Current Unit".


LANGUAGE ARTS 
Writing: We have begun going through the routines and our first writing project is a choice between "What I Did this Summer" or "What I Didn't get to do this Summer". Students are typing these into google docs after conferencing with me and then editing and revising a second time after a few comments from me in the document. This will not be graded, but rather a way for me to see what students' strengths and where I can help them which I am documenting.

Reading:

We read the article "Flaming Sky" about the Hindenburg to practice strategies for figuring out new vocabulary in context. We reviewed and discussed some comprehension strategies for when we are stuck. We had a lesson about text features such as title, captions, maps, etc. and are partway through practicing using these features while reading an article with a partner.

 We continue reading aloud "Wonder" and are focusing character traits.

  Friendship: Every so often during Wonder we are having some mini-lessons & discussions about friendship. This week we talked about when making new friends and keeping ones current friendships, it's important to show interest and be a good listener. We also discussed that if you and a friend have a problem, resolving it together is best instead of involving a lot of others which can cause bigger problems.

SCIENCE 

   Our unit is Forces and Motion. This week we are practicing making a data table, graphing the information, and discussing how we know something is moving- because we use a point of reference. We did an investigation using plastic frogs jumping them a distance, collecting the data, and will graph this information.

Social Studies:

Mrs. Custer teaches this and I will put her information on the blog each week when she gives it to me.  

Word Study

We took our first proofreading test together in order to learn how to do it. Next week we will begin Word Study. The Lesson 2 skill is double consonants. The word list is in the SPELLING Tab.

Grammar: We reviewed nouns and searched for them in our reading.

Week of September 12th

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 6-9

CONTACTING ME: You may contact me by calling the middle school or by email. lblowers@hamiltonschools.us  If we need to talk at length on the phone, I will generally call after school or in the evening. My cell is a 231 area code so if you see that, it could be me.

Home Folders/Organization/Homework   *Your child chose a folder to label as their "HOME" folder. This is where to look for notes, homework, and completed work. (It's been my experience that kids tend to leave most of their completed work in their trapper keeper.)
    *I told students they should take their trapper keeper home every night with the planner and Home Folder in it. This way nothing gets left at school which means less stress! 
    *Some students plan to put homework in the accordion file section of their trapper keeper.
    * I will start checking to see if planners are signed on Monday. I only do this through September- the point is to get your child in the habit of looking at their planner on their own. After September, I will only monitor those students who need my assistance.
    * I will send an email to parents and students each night there is homework. (Reading and math facts are daily ongoing homework that I usually will not write down.)

SNACKS: Please send a snack with your child each day. Many students are not bringing one with them and 3-4 hours since breakfast is a long time! 

Constitution Day is Friday, September 16 and we will do an activity about this day and have a red, white, and blue treat!

Camp Manitou-Lin is September 21 from 7:20 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. You will be receiving a note about this next Tuesday, and I always try to get a digital copy of notes sent to your email in case they get lost.

  BE THE GOOD!  Friday we kicked off our school-wide Be the Good "program". We discussed what it means to "Be the Good", bullying vs. having a conflict and how to resolve issues, how technology can have positive and adverse affects on relationships, and overall how to have a positive impact on the lives of others in order to make our school a positive place to be. We will continue to make this part of our school culture. 

 Growth Mindset: I have given your students a couple surveys and found there are students who have areas where they are not feeling confident in such as math. 

 I have begun discussing Growth Mindset this week and will continue to make this part of our classroom culture. We are learning how the brain works and will focus on having a growth mindset. Here is a little about that:

Growth Mindset: Knowing that you will be able to learn and accomplish something with effort, assistance, and perseverance.

Fixed Mindset: You can't change much about yourself even with effort and help.

                                  Ex: not good at math, so you'll never be good at math

We are going to train our brains to believe in The Power of  Yet!

  I can't do this... YET, I don't know the answer...YET!

STRESS: We talked about stress this week. We are all going to have stress. It's normal. What we need to do is find ways to help ourselves deal with stress. Exercise, do an activity you enjoy, take a brain break for a couple minutes if you're at school, etc. 

I suggested that one of the best things they can do is tell someone what is causing the stress or write it down. Sometimes once it's out there, we realize it's not that bad or others can help us!

  MATH:  We are beginning our unit on adding and subtracting fractions. I will be teaching students how to watch and learn from video tutorials. I will have tutorials and practice sites for many concepts in the MATH TAB of this blog. Tutorials can also help you help your child at home.

  In 2-3 weeks we will begin math rotations and students will be working in fluid groups in order to get the help they need or move forward if needed.

LANGUAGE ARTS 

Writing: We have begun going through the routines and our first writing project is a choice between "What I Did this Summer" or "What I Didn't get to do this Summer" which could be a mix of truth and fiction. This will not be graded, but rather a way for me to see what students need.

Reading:

We will begin with nonfiction strategies and be reading a variety of nonfiction material. 

We are reading aloud "Wonder" and will be doing some fiction strategy lessons from this.

SCIENCE 

  Science will begin next Monday. Our first unit is Forces and Motion. It's very hands on and we are outside quite often for this. There are several short test over standards along the way instead of one huge test per unit.

Social Studies:

Mrs. Custer teaches this and I will put her information on the blog each week when she gives it to me. 

 

Spelling: 

We no longer do the word test in 5th grade. We will teach a spelling skill/strategy and students are tested over this strategy as well as proofreading. The proofreading test is new and we do the first one together.