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.