In the Classroom

Spelling: We learned about silent letters and the different ways to make the initial sound in the word "kite". We have also been continuing to review nouns, pronouns, common nouns, and proper nouns. Students had a quiz on Friday over this topic.

Writing: Students are writing a narrative story about a trip down a river of their choice. Along the way they will encounter animals and will describe their trip. We are focusing on narrative, writing inviting introductions, and using strong detail to show not just tell what is happening.

Reading: We continue reading Guests from our historical fiction genre unit. We have been pre-reading comprehension questions, discussing them as we read and marking the places where we find possible answers or clues to answers. We have learned about the genre of legend and about Pour Quoi tale elements.

Math: We have been reviewing concepts learned each day. New concepts this week are multiplying whole numbers and relating them to the distributive property, multiplying decimals and looking for decimal patterns when multiplying decimals by 10, 100, and 1,000. The test over multiplication will likely be Friday, October 22nd.

Science:  What causes the ocean tides? The gravitational pull of the moon as it moves around the Earth. There are 2 high tides and 2 low tides each day. We watched a video clip to illustrate this concept and looked at an interactive of the Bay of Fundi's high and low tides.

CONFERENCES: A reminder that 5th grade students will be sitting in on his/her conference this year. IF you would prefer that your child not be included in the conference, please let me know. I will still share the information your child gives me.

MEAP TESTING

This week students took the reading sections of the MEAP test. Next week we will do the math and science sections. Please be sure your child has a good breakfast and snack as they should each day.

Outdoor Discovery Center

Despite a little rain in the morning, we had a great day! What students learned will be excellent background knowledge for upcoming social studies curriculum. Students had the opportunity to play a game called Double Ball and try their hand at the atlatle, which is something like shooting a bow and arrow. They also looked at several artifacts and worked together to decide what they were made from and what their use was. We learned about Native American homes from our area and even made a 3 pole house! Those are just a few activities from a fun and informative day!

Black and Gold Day!

Today our 5th graders sponsored Black and Gold Day to support our Hawkeye football team. They went into the lower El. classrooms to help them make black and gold necklaces which was fun for them! It was a sea of black and gold at school! GO HAWKEYES!

Delta Math

Delta Math:

We began our math groups this week. We will be breaking up into groups each Wednesday and Thursday to focus on math needs in small groups. This week we focused on subtraction with regrouping as we are seeing some areas that need to be “cleaned up”. 

Groups will be fluid and everyone will not be working on the same skill at the same time as we continue throughout the year. We will still be continuing our usual math schedule.

Student-Led Conferences

CONFERENCES:  If you haven’t sent a conference form in, please do so. We will call if we don’t hear from you.

This year all 5^th grades at Hamilton El.  will be having STUDENT-LED conferences. I will begin by sharing what I need to share with you, but hopefully your child will be available to join us. He/she will be filling out information about him/herself ahead of time and will share this information with you.

Fied Trip Reminder

FIELD TRIP MONEY IS DUE MONDAY OCT. 11^th!

Wednesday, October 13^th, 5th grade classes will be going to the Outdoor Discovery Center. We will be learning about Native American cultures and history which is a large part of our social studies curriculum this fall. Students always enjoy this field trip.  A separate reminder note for this trip will come home next week, and we will collect money at that time. Here is what you can plan ahead for:
   *The cost for each student is $5.  > If this is an issue, please let me know!
   * Students should bring a completely disposable sack lunch
   * PLEASE dress in layers! DO have a jacket or sweatshirt. We will be outside all day.
   * Wear comfortable shoes.