WEEK OF OCT 3RD-7TH

* Our class has created a flippable digital book. Each student chose an animal picture and wrote a caption for it.You can click on the link below to see it. You can also access it on the fusion site.
http://www.youblisher.com/p/184697-Caption-writing/


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 IMPORTANT DATES:

MEAP Testing begins next week. Below is the schedule.
Please avoid making appointments during these times!
Make sure students are rested and eat breakfast!
Oct 11th & 12th:  MEAP Reading
Oct 13th:               MEAP Writing Day 1

GO HAWKEYES!
 Hope you enjoyed the Homecoming events Friday!
Today we learned about how the homecoming traditions began, did our Hawkeye cheer, dressed in black and yellow, and walked to the Hawk's Nest for ice cream.

OUTDOOR DISCOVERY FIELD TRIP:   
Your child brought home a note on Thursday about our October 13^th field trip and the cost. The money is due Monday, October 10^th.

MATH:

We have completed all new learning in our multiplication unit. We have done quite a lot of review as well. We will complete the study guide on Monday and do more review on Tuesday. The test over Ch. 2 will be on Wednesday. Our next unit is division and we will begin on Friday.

WRITING:

This week read a book about a hen that ends up in a basket on a river and has several adventures. Student began a piece of writing where they somehow end up on a boat or raft on a river. There they have their own adventures encountering several animals. The kids are excited about this writing project!

READING:

We began reading our genre unit chapter book, Guests. This novel ties in with social studies curriculum as well.

Spelling:

This week's skill was silent letters. Students know they are able to study the spelling words on Spelling City for practice. The tests were today.

SCIENCE:

Students are working in pairs to research a planet. They are working on a poster and presentation for this lesson.

SPELLING CITY

Spelliing City directions

(Displays 9/11/2011)

Spelling City

Go to -- http://spellingcity.com

Click on "find a list".    

In the "search" section, click on "teacher" and then type in "Maxson".  

 Click on Robin Maxson at Hamilton Elementary.You may try any lesson.   

Try each area:   Teach, Test & Games.  You must go through each of these activities in order.

WEEK of September 26 to September 30

FIELD TRIP:  Your child brought home a note on Thursday about our October 13^th field trip and the cost. This is due October 10^th.

SCHOOL PICTURES: Oct 6th

HOMECOMING-BLACK AND GOLD DAY: Friday, October 7^th Wear as much black and gold as possible. We’ll do a couple fun activities as well.

POPCORN FRIDAY:       Oct 7^th

MATH:

We took the chapter 1 test over numeration and the test was sent home today to be SIGNED BY A PARENT and returned on Monday. Your child has gone over the test with me individually, and knows what has been missed. I will be giving those needing it extra assistance in class as well as sending some things home to work on in order so we can be sure concepts are understood. We began our multiplication unit. We have worked on using patterns of 10’s to multiply mentally, the distributive property, and multiplying whole numbers.

WRITING:

This week we practiced writing summaries, a skill they will be using frequently over the next few years. We also wrote a short piece about fall focusing on descriptive language and similes.

READING:

We began our genre unit by reading the book, Encounter. We discussed vocabulary, author purpose, and used text clues to make inferences. Students made a step book describing the setting, characters, conflict, resolution and theme.

Spelling:

This weeks skill was irregular verbs. Students know they are able to study the spelling words on Spelling City for practice. The tests were today.

SCIENCE:

We finished our discussion of the moon phases and then moved on to solar and lunar eclipses. We discussed a power point about eclipses and looked at some awesome photos.

WEEK OF SEPT. 19th-23rd

HOMEWORK IS DUE MONDAY, SEPT. 26TH

MATH TEST WILL BE WEDNESDAY SEPT 28TH

FUSION PAGE: I apologize if you have not been able to regularly access my fusion page- the program began having difficulties when school started. Hopefully it works correctly by Monday for good.

MATH: 

We continued prepping for the MEAP test with review activities and a couple games. We will completed our first chapter (Numeration) and will do the Study Guide Monday with the test on Wednesday. Tuesday we'll begin our 2nd chapter which is multiplication. 

WRITING: 

Some students have completed their "Summer" writing piece and emailed it or handed it to me. Those who have not finished must have them to me by Monday.  This week we also had MEAP prep activities- reading and responding to written pieces. We'll begin a short project on writing captions and practice writing captions for pictures, focusing on sentence types and descriptive vocabulary.

READING:

We have read several nonfiction texts this week and practiced going back into the text to locate the answers. We discussed "right there" questions, 

We also read the book, "My Lucky Day" and used it to practice inferencing (reading between the lines) skills.

SPELLING: 

We took the lesson 2 tests. I will have those in Powerschool this weekend and they will come home on Monday. We continue to do grammar work which is focused on nouns and types of nouns.

SCIENCE: 

We continue to learn and try to understand the concept of seasons. We watched a couple Bill Nye video clips. Students made a model of the Earth and Sun and the presented their demonstration of the relationship between the Earth and sun and answered questions about it. We had a quiz on Friday and next we begin talking about the moon.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 12

BOOK ORDERS DUE MONDAY, SEPT. 19TH.

HOMEWORK IS DUE MONDAY. (Reading and math)

Constitution Day: Students learned about the preamble in Mrs. Maxson's room. She taught them motions to go with the words and all of 5th grade presented it to classes during lunch. We also had cake and cupcakes decorated in Read, White, and Blue to celebrate our constitution.


MATH: 
We continue prepping for the MEAP test with review activities. We will complete our first chapter (Numeration) this coming week. The test will be Monday, Sept. 26th. Next week we'll work on rounding whole numbers and decimals, adding and subtracting decimals, and reviewing concepts.


WRITING:
Students began writing a prompt about their summer. These should be completed by the end of next week. Our next project is to learn about captions and practice writing captions for pictures, focusing on sentence types and descriptive vocabulary.


READING:
We discussed the text structure of comparing and contrasting then practiced this concept in our reading and writing. We read two historical fiction books about Japanese internment camps and compared/contrasted them as well as focused on comprehension strategies. We also focused on text features found in nonfiction texts and next week will complete an activity based on these features.


SPELLING: 
We took the lesson 1 tests. I will have those in Powerschool this weekend and they will come home on Monday.

SCIENCE: 
We continue to learn and try to understand the concept of seasons. Why do we have longer or shorter days in certain seasons? We have read, made models, and watched a couple good video clips to demonstrate what is happening. By the way, it is the Earth's tilt and the relationship the Earth to the sun in its orbit.

Social Studies:
Students have been studying the constitution and latitude and longitude.

SPELLING CITY and CONSITUTION DAY

Spelling City

Spelling City is a great way or your child to study for spelling bu playing games and taking practice tests. Your child has been on the site at school. We will have list 1 loaded by Tuesday!

Go to -- http://spellingcity.com

Click on "find a list".    
In the "search" section, click on "teacher" and then type in "Maxson".  
Click on Robin Maxson at Hamilton Elementary.  Then click the lesson you need. Try each area:  Teach, Test & Games. You must go through each of these activities in order.

CONSTITUTION DAY

On Friday, September 16, we will celebrate the birthday of the United States Constitution. Students are asked to wear red, white and blue again!! All fifth graders will be reciting the preamble to the constitution for the rest of the student body at lunch time.

The preamble goes like this........

We the People of the United States
In order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
ensure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this constitution
for the United States of America! 

SEPT 7-9

Friday September 16 is Constitution Day! Wear Red, White, and Blue!

*Our school fusion sites have been experiencing some difficulty, but keep checking it - hopefully this will be wrapped up soon.

*The first week of school is past, and we will be getting more and more into a regular school routine- with some fun thrown in here and there, of course! I look forward to getting to know each student better and will be enjoying lunch a group at a time to have some extra time with them.

*This week we played the song and video, "18 Wheels on a Big Rig" for a fun way to learn a little about Roman numerals as students run across these from time to time. We played some spelling, math, and dice games, and watched a couple funny random videos to get our energy up- they really like, "Yeah, Toast!" We practiced maneuvering through the blog and tried the fusion page. 

SPELLING: The students were introduced to Spelling City where they will be able to practice their words each week, play games, and take practice tests. This site is on the fusion page as a link. Next week we will begin lesson 1 - we'll have the word list on there soon. Homework comes home on Tuesday and tests are on Friday.

MATH: We are working on MEAP prep material- factors, multiples, multiplication, and the distributive property. We have completed the first 2 lessons in our Place Value chapter. We'll continue next week and continue to review as well. A link to  Funbrain place value games is in the links section of the blog and fusion page.

READING: We read a nonfiction article about Box Jellyfish. We had a discussion about text features, practiced using context clues to figure out vocabulary in the text, and worked on looking for answers to comprehension questions within the text. We also read an article about bullying and practiced "buzzing" about it.


WRITING: We'll begin next week.


SCIENCE: We began our Objects in the Sky unit on Friday. Monday your child will be given a sheet to track of the phase of the moon each night and record it in picture form. They'll bring this home on Monday. If it's cloudy or you miss it, you can look online to find the information. 

http://www.woodtv.com/subindex/weather/lifestyle/air_quality 

SOCIAL STUDIES: The class met Mrs. Maxson and are beginning their first unit of study. Friday Mrs. Maxson gave a presentation about 9/11.