DATES:

DATES:

May 11....................................Track and Field Day


Charlton Park Field Trip: The warmest day I've ever been on this trip! The kids were able to see what life was like in the pioneer days. The school is always a place that interests them. They were able to help make vegetable soup and some kids were able to churn butter (which we ate later) until it was too far done to continue. They used the iron and hand-washed some dishes- Looking at the pile of dishes, one of my girls asked, "How do you do this?" Thank goodness for the dishwasher!
I'll post pictures to the blog this weekend.

   
Math:
We have been working in Chapter 5 on graphing. Students finished their surveys and data tables. They then created their graphs online. We will also learned about mean, mode, range and median. We played a dice game and worked on three interactive activities on the laptops. We have been reviewing and will have the test on Tuesday.
We have been doing quite a lot of review along with our current unit.
HW: Students do have math homework due on Monday.


Reading: We began Book Clubs on Tuesday. Students had some options to choose from for novels and will be meeting with their group regularly for discussion as well as completing various comprehension activities.

Writing:  
Pourquois will be due on Wednesday. Students will have options as to how they want to present their final drafts of this- some are typing, doing iMovies, powerpoint books, and other ideas they have come up with. They will put these on their web pages.

Science:  
We're all parents to crabs and tree frogs! We will be observing our animals as part of our systems unit. Students will also be responsible for the care of them each day. We are working on being good observers, looking at behavioral and physical characteristics that help them survive.
 
Spelling:
This week's skill was double letters in words. Next week's skill is apostrophes.

1.	areas
2.	They're
3.	whole
4.	their
5.	temperatures
6.	always
7.	cover
8.	their
9.	won't
10.	Besides
11.	weather
12.	general
13.	it's
14.	wait
15.	until
16.	it's
17.	Because
18.	reasons
19.	difficult
20.	information
21.	there
22.	differences
23.	course
24.	fact
25.	its
26.	tail

WEEK OF APRIL 23RD - APRIL 26TH

DATES:

April 27............................... No School
May 1...................................Moments with Mom
May 3 ................................. Charlton Park Field Trip
May 11....................................Track and Field Day
Please don't forget to turn in your $6 for Charleton Park and the $7 for Track and Field Day shirts if you haven't done so!


Charlton park Field Trip: A reminder note will be sent home next Tuesday.
   

Poetry Brunch: No pictures because I only took video! I will be emailing students their videos and they will put them on their web pages.

Math:
We have been working i Chapter 5 on graphing. Students began doing their own surveys by writing a question, polling others, and then putting the information into a data table. They will use their data to create a graph online next week. We will also begin learning about mean, mode, range and median.
We have been doing quite a lot of review along with our current units.
HW: Students do have math homework due on Monday.


Reading: We completed A Long Way from Chicago on Thursday. Students have a bit of homework for this that is due on Monday. We will be starting Book Clubs on Monday. Students had some options to choose from for novels.

Writing:  
  We bean Pourquoi or "why stories" this week. Students will have options as to how they want to present their final drafts of this later.

Science:  
We're all parents to crabs and tree frogs! We will be observing our animals as part of our systems unit. Students will also be responsible for the care of them each day!
 
Spelling:
This week's skill was synonyms homophones. Next week's skill is double letters in words.

WEEK OF APRIL 16th - 19th

DATES:

April 27............................... No School
May 1...................................Moments with Mom
May 3 ................................. Charlton Park Field Trip


The High School band and choir came Friday to sing and play for 5th graders and give them an idea of what it is all about.



Charlton park Field Trip: Please read the note about this field trip that was sent home today.
   
Puppets:   The puppets the students did for Mrs. Longshore's Art class look great! They read biographies and wrote a fake Facebook page to go with their puppets. These are located in the library if you are in and want to see them.


Poetry Brunch: The students practiced their presentations for Mr. Rienstra's class on Thursday in preparation for the Brunch. They are very excited and have worked hard. Public speaking is a real world skill. Students will do quite a bit of presenting to the class in middle school as well. I will have some pictures on the blog later.


Math:
Several students took the Chapter 10 test, "Measuring Solids" on Thursday. The rest of us are continuing to review converting measurements, a concept we also worked with in Chapter 9. The test will be Tuesday for the rest of the class. We will begin our unit covering graphs next week.

Reading: We continue with A Long Way from Chicago on Tuesday. We are discussing point of view and practicing inferencing and vocabulary skills. We are also working on determining importance and writing a summary. We'll continue next week and write a short cause and effect piece.

Writing:  
  Students have completed their poetry writing. We worked on metaphor, main idea, and parts of speech poems as well as alliteration and biography poems. I am hoping to have students create a digital scrapbook of their poems to put on their web pages at some point.

Science:   Classification continued this week. We then came to a consensus about what the basic needs for survival are: air, water, food, and shelter. We discussed behavioral and physical characteristics and how these characteristics help animals meet their basic survival needs.
 
Spelling:
This week's skill was synonyms. Next week's skill is homophones

Enjoy the weekend!

1.	picture
2.	sand
3.	friends
4.	temperature
5.	eighties
6.	There's
7.	ocean
8.	toward
9.	let's
10.	modern
11.	beautiful
12.	figure
13.	although
14.	probably
15.	suppose
16.	practice
17.	lets
18.	wrong
19.	field
20.	especially
21.	pair
22.	either
23.	explain
24.	ahead
25.	history
26.	across

WEEK OF APRIL 9 - 13

DATES:


Puppets due for Art...........  April 18 

Poetry Brunch ...................  April 20 at 9:40
Release Time ...................... April 20  
April 27............................... No School
May 3 ................................. Charleton Park Field Trip
    I will send a note about the trip next week again. 


Puppets:   I am getting material for this weekend for students who asked, so I am going to have the puppets due Wednesday the 18th instead of the 16th so they can finish. Puppets will be displayed in the library with the Facebook Biography Page that students created.

Please don't forget that my fusion page has several math sites and some video tutorials for your child if they need practice. Your child is aware of this and we have gone into it many times to review what is there. Go to the Hamilton website, choose "Hamilton Elementary", "classes" (on the left),
then my name on the right under "5th grade".


Math:
This week we began our second measurement unit. We used cubes to build rectangular prisms and applied the formula for finding volume and related this to our previous lessons about area. We looked at a variety of containers in order to assist us in thinking/learning about converting customary and metric units of capacity. Learning about converting customary units of weight was also part of our week.
The test will be next Thursday.


Reading: We began A Long Way from Chicago on Tuesday. Monday students viewed and discussed video clips about the Dust Bowl and a power point presentation about the 1930's/Depression as background for the book. The novel centers around siblings that travel from Chicago to visit their Grandma Dowdel in her small town home and about their experiences with her. The kids love this story.

Writing:  
We began a poetry unit this week as the note I sent home mentioned. The students are focusing on using descriptive, precise language and imagery to create a picture in the reader's mind. They are writing a variety poems. The students are looking forward to presenting one of their original poems  as well as a work by a published author. Thanks to those of you who are willing to donate food items for the Poetry Brunch! I will contact you on  Monday about what item to bring.  

Spelling:
This week's skill was the sound /j/ as in jar and how this can be spelled 3 ways using  g, j, or dg. Next week's skill will be synonyms.

Science:   Classification has been the focus this week. We discussed why scientists classify organisms and how we use classification in our daily lives. Students used an interactive site to learn about how and why animals are classified as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc. and then played some games that required them to apply this knowledge. Then students classified the animal cards into proper categories with their new information.

  Students are looking forward to having tree frogs and hermit crabs in the classroom as part of this unit. 

Enjoy your weekend!!

March 29th .................. Hawaiian Day theme This is the real date! :)

March 29th .................. Hawaiian Day theme This is the real date! :)

March 29th................... 4th/5th Grade Spring Fling event

     Students will choose 5 events to participate in from 1:00-3:30

March 30th .................. Spring Break begins 

 Homework this weekend is math review and students should complete their biography reading and the information that goes along with it. This is due March 26th. We'll be typing their information into the Facebook template.

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH:
We completed our lessons this week. We also discussed proper hygiene as they are growing up and changing. I encourage you to find a time to talk with you child about the changes they will be going through. Of course you can find books at the library and bookstore to assist you.

Math:
Students have been taught all lessons and have reviewed concepts as we've introduced new ones. We will be reviewing and doing the study guide next week. The test is Thursday. Again, concepts have included, converting customary and metric units of length, perimeter, and area squares, rectangles, triangles, and parallelograms.

Reading:
We finished reading The Fighting Ground and will continue some discussion and activities into next week. This has required them to make several inferences about character motives and feelings. I have been very proud of the students as they have been able to show that they can use quotes and text information to respond to questions more independently.

Writing:
Students completed their point of view/voice pieces based on the story "Dear Mrs. LaRue". They have been practicing their presentations and making their props for their mock talk shows, news reports, etc. next week for the class. They will videotape these and add to them to their web pages in Infotech.

Spelling:
This week's skill was adding suffixes to base words. Next week's skill will be possessive nouns.
Next week's word study list is below. Your child should study the word list if needed.

Science:   We began our Systems unit with the body systems. We have had to do reproductive health during this time. next week students are working in groups to research a body system such as skeletal, respiratory, muscular, etc. and then are creating posters to present their information.

1.	everyone
2.	follow
3.	Let's
4.	choosing
5.	object
6.	directions
7.	south
8.	first
9.	unit
10.	measure
11.	length
12.	second
13.	straight
14.	necessary
15.	point
16.	whether
17.	flat
18.	trouble
19.	once
20.	friend's
21.	travel

WEEK OF MARCH 12TH - 16TH

March 17....................... Daddy/Daughter Dance will be  from 6:30-8:30PM.
March 19th................... Reproductive Health lessons begin
March 23rd.................. Release time
March 23rd.................. Family Fun Night
March 23rd.................. Hawaiian Day theme


Homework this weekend is math review and students should continue reading their biography and working on the activity. This is due March 26th. We'll be typing their information into the Facebook template.
 
5th graders were excited to be able to go visit the middle school on Thursday. We will have more information for you about 6th grade later in the year. An FYI as I have had some questions about this Parents will get a notification about a 6th grade orientation for parents and students that will occur sometime in August.

Math:
Measurement is our current unit. We have been working with converting customary and metric units of length, perimeter and area.Students used technology, hands on activities and worked through problems on paper.

Reading:
We continue reading, discussing and writing responses to content from The Fighting Ground. We have been talking about characters and motives, historical fiction elements, vocabulary in context, and other reading comprehension strategies.


March Book Activity: Biographies - Students chose a person from history to read about this month. They may read at home and school. The class is supposed to fill out information about their person on the pages they were given. March 26th this is due. Each student will then complete a Facebook page template about their person from history! They will put these on their web pages.
Writing:
  Students continue working on their point of view/voice pieces based on the story "Dear Mrs. LaRue". Students will perform their mock talk shows, news reports, etc. next week for the class. They will videotape these and add to them to their web pages in Infotech.

Spelling:
This week's skill was adding suffixes to base words. Next week's skill will be homographs.
Next week's word study list is below. Your child should study the word list if needed.

Science: We did the study guide last week, studied 3 days in class and played some review games. The test was Wednesday of this week and your child has already received their test to take home. Our next unit is "Systems". We will begin with the body systems. Students are working in groups to research a body system such as skeletal, respiratory, muscular, etc.

1.	town
2.	called
3.	learned
4.	children
5.	remember
6.	especially
7.	American
8.	history
9.	common
10.	their
11.	early
12.	record
13.	themselves
14.	usually
15.	forest
16.	person
17.	copy
18.	quite
19.	instead
20.	first
21.	necessary
22.	government
23.	least

March 5th - March 9th

March 9.........................NO SCHOOL

March 17....................... Daddy/Daughter Dance will be  from 6:30-8:30PM.


March 23rd.................. Family Fun Night


Thank you for coming to conferences. It was good to see you all and talk about your child's progress!


Math:
We took the Geometry test Thursday. Students will get these returned on Monday. Our next unit is measurement.
Reading:
We continue reading and discussing and writing responses to content from The Fighting Ground.
March Book Activity: Biographies - Students chose a person from history to read about this month. They may read at home and school. The class is supposed to fill out information about their person on the pages they were given. March 26th this is due. Each student will then complete a Facebook page template about their person from history! They will put these on their web pages.
Writing:
We read Dear Mrs. LaRue and discussed various voices and points of view. Students are working in pairs to choose a character from the book and write from their perspectives. Students will write and perform mock talk shows, news reports, etc. They will videotape these and add to their web page.
Spelling:
This week's skill has been their/there/they're
Science:Students built roller coasters using there knowledge and skills from previous lessons. They were to be able to have a lift hill, a loop and two additional hills. Some groups were able to get their marble all the way through the run!