WEEK OF NOVEMBER 18 - NOVEMBER 22

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 18 - NOVEMBER 22

Wed., Nov. 27 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Thur., Nov. 28 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Fri., Nov. 29 No School – Thanksgiving Break

HOMEWORK:
Math:   Students have a 2-sided decimal review- 10 problems
Science:  Study the study guide for the quiz
Reading: Study the study guide for the Assessment.

READING HOMEWORK PROJECT DUE DECEMBER  4TH -NOT 1ST
Students have an assignment that is due December 1st. They have received the assignment and instructions to take home. They will use the chapter book they are reading at home/ between home and school to complete a character cube. One of the goals is to be sure kids are reading at home in addition to school.

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page
You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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MATH:  (Practice sites and games for this unit are under the "MATH" tab)

  This week we reviewed previously learned concepts and added in comparing decimals, adding and subtracting decimals, and rounding decimals. 
Just an FYI- our next unit will be multiplying and dividing fractions. We will review previous fraction skills throughout our Place Value unit.
PLEASE have your kids work on their math facts!! They are able to do XTRAMATH at home on the computer in addition to flashcards and other practice activities.
  There are some decimal tutorials under the "MATH" tab. 

READING
  We completed Long Way from Chicago in Book Club. Throughout, we have been working on a various comprehension strategies, discussing story elements, theme, plot, character motive, using text evidence, and vocabulary. Students completed a study guide for the Assessment on Monday.
 
WRITING:   
  Students read their tribe reports to the class. I sent home their graded rubric and your child can show you their comments and report on their Google docs.Friday we began a short story, "My Life in a Snow Globe." After break we will begin a persuasive piece.

SCIENCE:  We played jeopardy to review for the quiz as well as studied in class. Students have a study guide at home to practice for the quiz. The test for this unit will be right before Christmas. 

SPELLING:
  Students took the lesson 10 test on Friday. We worked on prefixes and adjectives this week.
Next week there will be no test as it is only a 2 day week.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City 

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 11 - NOVEMBER 15

 Thur., Nov. 21 PTO All School Skating Party 
Wed., Nov. 27 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Thur., Nov. 28 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Fri., Nov. 29 No School – Thanksgiving Break

All School Skating Party
Thursday, November 21
6:00-8:00PM
Cost for Skating Admission - $4.50
Free admission if you are just watching!

HOMEWORK:
Language Arts: Students have a nonfiction piece about bees to read, respond to 5 questions, and write the main idea and 4 facts.

READING HOMEWORK PROJECT DUE DECEMBER 1st
Students have an assignment that is due December 1st. They have received the assignment and instructions to take home. They will use the chapter book they are reading at home/ between home and school to complete a character cube. One of the goals is to be sure kids are reading at home in addition to school.

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page

You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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WGVU VISIT: 

The kids enjoyed their pizza party on Friday! The video taken by WGVU will begin showing after Thanksgiving and will run for 3 weeks during morning and afternoon kids programming. If students want a copy of it in order to see themselves, I will be able to provide that later.        

Extra Recess:

Our class won the extra Power Pops recess this week for the 2nd week in a row! Great job everyone!                                    

PICTURES: If you click under the "PHOTOS" tab above there are some pictures posted there. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATH:
  This week we began our Place Value unit. We have been learning whole number and decimal place value to the thousandths. Just an FYI- our next unit will be multiplying and dividing fractions. We will review previous fraction skills throughout our Place Value unit.
PLEASE have your kids work on their math facts!! They are able to do XTRAMATH at home on the computer in addition to flashcards and other practice activities.
  There are some decimal tutorials under the "MATH" tab. 

READING
  We will wrap up with Long Way from Chicago in Book Club after which we will be working with no-fiction texts again. I am rotating among groups daily. We are focusing on comprehension strategies such as summarizing as we read, asking questions, using text clues, vocabulary building, and using text support.
 
WRITING:   
  Students are reading their Tribe Reports. Our next writing pieces will be a summary and a persuasive piece which we will begin later this week. 
 
SCIENCE: We reviewed Newton's First Law of motion and added Newton's 2nd Law of Motion performing a couple investigations to prove it. We did the study guide for our 2nd quiz which will be on Friday. We played ZAP! - a popular review game. We review the study guide in class and play jeopardy for review as well. The study guide will come home on Wednesday.
  We continue to talk about ways forces and motion apply to our lives all the time every day! 

SPELLING:
   I will send it home Lesson 10 on Monday The The test will be Friday skill this coming week is PREFIXES. We will also work on past tense and adjectives.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City 

Week of November 4 - November 8

Week of November 4 - November 8

UPCOMING DATES: 
Fri.,    Nov, 15 - Pizza Party in Mrs. Blower's class
Thur., Nov. 21 PTO All School Skating Party 
Wed., Nov. 27 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Thur., Nov. 28 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Fri., Nov. 29 No School – Thanksgiving Break


HOMEWORK:
ENGLISH: Pronoun paper for those who did not complete it.
MATH: There is an adding and subtracting decimals page- 5 problems.

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page

You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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PIZZA PARTY FRIDAY!      
This week I found out that I had won the WGVU Cool Teacher Award. Olivia Johnston wrote a paper about why she thought I should receive this and her paper was chosen. Congratulations to Olivia! Thanks to her our whole class gets treated to a pizza party with pop. We will also be videotaped as a class for a brief spot that will air on WGVU around children's programs.    
  I will be sending home a release form for each student which needs to be signed in order to be included in the picture and video. Please have this returned by Friday!                                           

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Outdoor Discovery Center Field trip
Sorry I missed this, but the kids enjoyed their time there and learned more about Native American culture as it ties into our social studies unit.

MATH:
  This week we reviewed concepts from our fraction unit and took the test on Thursday.  Something I continue to notice is that many students are making minor mistakes which cost them points- sometimes enough to make a difference between a '2' and a '3'. In Middle School mistakes like this can be the difference between a A and a C because the scoring is tighter. Mistakes were in subtraction, multiplication, and division facts particularly but also mistakes caused by not showing work and doing it only in their heads. 
   Students who showed they knew the material but made these little mistakes were given their tests back to fix for full points. They were also allowed to try to fix others where they didn't show work etc.  Each student goes over his/her test with me to discuss material they missed and we will continue work on these concepts.

READING
  We continue reading Long Way from Chicago in Book Club. I am rotating among groups daily. We are focusing on comprehension strategies such as summarizing as we read, asking questions, using text clues, vocabulary building, and using text support.
 
WRITING:   
  We are finishing up Tribe Reports. Our next writing pieces will be a summary and a fun persuasive piece which I will describe when we get to it!

SCIENCE: We are talking about Newton's First Law of motion: An object at rest stays at rest iunless acted upon by an outside force and remains in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. We have done some investigations for this. We also watched an NFL video clip with Lester Holt and players showing and describing how Newton's Law applies to football. Another fun one was watching a cannon-sized slingshot using a steel ball and a shot put to shoot at an old car. Students were asked to apply Newton's Law to this including velocity and inertia.
  We continue to talk about ways forces and motion apply to our lives all the time every day! 

SPELLING:
   I will send it home Lesson 9 on Monday and I remembered to place it under the Spelling tab this time. The The test will be Friday.
We have been working on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person pronouns and this coing week we will work on past tense and adjectives.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City 

Week of October 28 - November 1

Week of October 28 - November 1

Tues., November 5th.........ODC Field Trip- $4.50
Wed., Nov. 6...................... Picture Retakes
Fri., Nov. 8......................... Release Time

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page

You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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ODC Field Trip: 
Tuesday is our first field trip of the year. I will send a text alert as a reminder on Monday.


PUMPKIN DAY
Thank you to Mrs. Theodore, Mrs. Heavilin, Mrs. Moore, and Mrs. Pashak for coming in to help us with this activity. I will have some pictures in the "PHOTOS" section of this blog by Monday night.
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MATH:
  This week we reviewed concepts from our fraction unit. The test will be on Thursday. We will begin our Place Value unit this Wednesday.

READING
  We continue reading Long Way from Chicago in Book Club. I am rotating among groups daily. We are focusing on comprehension strategies, vocabulary building, and using text support.
 
WRITING:   
  Everyone completed their Halloween stories. One of our
focuses for this piece was using onomatopeias- sound words
such as "Whoosh!" Many students sat in the author's chair and read us their fabulous stories!

SCIENCE: We have been discussing simple machines- they make work easier by changing the amount of force needed. We engaged in investigations and discussions about the various simple machines.

SPELLING:
  Click on the "SPELLING" tab to see the Lesson 8 spelling list. I will send it home on Monday. The The test will be Friday. The spelling skill is the various spellings of the sound /s/.
We have been working on parts of speech such as nouns and verbs.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City 

Week of October 21-October 23

Week of October 21-October 23

Thursday Oct 24th ...........No School

Friday Oct 25th..................No School

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page

You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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CONFERENCES: Thank you to everyone for coming to conferences! Be sure to contact me at any time concerning your child. You don't have to wait for another conference.

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                                   THE HAWKEYE HUSTLE
  WOW! Thank you parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and businesses for your donations to PTO. We really appreciate your support for our school! We had fun running, walking, dancing and skipping this morning. 
  I also want to thank Mrs. Peterson fro being our DJ all day long! And of course our committee that put this together: Lisa Kramer, Cindy Kleinheksel, and Rhonda Hulst. We appreciate their dedication to our school.
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Varsity Football PLayers are doing a volunteer effort and today we had a player come in and read to us.
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MATH:
  This week we practiced finding common denominators, reducing fractions, making and drawing equivalent fractions, and adding and subtracting mixed numbers with renaming.
 
READING
   Read aloud: We are read and discussed Echohawk as well as searched for similes, metaphor, and personification.
We began book club and are working on comprehension skills.

WRITING:
 Students finished their plans. Rough drafts are due Wednesday.

SPELLING:
  I sent home lesson 7 today. The test will be next Friday.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City  

Week of October 14-October 18

 Monday Oct 21st................Conferences 

 Tuesday Oct 22nd.. ...........Conferences   

Wednesday Oct 23rd..........Hawkeye Hustle

 Thursday Oct 24th ...........No School

Friday Oct 25th..................No School

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page

You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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Homework:  
Reading: Reading at least an average of 20 minutes at home most days of the week is homework all year.
 Math: Students have math homework due Monday.

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CONFERENCES: Your child is welcome and encouraged to come to conferences with you. They have worked on a presentation and written goals for themselves that they'll share.

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                         ** WEDNESDAY Oct. 23rd **                                        1st Annual Hamilton El. Walk-a-Thon…
                                  The Hawkeye Hustle
  We hope for this to be the only fundraiser this year. Please have donations in by Wednesday if you chose to participate.
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  Partnering with Mrs. Sikma's Class:
You can view some photos in the "Photos" tab of the blog.

Tuesday our class partnered with Mrs. Sikma's class to assist them with revising and editing their work during infotech. This is also helpful for our own class as we are also working on improving these skills.

   MATH:
  We continue working in our unit Adding and Subtracting Fractions. We have worked on adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, equivalent fractions and finding the lowest common denominator, and add/subtract mixed numbers. We will continue to work on this into next week to strengthen these skills. We used pattern blocks and graph paper to show equivalent fractions and will keep working on this. Students can often do the "math" part of this but have a difficult time conceptualizing it in order to retain the concept.
 
READING
   Read aloud: We are reading and discussing Echohawk a novel about a boy's life as a Native American since being taken away from his "white" family as a child and living a Native American family as their son. It ties in with our Social Studies unit.

We began book club on Thursday. We will be working in small groups on reading comprehension strategies and groups will be meeting with me. 

WRITING:
 Students began researching their tribes for their reports this week using a minimum of 2 sources. We practiced writing notes and how to write these into a paragraph. They had the option of working with a partner or alone on this piece as well as a choice in how they want to present their report.

SPELLING:
  Students will took the Lesson 6 Word and Skill test on Monday. The skill for this week was the homophones their, there, and they're.
TESTS WILL NOW BE ON FRIDAYS: It doesn't work well in my schedule for Mondays.
Next week we will not have a test because of the short week, but will review some concepts.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City  

SCIENCE: 
We have been studying balanced and unbalanced forces- we arm wrestled and played tug-of-war to show these concepts. We are now concentrating on simple machines and performing some investigations about these.

October 12

Tuesday, October 15...................MEAP Math Testing
Wednesday, October 16..............MEAP Science (5th grade only)
Friday, Oct. 18 PTO Popcorn .... $.25/bag

Homework:  
Reading: Reading at least an average of 20 minutes at home most days of the week is homework all year.
 Math: Students have Lesson 53 and could choose to do lesson 54 on the back side if they wanted. Not all students were ready for this part.

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CONFERENCES: Your child is welcome and encouraged to come to conferences with you. They have worked on a presentation and written goals for themselves that they'll share.

                          1st Annual Hamilton El. Walk-a-Thon…
                                            The Hawkeye Hustle
 Information and an envelope were sent home on Thursday. We hope for this to be the only fundraiser this year.
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 MEAP PREP SITE:  MEAP PREP
Click on the purple link above to have your child practice MEAP Prep material.

 MATH:  
  Students took the test over Patterns and Coordinate Graphs on Wednesday and did very well! We have been working on fraction concepts since the beginning of the school year, but Thursday we began our first full unit, Adding and Subtracting Fractions. We have worked on adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, equivalent fractions and finding the lowest common denominator. This coming week we will begin add/subtract mixed numbers.
 
READING
   We finished Guests and students wrote about ways Moss, the main character, has changed over the course of the book which is a learning target. We completed a character study   discussing character traits and focused on character motives. We continued to discuss  literary devices such as personification,simile, and metaphors.

We watched a History.com video about the Mary Celeste, a ship whose crew disappeared in the 1800's after leaving from New York, in preparation for reading about this "mystery from history" We used clues to solve this mystery on our own and searched text evidence to examine our theories. We learned a lot of new vocabulary associated with ships! We have a boating expert in Zachary to help us along.


Next week we will begin book clubs where students will read and discuss their book together and meet with me to work on strategies and discussion as well.
  
WRITING:
 Students wrote a simile poem centered on fall. You will see these hanging in the hall when you come for conferences. We will begin reports about Indian tribes this week- something they are learning about in social studies.

SPELLING:
  Students will take the Lesson 5 Word and Skill test on Monday. The skill we practiced was ways to spell the /k/ sound.
  Monday I will send the word list for Lesson 6 home- the skill for this week is the homophones their, there, and they're.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City