Upcoming Events: Red Ribbon Week

Monday, Oct. 30:  

“Hat’s off to a Drug Free Life”  Students may wear their favorite hat to school with dress code shirts and uniform bottoms.  

Tuesday, Oct. 31: Rosary @ 9:00

“Say Boo to Drugs”  Students may wear black/orange or Halloween themed shirts with uniform bottoms.  

Wednesday,  Nov. 1:  Saints Wax Museum @ 10:00 & All Saint's Day Party 2:15-3

“Wear Red Day”  Students may wear a red shirt with uniform bottoms.  

Thursday:  Nov. 2:  

“Don’t Get Mixed Up in Drugs” Students may wear mismatched clothes.

Friday, Nov. 3:  

“Give Drugs the Boot”   Students may wear Western themed clothes and boots.

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.   Matthew 22:40

                                                                                      

5th Grade Newsletter

October 30th-November 3rd

Please join us in praying for Cara O’Neill, 5th grade parent, as she embarks on the last part of her treatment for breast cancer starting October 30.

Religion – We have been researching, writing and preparing for the Saint’s Wax Museum this week.  As a reminder, the wax museum will be held on November 1st in your child’s classroom from 10:00-10:45 (after mass).  We hope to see you there!  Following the museum, we will begin a unit on the Liturgical Calendar in preparation for the church new year beginning the first week of Advent.

Reading/Language Arts –All three classes will begin learning about comprehension strategies next week. Conferencing and letter writing are going really well!  Many students are well on their way to their 40 books by the end of 5th grade!  Keep on reading!

Math – We began Unit 3: Geometry this week. We are using a different study strategy to learn all of the vocabulary that accompanies this chapter - good ‘ole fashioned notecards! It’s amazing how motivating using different colors of pens, highlighters, etc. and writing on anything other than lined paper. :) Each student will be storing their notecards in an envelope or the pocket of their folder. This does not mean that we are taking a break from computation - please encourage nightly practice of math facts at home.  :)  Thank you!

Social Studies -  We talked and read about how and why the Europeans came to America and the routes of exploration to the New World that were taken.  Next week we will begin discussing the 3 Branches of government, how the Constitution began, and why it is such a strong system of government.  

Language Arts – We wrapped up our sentence unit this week! We reviewed all of the information Friday.  The final test will be on Monday October 30.  Students have been encouraged to bring all notes home to study over the weekend. We also focused on reference materials this week-dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias (the old internet:).  In Writing, we discussed non-fiction writing and began a written piece based off of Jerry Pallota’s Who Would Win series.  We will be beginning our first major writing piece, The Personal Narrative soon.

Spelling – Next week’s Spelling list will consist of more plural words/rules.  We will also review synonymns, antonymns, and homographs.

Upcoming Events:

• Iowa Assessments all week - Bring a healthy snack and water bottle each day.
• Tuesday Oct. 24th - Rosary @ 2:00
• Friday Oct. 27th - Missions Dress Down Day, The 6th grade’s mission this month is to support the ELL program at Meredith Middle School. We will be collecting money for the 6th, 7th and 8th graders in this program for them to purchase hooded sweatshirts . Most of these students are refugees from all over the world, mostly from warmer climates. The sweatshirts will provide them with warmth and a feeling of community-building.  Learn more by clicking here

Knowing [The malice of the pharisees], Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrite?”

Matthew 22:18

5th Grade Newsletter

October 23rd-October 27th

Religion –  We  began our unit on Saints this week.  This will lead us to the annual 5th grade Saint’s Wax Museum.  Please save the date!  The wax museum will be held on November 1st in your child’s classroom from 10:00-10:45 (after mass).  For this project, the kids will choose a saint to research.  They will then write an informative report about their saints and dress up as their saints for our wax museum.   It is always a lot of fun to see the kids dressed up as their saints.  Look for more information to come home soon regarding this special event.

Reading/Language Arts – Mrs. Schaffer’s and Anderson’s classes have been working on Plot structure and applying it to various texts and video clips. Mrs. Alsin’s class focused on Plot structure with our read aloud book, Towers Falling. Comprehension strategies will be focused on next. Conferencing and letter writing are going really well!  Many students are well on their way to their 40 books by the end of 5th grade!  Keep on reading!

Math – We are finished up with Unit 2 and are going to begin Unit 3: Geometry.  You will be receiving your child’s Unit 2 results attached to a letter from me. Please encourage continued practice of basic math facts. Thanks!

Social Studies - Our Native American Unit was a huge success!  Thanks to all of you for encouraging your child to embrace this project.  Dwellings look amazing and are lining the halls of the 5th grade wing.  I feel that all students had a wonderful time with this unit and learned a lot from their research and the research of their peers.  We have  looked at European Exploration this week and will continue discussing that next week.  

Language Arts – We are continuing our work with sentences.  We learned about conjunctions this week and how they’re used to form compound and complex sentences.  We will wrap up our unit on sentences next week and likely have the final test the week of the 30th.  We have also familiarized ourselves with context clues this week.  In Writing, we used the mentor text Water Dance to help us brainstorm ideas to write about an object from the object’s point of view.  We will work on a non fiction writing piece next week.

Spelling – Our Spelling list next week will consist of words ending in -s and -es.

Upcoming Events:

• Monday Oct. 9 - Rosary @ 9:00am, Conferences 4:30-7:30
• Tuesday Oct. 10 - SPIRIT WEAR, Conferences 4:30-7:30
• Wed. Oct. 11  -  Mass
• Thurs. Oct. 12 - NO Classes, Conferences 8:30-12:30
• Friday Oct. 13 - NO SCHOOL
• Monday Oct. 16 - NO Classes, Professional Development

5th Grade Newsletter

October 9th-October 13th

[Jesus said to the chief priests and elders], “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Matthew 22:14

Religion – We are studying the parts of mass this week and hope to wrap it up next week.  October is the month in which the Catholic Church honors the Rosary.  K-5 will be participating in weekly Rosary prayer services.  The Rosary will be held on Monday October 9th at 9:00 in the church. Following conference break, we will begin a unit on saints.  This will lead us to the annual 5th grade Saint’s Wax Museum.  Please save the date!  The wax museum will be held on November 1st in your child’s classroom from 10:00-10:45  Watch for more information to come about this special event.

Reading/Language Arts – We’ve wrapped up our unit on genre and will be moving into a unit on plot.   Conferencing and letter writing are going really well!  Many students are well on their way to their 40 books by the end of 5th grade!  Keep on reading!

Math – We continue to work in Unit 2 which focuses on estimation and computational procedures. Please encourage continued practice of basic facts.

Social Studies - We started our unit about Native American Indians, their land, ways of life, and dwellings they lived in this week.  Students are researching a tribe of their choosing, putting a poster together and also creating a replicate of the dwelling their tribe lived in.  All rubrics can be found on our fifth grade website under the social studies tab, or click here to take you directly to the site.  Research was done at school this past week and students should be working on their dwellings this weekend.  Students will have next Mon-Wed in class to finish posters. The only part of this project to be completed outside of class is the dwelling.  The completed project (poster and dwelling) are due Tuesday October 17th.

Language Arts – We are continuing to work through The Sentence unit.  We learned about subject and predicates this week.  We will continue practicing with them next week.  There will be a quiz next Wednesday covering all of the information we’ve learned so far in this unit.  In writing, we’ve continued to use mentor texts to assist us is coming up with ideas to write about.  We read Patricia Polacco’s My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother to see how authors use events in their own lives as inspiration for writing.  We also developed an opinion about the book and worked on citing evidence from text to help support our opinions.   

Spelling – In Spelling, we’ve been working with prefixes, suffixes, base words and the meanings.  We’ve also worked more with synonyms and antonyms in the form of analogies-quite the challenge!  

There will not be a spelling list/test next week due to a short week for conferences.