Week 5 News

Upcoming Events

• TRACK-A-THON - October 5th 
• FRANCISfest - October 7
• CONFERENCES - October 8, 9, and 11th
• SPIRITWEAR- October 9th 
• GRANDPARENT/GRANDFRIEND Day - October 19  
• SAINTS WAX MUSEUM - November 1

Reminders

• NO SCHOOL -  October 11, 12, and 15th.   
• CONFERENCES - You are signing up for one spot ONLY with your Homeroom teacher but will rotate through and talk to all three 5th grade teachers.  These are only 5 min. conferences with each of us for a total of 15 min.
• LATE-SLIPS - Students will receive 3 lates in each subject.  On the third late in the same subject, they will serve a detention on the following Wednesday after school until 4:00.
• Extra Layers - As the weather changes, so does the temperature of our classrooms.  Students must be in SFA approved sweatshirts /fleece inside the building.  They may wear whatever they want out to recess. 

October 1-5

Religion –  We began our unit on The Parts of the Mass on Monday with an informational walk through of the mass with Fr. Trevor in the church.  We will continue an in depth study of each part of the mass next week using Power Notes. An short assessment will follow. We will keep you posted regarding that date.  October is the month in which the Catholic Church honors the Rosary. K-5 will be participating in weekly Rosary prayer services. 5th grade will lead the first Rosary prayer service on Tuesday October 2 at 9:00 a.m. Mark your calendars!  Our annual Saints Wax Museum will be held after our school mass on Thursday November 1st (no school mass on Wednesday this week due to All Saint’s Day). More information to come.

Reading/Language Arts – We are continuing to work through our genre unit.  Following our genre unit, we will spend time learning about and practicing all of the comprehension strategies.  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 – Thank you for reviewing your child’s Unit 1 Math Assessment and returning it signed with your child.  We have started Unit 2 which focuses on estimation and computational procedures. Please encourage continued practice of basic facts.

Social Studies - We spent the week discussing timelines, how they work, why they are important, and how they help show when events happened.  Students are applying these skills to their own lives creating a timeline. They will present their timelines in class and will be hanging in the halls for conferences for all to view.  We will use timelines throughout the year when discussing events in history. Our study of Mapping skills continues the entire year with our Daily Oral Geography (D.O.G.) lessons. Please make sure your student is reviewing this every Thursday night, as there is always a quiz on Friday over this information.

Language Arts – We’ve wrapped up Part 1 of The Sentence with an assessment today.  Next week, we will begin Part 2 which consists of Simple, Compound, and Complex sentences, conjunctions, and Subjects in Imperatives.  We will also be using the mentor texts, My Rotten Red Headed Older Brother and Meteor to help us brainstorm ideas to write about a moments from our own lives.

Spelling – Our Spelling list next week will consist of words with the suffixes -ible, -ment, and -less.

Week 4 News

Upcoming Events

• Mission Awareness - September 28th
• Picture Retakes - Friday September 28th 

Reminders

• CONFERENCES - You are signing up for one spot ONLY with your Homeroom teacher but will rotate through and talk to all three 5th grade teachers.  These are only 5 min. conferences with each of us for a total of 15 min.
• LATE-SLIPS - Students will receive 3 lates in each subject.  On the third late in the same subject, they will serve a detention on the following Wednesday after school until 4:00.

September 24-28

Religion – All three classes have been holding daily prayer services as the schedule allows.   We are wrapping up or have wrapped up our unit on Prayer. Our next unit will focus on the Parts of Mass.

Reading- We are beginning our work with genre.  We are looking at each individual genre and discussing its characteristics and elements.  This unit will help the students determine which genre to place each of their 40 books as they read them. We have started conferencing and letter writing too!  Many students are well on their way to their 40 books by the end of 5th grade! Keep on reading!

Math – Your child will be bringing home their final piece of the Unit 1 assessment on Monday for you to review and sign. We will begin Unit 2: Estimation and Computation.  I will begin testing on basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts next week. I will be providing feedback to your child if they need to complete additional study to master basic facts.

Science - We continued our study of the scientific method this week having interesting discussions on whether Skittles dissolve faster in hot water or cold water.  The students loved our interactive investigation and found the answer to that testable question. Ask them about it. We will review Monday for our Test over the scientific method that all 3 classes will have on Tuesday.  STUDY!!!

Social Studies - Although we have been spending most of our time on science, we are still taking the first 10 minutes of class to study our map skills.  We have discuss important geographical terms like latitude, longitude, being able to determine which of the four hemispheres something is located.  Students will take D.O.G. quizzes on Frida and will get them back on Monday to be signed. This will be the process throughout the school year so be asking your students to see their quizzes.  

Language Arts –  We began a unit on The Sentence.  We focused on complete sentences, fragments, and run-on sentences.  We also spent time learning about the 4 types of sentences and subjects and predicates.  This unit will continue next week with more subjects and predicates along with complex, compound, and simple sentences.  In writing, we spent this week creating poems based off of the book Scranimals. We emphasized word choice, alliteration, repetition, and rhyme.  We also looked at a couple of other poems and focused on sensory details. Next week, we will look at writing about an event from our own lives.

Spelling –  Our Spelling list next week will contain words with the suffixes -ed, -er, and -ing.  We will also cover synonyms and antonymns in analogies.

Week 3 News

Reminders

• LATE-SLIPS - We started giving late-slips for late work and referrals for behavior and dress code violations.  Please check the handbook for these guidelines.  We stress independence in 5th grade and highly encourage students to refer to their planner to remind themselves of what they need to have completed.  

Wednesday: 

• Mass @ 8:45 - Mrs. Anderson's class will lead us. They may wear dress-up clothes.

Upcoming Events

• Mission Awareness - September 28th

September 17-21

Religion – We held a 5th grade prayer service on Tuesday in honor of September 11.  We also spent time reflecting in Adoration in the church. We will attend adoration every month.  We have also spent time continuing to look at the Apostles Creed, one of the prayers that 5th graders are required to memorize. This unit will end with a short quiz over forms of prayer discussed in class.  The quiz date is yet to be determined.

Reading – We will be finishing up reading the whole class book, Frindle We have been using this as our example and expectation for reading this year. We are using this book to model how our reading program will work with the students as independent readers.  We will begin letter writing and conferencing with the students about their reading choices next week. We will also begin a short unit on plot and reading genres.

Math – We have continued unit 1 in our Everyday Mathematics program. We will have our Unit 1 test on Tuesday, September 18 and Wednesday, September 19.  They will be bringing home their red spirals and their daily studylinks to study this weekend. Monday, the students will receive a review studyguide (completed in class) to study.

   

Science - Students did an awesome job following directions to get their interactive science notebooks (ISNs) setup for science.  We are asking questions, forming hypotheses, creating experiments, observing, analyzing data, and communicating results this week and next while doing some FUN experiments to learn how the scientific method works.  Check out our Teamwork building activity, the Cup Challenge!

            

Language Arts – We have been working on a Fairy Tale piece of writing.  After listening to two books, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Frog Prince Continued, we had a class discussion regarding point of view in writing and writing sequels.  From this discussion we brainstormed ideas of other fairy tales and how we could change the point of view or write a sequel.  Students then chose a new fairy tale to take through the writing process. Word Choice has been emphasized throughout this piece of writing.  We looked at the childhood favorite Fancy Nancy to learn how to incorporate “fancy words” into our writing, and we looked at I’m Dirty and I Stink to learn how to incorporate important vocabulary, rhyme and alliteration into our writing.  Finally, we used boxes of crayons and paint samples to increase the maturity of our color descriptions.  1st graders would likely use an 8 box of crayons to include color words-The grass is green. 3rd graders might use a 24 box of crayons-The grass is a shade of green-yellow.  5th graders should strive to use the 64 box of crayorns-The grass is forest green. As an extra challenge, we also looked at paint sample colors-The grass is alligator green.  Complted fairy tales are due on Monday. We will then use the book Scranimals to try writing some poetry in combining animals and foods!  Ask your child about it next week!

Spelling –  Our Spelling list next week will consist of words that contain the prefixes re-, pre-, and de-.  We will also learn about homographs.

Week 2 News

Reminders

• LATE-SLIPS - We started giving late-slips for late work and referrals for behavior and dress code violations this week.  Please check the handbook for these guidelines.  We stress independence in 5th grade and highly encourage students to refer to their planner to remind themselves of what they need to have completed.  
• BAND @ 8:00am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  Use main school doors and go to band room.  

Tuesday: 

• September 11th PATRIOT Day, National Day of Remembrance and Mourning
• Adoration

Wednesday: 

• Mass @ 8:45 - Mrs. Schaffer's class will lead us.

Upcoming Events

• Anderson Class Mass - September 19th
• Mission Awareness - September 28th

September 10-14

Religion – All three classes have been holding daily prayer services following the resource Children’s Daily Prayer. The Reading or Gospel for the day is read aloud, prayer intentions are stated and a quiet reflection time is observed. This is a beautiful way to begin our Religion classes. We will attend Adoration on Tuesday. We plan to go to Adoration each month to allow the students some prayerful reflection time in the presence of the Body of Christ. We have also started and will continue with our first unit of the school year on prayer. The kids have been learning about different forms of prayer. We also began looking at the Apostles Creed, one of the prayers that 5th graders are required to memorize. We will be discussing the meaning behind the Apostles Creed. This unit will end with a short quiz over forms of prayer discussed in class. The quiz date is yet to be determined.

Reading/Language Arts – We will continue next week with reading the whole class book, Frindle. We will focus on different comprehension strategies as we read and discuss the book as a class. The students are on their way to their 40 book goal! We’ve had a number of students complete books and are logging them into their record sheets! Keep on Reading!

Math – We have continued unit 1 in our Everyday Mathematics program. Please see the parent letter sent home this past week for more information on the concepts covered. Your child will be bringing home a study link most nights. They will need to complete the study link as homework. Please assist your child as needed. The parent letter servers as a reference for you as you work with your child. We will continue unit 1 this week.

Social Studies – Our focus this past week has been dedicated to the events of September 11th. I am so proud of all your children for listening and discussing these events with such maturity. So many thought provoking questions and discussion came from viewing videos and photographs from 9/11 and sharing our family Interviews about where all of you were. Thank you for discussing this Historical event with your child.

Science - We will get going with science this week and will be discussing the Scientific Method. Please make sure your student has a composition notebook.

Language Arts – We spent this week learning about Punctuation. The students will take a quiz over punctuation on Tuesday Sept. 11. This will not be a quiz of memorizing definitions for each punctuation mark, rather it will be a quiz of application. Students will need to apply the missing punctuation marks to various sentences. We will review for this quiz on Monday in class. We’ve also continued to add to our 2 pieces of writing started last week (an expert writing piece and a combo writing piece-ask you child about these). We read The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs today and discussed point of view in writing. We then brainstormed other fairy tales and how we could change the point of view in preparation for our writing pieces next week.

Spelling – Next week’s Spelling list will include words with the ou, aw, au, and own vowel blends. We will also continue to focus on synonyms and antonymns.