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.

Upcoming Events:

• Tuesday October 3 - 5th grade leads Rosary at 9:00am
• Please remember to sign-up for conferences with your homeroom teacher ONLY
• Mrs. Anderson is still in need of a Junior Achievement representative and several more volunteers for Talking canvas for her classroom. Please email her directly if interested landerson@saintfrancisschool.org.
• Friday Oct. 6 - Picture re-takes

5th Grade Newsletter

October 2nd - October 6th

Did you never read in the Scriptures: ”The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone…?” Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

Psalm 118:22 and Matthew 21:42-43

Special intention: Please continue to keep 5th grade student, Lily Calvert, in your prayers.

Religion –  We wrapped up or will be wrapping up our unit on Prayer/Apostles’ Creed.  We will begin our unit on The Parts of the Mass next week.  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 3 at 9:00 a.m. Mark your calendars!  Our annual Saints Wax Museum will be held after our school mass on Wednesday November 1st.  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 have spent the week discussing the Geography of the US and learned how to get on our online textbook for Social Studies.  Students wrote down the specific login and passwords today and will be having a few assignments that will need to be completed online.  Please email me if they do not have access to a computer or the internet at home.  Next week we will be learning about American Indians, their land, ways of life, and dwellings they lived in.  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 have started a unit on The Sentence.  We learned about a complete sentence, sentence fragment, and run on sentence.  We also learned about the 4 types of sentences-declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory.  Next week we will learn about the subject/predicate of a sentence.  We also learned about Homographs and completed activities that deal with them.  Next week we will re-visit and work with synonyms and antonyms.  In Writer’s Workshop, we’ve been working on a new version of a fairy tale and developing poems about an animal/food combined creature.  Both of these activities stemmed from some excellent examples of children’s literature.  The Frog Prince Continued and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs both by Jon Scieszka and Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky served as our mentor texts.  Next week will try writing an informational piece of writing using the mentor texts-Who Would Win? by Jerry Pallotta

Spelling – Our Spelling list next week will consist of words with the suffixes -ed, -er, and -ing.

Upcoming Events:

• Thursday Sept. 28 Missions Dress Down Day
• Friday Sept. 29 Grandparent/Grandfriend Day

5th Grade Newsletter

September 25-September 29

Religion – All three classes have been holding daily prayer services as the schedule allows.   We are continuing to work through our unit on Prayer.  We are taking time to focus on the Apostles’ Creed and using it to teach the students what we believe as a part of our Catholic faith.  This instruction will continue next week.

Reading- We are continuing 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 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 melt faster in hot or cold water.  The students loved our interactive experiment and finally had a chance to find the answer to that testable question.  Ask them about it.  We reviewed today for our Test over the scientific method that all 3 classes will have on Monday.  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 discussed latitude, longitude, and all four hemispheres.  Students took their D.O.G. quizzes today 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 spent this week working on antonyms.  We also spent time reading re-written and different versions of classic fairy tales.  We read aloud the book The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs.  We discussed point of view in stories.  Students then developed a list of ideas in which a new point of view is used in a well known fairy tale.  After individual and small group brainstorming,  students began drafting a piece of writing stemming from one of these fairy tale ideas.  We will continue with this process next week.  We will also begin a unit on The Sentence.

Spelling –  Our Spelling list next week will contain the prefixes re-, pre-, de- and time will be spent looking at homographs.

5th Grade Newsletter

September 19-23

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 each day.   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. Next week we will continue to look 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 – We finished reading the whole class book, Frindle, and 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 reading genres.

Math – We have continued unit 1 in our Everyday Mathematics program. Most nights, your child will be bringing home a study link. They will need to complete the study link as homework.  Please assist your child as needed. The parent letter serves as a reference for you as you work with your child.  We will have our Unit 1 test on Thursday, September 21 and Friday, September 22.  They will be bringing home their red spirals, a unit review, and their daily studylinks to study.    

Science - Your student did an awesome job following directions to get their interactive student notebooks 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.  Ask your student about our teamwork activity and check out our photos on the 5th grade Blog here.  

Language Arts – We spent this week learning about punctuation and synonyms.   We also finished up brainstorming ideas for writing and forms of writing for our Writer’s Notebook.  Following our brainstorming, we completed a “Combo” piece of writing.  Ask your child to share it with you.  Next week, we will learn about antonyms and create many more pieces of writing.  The punctuation test will be on Monday.  Your child has been told to bring home his/her notes to study for this test.

Spelling –  Our Spelling list next week will consist of words that contain the vowel blends ou, aw, au, ow

TEAMWORK Science FUN!