5-2 Updates ~ 01/31/20

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

I hope you're managing to stay cheerful despite our seeming record run of cloudy days! At least we have the Superbowl to look forward to this weekend - that should bring some cheer into our homes :)

5 Essentials Survey

The 5Essentials Survey gives students, teachers, and parents the opportunity to provide input about the school environment. This data forms the basis for reliably predicting student outcomes and school improvement. Your feedback and input provide valuable information to the district and our schools. Please take a moment to share your thoughts on the important elements of school effectiveness in this survey: 
https://survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/

Important Dates

Global School Play Day ~ Wednesday, February 5th ~ Please send in games, toys, crafts, or dress-up activities with your child for a day of unstructured play!  NO ELECTRONICS, PLEASE!  We are specifically looking for math games during our math block, but the rest of the day is an unstructured day of play. For more information on this national movement, please click on this link: https://www.globalschoolplayday.com/

Valentine's Day Party ~ Wednesday, 02/12, 2:15-3:15pm ~ A great big THANK YOU to our wonderful room moms for planning our LAST classroom party! Consistent with our district allergy policy, we are asking that you DO NOT INCLUDE ANY FOOD OR CANDY ITEMS with your child's individual Valentines. There are many clever and creative alternatives to food items, including pencils, tattoos, stickers, & bubbles... but the nicest way to say "Happy Valentine's Day" is to write a nice note! We are also asking students to bring in something to collect their valentines. A simple box or bag is all that they will need.

Parent-Teacher Conferences ~ Thursday, 02/13 & Friday, 02/14 - watch for the Signup Genius link to be emailed on Monday. If you do not receive the link, or you have trouble signing up, please let me know. I look forward to meeting with all of you to discuss your child's progress!

Erin's Law ~ Wednesday, February 20th ~ A presentation about personal body safety is scheduled from 2:00-3:00pm, and will be made by our Social Worker, Mrs. Cheree Heardt. 

Math

Our math class just began Unit 9 Multiplying and Dividing Decimals this week. This unit is longer than the last several units, so we won't be testing until the last week of February. Please encourage your children to practice these skills on Khan Academy throughout this unit.

Science
Your child may have shared with you we began our investigation into Matter last week. They've been exploring the properties of the three states of matter through several experiments, and they even built a model that proves air has weight! Ask your child to describe their model, or have them show you the video they posted in our Google Classroom.

In this unit, students will:

~ Define matter and identify many of its common properties.

~ Become familiar with the common states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas.

~ Plan and conduct an investigation to prove that air has weight.

~ Conduct investigations on the physical properties of matter.

~ Show that the weight of matter doesn't change when heated or cooled.

~ Discover the differences between physical and chemical changes

~ Plan and conduct experiments to show weight of matter stays the same when changed.

~ Discover how unusual mixtures have properties unlike other materials.

Reading

We continue to explore the elements of nonfiction in our reading unit. In addition to their book club novel, your children should be reading nonfiction texts regularly to increase comprehension.

BioBottle projects and speeches are due on 02/11. Your child should have shared they will need a 2-liter bottle and a styrofoam ball to complete this project. They should be done with the organizer and summary by this point and begun work on the project itself. Ask your child to show you their progress on the project on Google Classroom.

Writing

Your children were excited to begin the publication process in our Fiction Unit this week. We will spend the next two weeks revising and editing our stories, then publishing after conferences. Your children are quite talented writers - I can't wait for you to read their published stories! 

As always ~ should you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me!

"You will never have this day with your children again.  Tomorrow they will be a little bigger than they are today.  This day is a gift.  Breathe and notice.  Smell and touch them; study their faces and pay attention.  Relish the charms of the present.  

Enjoy today.  It will be gone before you know it."

― Jen Hatmaker

Cheers ~
Theresa Fowler

5-2 Updates ~ 01/10/20

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed some relaxing time with your families over Winter Break.  I was so happy to see all the smiling faces and exciting chatter as your children entered the classroom on Monday - it's always so much fun to hear their stories of all they did on break! 

The new year brings some new expectations for your student as they are in the final stretches of their elementary years! We continue to increase independence and responsibility as your children begin to prepare for middle school. As you have noticed less communication from me, I have been encouraging your children to own their learning, and I have been SO impressed with the way they are maturing! Give your kids a pat on the back - they are working hard to independently manage their responsibilities. Encourage them to continue to use those organizations skills, such as checking their assignment notebook and accordion folder daily, and promote those self-advocacy skills by suggesting they seek support when help is needed. As always, if you see your child struggling with this transition, please let me know.

Important Dates

5 Essentials Survey ~ Wednesday, January 15th ~ 11:00am

As 5th graders, your children will participate in completing the 5Essentials Survey. For more information about this survey, please click on this link.

http://help.5-essentials.org/customer/en/portal/articles/780471-illinois-5essentials-faqs

Robert Crown ~ Puberty Education:  Friday, January 17th

On Thursday afternoon, if your child has permission to attend the Puberty Education, they will complete a pre-test and pre-learning activity that introduces the content for the program. On Friday, girls will attend the program in the morning, boys will attend in the afternoon.

Opposite the program, students will watch the Ruby Bridges movies. This movie is not rated - you will find information about the movie on the following Common Sense link:

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/ruby-bridges

If your child is not participating in the Puberty program, they will be engaged in an alternate activity. If you have specific questions or concerns, please email me directly.

No School ~ Monday, January 20th - MLK Day

Monday Schedule ~ Thursday, January 23rd ~ We will have PE/Music instead of LMC.

Math

We've been working hard to learn how to calculate area or rectangles and triangles since we returned from break, and we're already getting ready for the test! Students will participate in self-selected review stations on Monday, then take the Chapter 5 Assessment on Tuesday, January 14th.

Social Studies

Now that the Revolutionary War is won, we are a free nation...and with that comes the responsibility and struggle of organizing a government. As your children learned before break, there were some significant problems with the Articles of Confederation that resulted in Shays' Rebellion. We moved on to learn about the Constitutional Convention and students learned of the challenges our forefathers faced as they argued the best form of government for our new nation. We learned how our early government settled on our Constitution, and they created a project demonstrating their understanding of 3 branches of government. We returned from break to play a game imagining different scenarios as a way to review the key powers for each branch of government. Your children took the Chapter 14 Assessment this week - look for the graded score cards to come home early next week for a sign and return.

We continued our study of the Constitution by introducing the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments. Our discussion of these amendments has been lively as your children have been learning about their rights as American citizens. Next week we will complete a project as a way to review the Bill of Rights. The Chapter 15 Assessment is scheduled for Thursday, January 16th.

Reading

We wrapped up our Fiction Unit before break with the Summative Assessment, and we began our Nonfiction Unit when we returned on Monday. Your kids have spent time this week choosing nonfiction books for their reading bin, discussing the different types of nonfiction, as well as identifying the many structures of nonfiction. 

Every student should have chosen a biography to read this week. They should have this biography read by Tuesday, January 21st. We will use this book to create a BioBottle project and speech. The project descriptor will be shared with them on the 21st.

Writing

Our new writing unit is Fiction. Your children have really enjoyed the freedom that writing fictional story brings. They have laughed while listening to excellent examples of fictional text, and have explored writing about "messy" situations, interesting characters, and asking fun "What if?" questions. My personal favorite: What if monkeys escaped from the zoo and ended up in my backyard. We will be writing fiction for the next 5-6 weeks.

As always ~ should you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me!

“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”         

Cheers ~
Theresa Fowler

5-2 Updates ~ 11/15/19

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

A great big THANK YOU!! to our room moms (Mrs. Bilfaqi, Mrs. Koroulis, and Mrs. Klinkenborg) and volunteers for making our Halloween Party such a delight! Despite Mother Nature's insistence on an indoor parade, the kiddos had a ton of fun in the room playing games and making crafts :) Thank you!!

Important Dates

Progress Reports ~ Friday, 11/15 ~ Your child's progress report should have been sent electronically on Friday. Please don't hesitate to reach out should you have any questions after you receive your child's progress report.

Get Moving Day ~ Tuesday, November 19th ~ Student Council is sponsoring a Spirit Day they've named Get Moving Day! We encourage your children to get in the spirit by wearing gym shoes and exercise clothing and looking for your opportunities in your day to get your family up and moving! We will be doing the same here at school :)

Family Reading Night ~ Thursday, November 21st from 6:30pm-8:00pm ~ Come and hear presentations from two illustrators: Jacqueline Alcantara, a picture book illustrator, and Sean Dove, a graphic novel illustrator. We have some great activities planned, as well as plenty of story times!

Thanksgiving Break ~ Monday, 11/25 to Friday, 11/29. Enjoy the time with your family.

Math

Your child should have brought home their Chapter 3 Summative Assessment for you to review and sign. If your child did not meet standards on this assessment, they brought home some additional review work for this weekend. For additional practice, they can review videos and practice problems on Khan Academy for these same skills. I will review the skills during Target Time next week, then give children an opportunity to re-take the assessment. Please note these tests were given on Tuesday - after our grade books closed last Friday, so these scores are entered into the 2nd trimester.

We began Unit 4 this week - Multiplying and Dividing Fractions. The concepts in this chapter start simply, but can get tricky in the later lessons. I suggest they continue to monitor their understanding by reviewing and correcting their homework. This is still a strategy many of our students are learning. After we check homework, I suggest students "own their learning" by correcting the incorrect problems. There is time in every math block to ask me for help with any problems they struggle to correct, and I encourage them to come back for support if they need it. You can support your child by checking their workbook for corrected pages. 

Science - Earth & Space

We finished up our Earth & Space unit with an assessment on Friday. Please look for these sign and return Owl Scorecards to come home today. Since these assessments were taken on Friday, they were included in the Trimester 1 Progress Report.

Social Studies

We began our unit on the Revolutionary War with a tug-of-war game in the classroom on Monday. What fun the kids had re-enacting the battle with an actual game of tug-of-war!! The red team represented the British, and the blue team represented the Continental Army - ask your child how unfair the game seemed at first with the largest students on the British side. There were several rule changes to the game that represented the actual events, and the Continental Army was actually able to win the game - ask them how the blue team won!

After reading chapter 13 in their History Alive textbook and completing an organizer this week, we began work on our Revolutionary War Battle posters today. They chose a specific battle to research further and will use the research to create a poster to display on a timeline of the battles of the Revolutionary War. Their research notes and poster are due on Thursday, November 21st. The assignment and a few research links are posted on Google Classroom.

The final Unit 13 Assessment is scheduled for scheduled for Friday, November 22nd. To prepare for the assessment, your child should re-read the chapter in their History Alive textbook, review he completed organizer posted on Google Classroom as a study guide, and create flashcards for the vocabulary words in the chapter.

Social-Emotional Learning
We continued our focus on Gratitude this week by creating Gratitude Journals. They are recording 3 things they are thankful for every day, and the reason they are thankful for them every day in their journals. The challenge is they are not allowed to record the same reason twice - so once they have written they are thankful for their house, they cannot use that gratitude again. The idea is to push them to recognize the many things they have in their lives to be thankful for. By thinking on things we are grateful for every day, we can shift our perspective from those despairing thoughts when things go wrong.

There are enough pages in their book to take them through to Thanksgiving. They will record in their journals every day while they are in school, and I would encourage you to have them pull out their journals every day while on break until Thanksgiving. I have suggested they pull out their Gratitude Journals at the Thanksgiving table and share them with their families.

Reading
We have been exploring conflict in fictional stories this week, specifically looking at the types of conflict and how the conflict changes the character. By understanding how the conflict changes the character in a story, we can uncover the theme and the lesson in a story. This type of inferential comprehension study pushes students outside of their comfort zone, but I've been impressed with the way so many of your children are taking risks and exploring their understanding in discussions, both whole and small group. Take the time to discuss the conflict in their independent reading book this weekend! 

Writing
We have spent time in our Personal Narrative unit learning about those elements of a well-written narrative - ask your child if they can name a few things they have been encouraged to include in their stories! They chose the story they will be taking to final publication last week, and were given time to finish the rough draft. A few students needed to finish up their stories at home this weekend - ask your child to tell you the story they chose! Next week, we will work on revising and editing our stories. We will plan to publish them in a classroom book the week after Thanksgiving Break.

LMC
I was so impressed with how well your children presented their space debates! They were well prepared and articulate as they presented different sides of two different issues related to space travel. The rubrics for their research and presentation will be coming home this week for a sign and return.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  

It's not happy people who are thankful, but thankful people who are happy.

~ Loris Malaguzzi

Cheers ~
Theresa Fowler

5-2 Updates ~ 11/03//19

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

A great big THANK YOU!! to our room moms (Mrs. Bilfaqi, Mrs. Koroulis, and Mrs. Klinkenborg) and volunteers for making our Halloween Party such a delight! Despite Mother Nature's insistence on an indoor parade, the kiddos had a ton of fun in the room playing games and making crafts :) Thank you!!

Important Dates

Class Picture Re-take ~ Monday, 11/4 at 9:15am.

Veteran's Day ~ Monday, 11/11 ~ We are encouraging the students to wear red, white, and blue to honor veterans of our armed forces. We will be having an all-school assembly to teach students about our armed forces and Veteran's Day.

Progress Reports ~ Friday, 11/15. Report cards will be issued and sent electronically. Please don't hesitate to reach out should you have any questions after you receive your child's progress report.

Family Reading Night ~ Thursday, November 21st from 6:30pm-8:00pm. Come and hear presentations from two illustrators: Jacqueline Alcantara, a picture book illustrator, and Sean Dove, a graphic novel illustrator. We have some great activities planned, as well as plenty of story times!

Thanksgiving Break ~ Monday, 11/25 to Friday, 11/29. Enjoy the time with your family!

Math

Our math class has been working on adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, and converting fractions into decimals. The Chapter 3 Assessment is currently planned for Tuesday, 11/12. If your child needs some additional practice, have them log on to Khan Academy to complete the assignments on fractions.

Science - Earth & Space

Last week, we finished exploring the daily patterns of the sun and switched our focus to the stars. This week, we'll continue learning about and modeling the sun and other stars that appear in the night sky. We'll look at 8 different constellations in detail, studying when these star patterns appear throughout the year. At the end of week, your children will begin researching a constellation of their choice. Their final product will be a drawing of their constellation and a paragraph written to include the facts they discovered about their constellation. 

Social-Emotional Learning
Your children were introduced to Headspace this week - a meditation time intended to quiet their minds, reduce anxiety, and improve focus. Educational research shows us teaching students mindfulness techniques can help them to calm their thoughts and regulate their emotions. I've been surprised with how they embraced meditation, and how much they look forward to the quiet time each day!

We also started our discussion this week on our new character trait - gratitude. When people acknowledge the goodness in their lives, research shows us people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, more easily deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. We discussed ways to increase the gratitude in our lives, and I challenged your children to genuinely say thank you to people in their lives this week.

Reading
Your children really seem to be enjoying the stories we're reading in our Fiction Unit! Ask them which one has been their favorite :) We've spent time inferring character traits in our stories by looking at their actions, thoughts and dialogue, and using those story elements as evidence. This week, we'll learn how to use the context clues to unlock the meaning of challenging words in fictional text, and we'll identify the theme of the stories we're reading.

Your child has also been participating in a Book Club - this is an opportunity for students to read a book of their choice with a group of friends. Book Clubs set their own schedule and discussion points. We meet in our Book Clubs at least 3 times a week - your child should be prepared for the discussion by having the book with them and reading the book according to their schedule. Please ask your child which book they are reading for Book Club, and ensure they are choosing to read it for their 20 minutes of reading homework.

Writing

We continue to work on personal narratives during our writing time, using Jerry Spinelli's stories in Knots in My Yo-Yo String as inspiration. I've been so impressed with the enthusiasm your children demonstrate during writing time - they've really enjoyed the opportunity to write and share stories about their lives!

LMC
Your children were given time to finish up their research during their LMC time this week. This research will be used to prepare for the upcoming science debate. If they didn't finish, they should be completing their research at home before Thursday. They will begin writing their debates and creating presentation during their LMC time this week.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  

Our task is to help children communicate with the world, 
using all their potential, strengths, and languages 
to overcome any obstacle presented by our culture.
~ Loris Malaguzzi

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler

5-2 Updates ~ 10/18/19

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

It was SO great to be able to return to the classroom this week - your children have been absolutely delightful!! I didn't realize how much I missed their smiling faces or warm hugs until I saw them on Tuesday :) Thank you so much for all your well wishes and kind words as I've returned - I'm so blessed to be able to work with such a wonderful group of students and parents.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you next week at conferences and sharing your child's progress thus far in the trimester.  We will discuss beginning of the year benchmark scores and I will have their midterm standards based grading report for you, as well as their goals for the remainder of the trimester.  

Important Dates

Team Building with the Principals ~ Tuesday, 10/22 from 2:15-3:15pm ~  Ms. Davis and Mrs. Pemberton will be taking the 5th graders for an hour on Tuesday afternoon for a team building activity. This has become a treasured tradition for both our principals and the 5th graders as they always have such a great time getting to know each other a little better while building community.

Parent-Teacher Conferences ~ Thursday, 10/24 & Friday, 10/25 - No School

Halloween Party and Parade ~ A great big THANK YOU to the room moms (Mrs. Shah, Mrs. Koroulis, and Mrs. Klinkenborg) for all their hard work planning the Halloween party! If you have not yet given your child permission to participate, please click on the Google form here. All students need permission to participate in the parade and party, and we need to know their lunch plans for the day. Thank you!

Math
We spent the majority of the last two weeks practicing word problems.  Your children are developing their ability to read and break down a real-world problem, and then apply their computation skills to solve the problem.  Some parents have reached out to me to ask if there is a specific way we ask the students to solve the problems. We do teach Bar Modeling as a strategy, but your child can use any strategy to solve the problem. So long as they arrive at the correct answer, I am not particular about the method.  If you would like to review Bar Modeling, just look back into the chapter.  You'll find several examples at the end of each chapter with the word problems.

They took their Chapter 2 Assessment today, so look for these to come home on Monday as a sign and return. This was a challenging test, but they really worked hard to master skills in this unit! If your child did not master the concepts in Chapter 2, they will also bring home an additional practice packet to continue to work on skills. We will continue to work on skills during Target Time, and they will be given another opportunity to demonstrate mastery on an assessment before progress reports are issued.

With the end of chapter 2, we are moving on to adding and subtracting fractions in chapter 3, which means we will finally be working on a different standard!  We will actually be covering two standards in chapter 3 - adding and subtracting fractions, and performing operations on decimals as we will convert fractions to decimals.  This unit isn't quite as long as the previous unit, but we will work in it for the next 2-3 weeks. As we get closer to the end of the unit, I will post our assessment date.  As in previous units, I will post assignments on Khan to give your children extra practice with the skills.

Science
Your children were very excited to begin the Earth and Space science unit last week with Mrs. Raffone! They had a great time creating models of the earth and gravity. This week, we made observations about the earth's rotation by collecting data about the movement of the sun and shadows. They have a packet to finish up this weekend analyzing that data and drawing some conclusions. They were challenged today to create a model that describes what causes daytime and nighttime and explains why the sun seems to move across the sky during the daytime. Ask them how their model effectively demonstrated this phenomenon, and the challenges they endured while creating the model.

They will be completing a few performance assessments and quizzes next week to demonstrate a mastery of the content learned over these past two weeks - look for Owl Scorecards to come home next week with their assessment grades.

Reading

Your children wore their Book Review t-shirts with pride on Tuesday, and they did an excellent job presenting their Book Review Talk!  I was SO impressed with the quality of the t-shirts and the effort so many of them put into preparing their presentations!  On Tuesday afternoon, the entire 5th grade class had an opportunity to share their t-shirts and book talks as an entire group. They were engaged in conversation with each other, and so many were recording book titles they were interested in reading. I loved the enthusiasm for their book and the encouragement of each other's creative work! The shirts are hanging in the classroom so you can check them out when you come in for conferences.  I'll send them home in a couple of weeks. The Owl Scorecards for these Book Review Talks came home earlier this week.

We finished up our Launch Unit, so your children took some time to reflect on their participation in reading conversations, as well as the quality of their work and organization in their Reading Notebook. Their notebooks and rubrics came home today in a red folder. These rubrics provided an opportunity for excellent conversation, and they allowed us to set some goals for the next reading unit. Ask your child to share their reflections and goals with you. Take the time to flip through your child's notebook and the rubrics, then please sign and return them to school on Monday. These rubrics inform their Student Skills scores on the progress report.

Writing

We also wrapped up our Writing Process unit with a final published piece this week. Your children took a self-selected piece of writing through the writing process to publication over the past several weeks. They are so proud of the books they've created!! We met with Mrs. Klimas' class today to share our stories and give feedback. This time was so valuable - your children came back to the room elated over the feedback they received and excited to write more stories to share! I loved their enthusiasm! Ask your child what feedback they received on their story :)

The Owl Scorecards for this published piece also came home today, along with their own reflections and the rough draft. If you would like to read their final piece, ask them to share their document with you on Google Drive.

LMCStudents have been working on research in their weekly LMC lessons to prepare for a debate related to space exploration. Your children are engaged in researching either the pros or cons of one of these questions:

Should we spend money on space exploration?
Would it be safe to live somewhere other than earth?

Ask your child which debate they are focused on, and which side they are on.  They will be working to gather research to support their debate over the next couple of weeks. The debate will be on Thursday, 11/7 during their LMC time. Students will be assessed on their ability to gather information from multiple sources for research (writing standard), as well as their ability to support their claims with evidence (science standard) with this research. They will also be assessed on their ability to present information (speaking standard) during the debate.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; 
but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, 
he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.
~ Clay P. Bedford

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler

Happy Birthday, Cecelia!!

Happy Birthday, George!!