Happy Birthday, Jonah!!

Happy Birthday, Roma!!

Happy Birthday, Katie!!

Happy Birthday, Mady!!

5-2 Updates ~ 09/08/19

Hello 5-2 Families :)

Ahhh....fall temperatures make me smile. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to see those leaves changing colors :) Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, but fall is definitely my favorite time of year!

We jumped into curriculum with both feet this week in all content areas, so have a seat - this is another long blog;) You may have noticed the increase in homework expectations. If you are noticing more than an hour of homework, your child is probably not using their classroom time wisely. This is a learned skill, and something we talk about often.  If they're struggling at home with the amount of homework, you may want to reinforce using their independent time in the classroom to complete homework. If they seem overwhelmed, please include me in the conversation as your child may need some additional support with organization and making choices during work times.

Important Dates and Information:

School Pictures ~ Friday, 9/20 ~ Say Cheeeeese! A flyer should have come home with your child on Friday with information about ordering school pictures.

Benchmarking (09-09/28)~ The beginning of the school year means we are spending some time collecting data about your child's abilities in math and reading. I spent a great deal of time assessing your child's reading comprehension, fluency and math computation skills this past week. Though it may seem like a lot of assessment so early in the year, the data is valuable to me as it drives instruction for the year. I will have the data from all the assessments available and ready to discuss with at our conferences in October. I'm happy to say we're done with all benchmarking in our room, so now we can stay focused on curriculum.

What's Happening in the Classroom

Math

We finished Chapter 1 on Friday with an assessment - the standard assessed in Chapter 1 is understanding place value. As mentioned on Curriculum Night, look for the "owl" standards sheet to come home attached to the assessment on Monday to indicate their progress report grade. These assessments are to be signed by you and returned by your child.  

Social Studies
We spent the week diving deeper into the events that led up to the Revolutionary War, and grew in our understanding of the opposing perspectives of the colonists and the British. Your children debated who was at fault, and arrived at the decision that they were both right and both wrong. I was impressed with their connections to conflicts in their own lives - there are two perspectives to every disagreement.  

The standards assessed is social studies this first trimester is understanding the causes and effects of events in US history. Your child has been working on creating a poster this week about one specific event that led to the Revolutionary War as an assessment of that standard. They have been describing the event in detail, as well as identifying the cause and effect. This poster has be done primarily in class on Google Draw, but they may need to finish it at home if they missed class time. As your child which event they chose, then ask them to summarize it for you and share the cause and effect!

We move on this week to study the Loyalists and Patriots in chapter 11. They will work on an organizer in class summarizing the information in the chapter, then they will add details to their poster using the new information. The poster will be due after they finish chapter 12 - sometime around October 4th. Until then, they will be given time in class to continue to add new information they learn to the poster. 

Reading
We have been practicing routines in our Schoolwide curriculum, and we are growing in our ability to have a conversation about what we read.  I continue to be impressed at the depth with which your students discuss characters and events in the stories we read aloud, as well as the engagement in their small group work. 

They also started book clubs with their classmates. As I mentioned last week, these are self-selected novels - they choose the schedule for reading, and they choose the discussion topics. They will be given time in class to read their novel, but many of them may be reading them at home. Ask your child which book they chose and who is in their group!

Please be sure your child allows time in their schedule to read 20 minutes every night! Far too often, this is the thing that students choose to skip out on. Soon, we will add a Reading Log to the expectation, where they will record the number of pages and minutes they record every night.

Writing

Your kiddos are enjoying the texts we've been reading during our writing time as they have been quite entertaining. We've had a great time laughing together! We've listed to fairy tales retold from a different perspective by Jon Sciezka, and a poetry book called Scranimals by Jack Prelutzky. Ask your child which one has been their favorite! All the text we've read have given them ideas for their own writing, as well as been used to illustrate excellent writing techniques. We're still just establishing our writing community, so it will be another couple of weeks before we take anything to publication.


Word Work - Spelling & Vocab
We began our Word Work groups this week - students were divided into groups based on an initial spelling inventory.  Your child is in one of four spelling groups:  Syllables & Affixes - beginning, Syllables & Affixes - middle, Syllables & Affixes - end and Derivational Relations. Syllables & Affixes is at grade level and focuses on prefixes, suffixes, and root words; and Derivational Relations is above grade level and focuses of Greek and Latin root words. If you have any questions about where your child placed, please don't hesitate to ask me.

Different groups have varied schedules each day so that I have an opportunity to meet with every group each week.  They will have a Word Work sort assignment every day on Google Classroom - these are primarily completed in the classroom, but are homework if they miss class for some reason.  They generally work in partners or small groups on these word sorts. The Google Classroom assignments are not graded assignments, but rather serve as just practice.

In addition to the sorts on Google Classroom, your child will also have 8 Spelling City assignments  (4 spelling and 4 vocabulary) each week.  Each group has a different due date for their Spelling City assignments, but they are given an entire week to complete these assignments.  Some choose to do them all in the first night, some choose to do them over the weekend, some choose to complete them throughout the week.  Ask your child which group they are in, and for their weekly due date. Assignments are expected to be completed by their weekly test date.  Each week they will take a spelling test and a vocabulary test.  I will not send home information on these assessments, but rather ask you to log into your child's account periodically and monitor their scores by clicking on "My Records."  If your child does not demonstrate mastery on an assessment, they will be asked to complete additional assignments over the weekend, and re-take the assessment on Mondays.

Your child should have their Spelling City password written in the front of their assignment notebook - if they do not, please encourage them to see me and I'll make sure they write it down.

Grammar
Grammar instruction began this week with Lesson 1 - Complete Sentences. Our instruction takes place on Tuesdays, and they will have an assignment in their Skills Practice (SP) Book on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. We review the first two assignments in class, and the assignment turned in on Fridays is used as an independent assessment of their skill. Each week, the 3rd page will always be assessed - you can check their progress by looking at their book each week.

These will be returned on Mondays - I've written an 'M' for 'Meets' or a 'D' for 'Developing on page 3. Some of your kiddos will have to re-do their assignments on Monday night. Since this grammar curriculum is new to the district, I expect there to be some challenges for the kiddos this year. Please encourage your child to see me if they grow too frustrated with their grammar assignments.

Character Education (Social Emotional Learning Time)
Every week, we come together in "Trust Circle" to discuss our character, focusing on one character trait per month. We call it the "Trust Circle" because it's a safe place for students to honestly evaluate their character and reflect on areas of improvement.  We can all grow in our character, right?

This week, we've been discussing Responsibility. Responsibility is doing what needs to be done without being asked.  Hopefully, you've seen an increase in responsibility from your 5th grader as I've challenged them to choose one area to increase their responsibility.  They were asked to choose something that they are regularly asked to do at home, but don't often do well, and complete it without being asked. This week, they are to report back to the circle if they were able to meet the challenge, as well as how their parents responded. The conversations have been rich with reflection of past triumphs and failures, but they left the conversation resolved to improve this week! 

Whew!  Overwhelmed yet??  I hope not...but if you are, please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any clarifying questions.  Your children are doing an excellent job adjusting to the increased expectations in 5th grade, and should be managing all of what I just shared independently!

“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.” – Pablo Casals

Cheers ~

5-2 Updates ~ 08/31/19

Hello 5-2 Families ~

I hope your children came home after the first week of school excited about all we have going on in 5th grade!  Their energy was contagious this week - I have truly enjoyed getting to know them all!

Important Dates:

09/03 ~ Labor Day ~ Enjoy the day off!

School Pictures ~ Friday, 9/20 ~ Say Cheeeeese!  

Band ~ Band will begin this week!! If your child signed up for band in the spring, you should have received an email with information about band this year. Lessons are scheduled on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, with the whole band lesson at 8:10 on Tuesday mornings (these will not start for several weeks). Your child will be pulled for 30 minute lessons on a rotating schedule so they are not always pulled from the same subject. It is important that your child understands they are responsible for making up the work they miss while they are at their band lesson at home.  In other words, on band days, they may have additional homework.

Band & Patrol ~ Unfortunately, our Patrol schedule was built around a Wednesday morning whole group band as has traditionally been scheduled. We were just informed of the change to Tuesdays on Friday. We will be reorganizing the Patrol schedule, swapping Tuesday AM and Wednesday AM assignments where possible. The students currently scheduled on Wednesday morning are not registered for band, so they will need to fill our Tuesday morning positions. I will review your child's new patrol position with them on Tuesday to be sure they understand when they are scheduled. 

What's Happening in 5-2

We spent our first full week in 5-2 getting to know each other, learning routines and exploring classroom organization, team building, and even started some curriculum!

What's in the Sack? ~ It has been so much fun getting to know many of your children as they shared their 5 treasures with the class.  I just love seeing pictures of families and dogs, hearing stories of favorite vacation spots, seeing medals and trophies, and learning about their favorite hobbies. So many creative artists and Lego architects in this class!! They all seem to take great pride in sharing who they are with their classmates and with me :)  

Google Classroom ~ Your kiddos have already spent plenty of time on technology as they learned how to download and complete a couple of assignments on Google Classroom, then turn them back in. I have not only been impressed with their competence using technology, but also the leadership so many of your children demonstrated as they learned, then turned around and helped each other! Have them show you around Google Classroom a little - they should be able to show you the documents they completed and turned in.  You can read their assignments, view their scores, and read my feedback.  

5th Grade Goals (Gym Shoes) ~ We've spent some time discussing our goals for 5th grade earlier this week. We talked about the importance of reflecting on our past and using that to guide our decisions for the future. Not only did we set up and post our goals for the year, but we discussed the specific ways we can achieve our goals. It's difficult to accomplish anything if you don't know how you're going to get there! I was so impressed with the maturity of your students as they committed to specific ways they will improve themselves this year! Hopefully, you were able to check out their shoes when you were in for Curriculum Night.

What's in a Name? ~ We also spent several days working on a project that allowed your child to creatively share their interests in their letters of their names. I was blown away by the creativity your children demonstrated in these projects! I hope you were able to check them out on Curriculum Night!

Math ~ We started Unit 1 this week in math!  In this unit, students will learn to represent numbers in different forms, and they learn to extend place value to 6 and 7 digit numbers. This chapter also delves into comparing and ordering numbers, negative numbers, and estimation as a way of verifying reasonableness of responses. It's a quick unit only covering 3 lessons, and your students all scored so well on the pre-test, we'll be finished this week. I anticipate the Unit 1 Assessment to be on Thursday, 9/5.  To help your child prepare for the assessments, please look at the chapter assessment pages at the end of Unit 1 in their student book.

Just as a review of the important information I shared on Curriculum Night, I pre-test the students for every unit. This allows me to differentiate instruction for each lesson based on student ability. I teach math in a workshop model, so students rotate stations. In the rotation, they will meet with me for instruction, spend time in their journals, and practice skills on Khan Academy or Prodigy. If they demonstrate mastery on the pre-test, they will work on enrichment and advanced content; if they demonstrate a need for additional support, I will spend more time in instruction with them.  

Homework is not graded because it is practice, but it is checked every day. If students do not demonstrate an understanding of the skills covered on their homework, they will be asked to re-do the assignment. Encourage your child to work through their homework each night - even if it is a struggle, they should do their best to complete as much of the homework as they can, but not to worry if they cannot complete it correctly. We do review the homework every morning, so if they do not understand a concept, they will have a chance to discuss it with me.

Most nights, they will be assigned approximately two pages of work for homework - sometimes these assignments will be out of their student book and sometimes they will be out of their work book. These assignments should take them approximately 20-30 minutes of their nightly 60 minutes of homework. If you find that your child consistently takes longer than 30 minutes to complete their math homework, please let me know!

Science
Meter Stick Experiment - Ask your child what happens when you cover a meter stick with a couple pieces of newspaper, then hit the end of the meter stick with a hammer. Boy, were they surprised!!  Together, we read complex text that explained the outcome and worked together to create a well-written extended response using evidence from the text.

5th Grade Annual Egg Drop ~ The excitement of our very successful Egg Drop allowed us to have some excellent follow-up discussions about the similarities between the surviving carriers. Ask your child which type of carrier was most successful! On Wednesday, we worked on writing extended responses using a complex text explaining the reason this model was the most successful. These assignments are graded on Google Classroom with feedback.

Social Studies - We began our unit on the Rising Tensions in the Colonies last week with a "letter" from the PTA limiting all classroom celebrations and field trips for the students. (We took away their annual 5th grade field trip). Boy, were they upset! They immediately began to organize protests and petitions. You would have been so proud of your students as they worked cooperatively to write speeches and letters to present to the PTA Board, and create signs and petitions to protest the restrictions. Their reactions were priceless! I almost didn't want to tell them I had tricked them for fear they would revolt on me!  

In the end, it was an excellent introduction to the tensions between Britain and the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War as we made connections between the colonists and the students, and the PTA and Britain. We will continue to study six of the major events that led to the Revolutionary War this week as students create posters about the events. The posters they begin this week will become a performance assessment for chapters 10, 11, and 12. The final project will be due Friday, October 4th.

A few of your kiddos brought home their History Alive book to finish their Chapter 10 Reading Questions we worked on in class this week - the Chapter 10 Reading Question are due on Tuesday on Google Classroom. 

Reading - We began our Schoolwide Literacy Program last week by learning about the Reading Workshop Model, and establishing routines and expectations. We focus on how to share our thinking as we're reading in a discussion format in the Launch Unit. Your children are thinking during our read alouds, and they are learning to be respectful while sharing their thoughts. They have been encouraged to share without raising their hands, but to offer their thoughts more naturally in a discussion as a whole group. This requires they pay close attention to one another in the discussion, waiting for an appropriate time to speak and respond to each other.  

We set up our Reading Notebooks this week. These notebooks are where they will record notes and information about what they are reading. They will be expected to complete a response (exit slip) for their notebook every night, but they do not need to bring the binder home. They simply need to complete the response on a sheet of notebook paper, then put it in their notebook when the return to school the following day. 

Your children were also quite excited to discover they will be a part of "Book Clubs" in 5-2. Students are free to choose a novel and the friends who will read the book with them. Groups set the schedule and manage the discussion. I have found that students truly enjoy the ability to self-select their novels, and are much more engaged in the conversation when they choose the topic of discussion. My only requirements are that everyone is in a Book Club, that they are reading the novel on schedule, and that they engage in the reading conversation. They will be choosing their novel and group this week.

Please be sure they are reading every night for at least 20 minutes!  The best way to improve your child's vocabulary and comprehension is to have them reading often.

Writing - We also began our new writing curriculum this week! They were introduced to our writing community and our Writing Workshop format. They were excited to hear they will not be writing to prompts this year, and they have been enjoying the read alouds included in the curriculum as excellent examples of good writing.

Grammar - they completed a Diagnostic Assessment of their editing skills this week. This will help to guide our grammar instruction this year. Grammar instruction will take place on Tuesday mornings, with weekly assignments due on Mondays.

Spelling - your kiddos also completed a Spelling Inventory this week. This assessment informs their Word Work group. Instruction for Word Work groups rotate daily - I instruct one group a day while the other groups work together, then check in with me. This means students will receive assignments and take assessments on different days. Your child will find out their group and day this week - they will have assignments every day except their assessment day.

FLIPS & FLOPS ~ Students were given a writing exercise this week about the BEST moment of our summer, and the WORST - our FLIPS and FLOPS of summer. They worked on these independently - I will be using them as a baseline for their writing skills. They will also be completing a Beginning of the Year Writing Assessment this week. This is a timed assessment that will help me to get to know your child as a writer.

Whew!  What a full week we've had!  I just love the energy and sense of community in our classroom this year. The students are excited for the year ahead, and look forward to taking on the challenges of 5th grade.  

As always, if you have any questions or concerns at all, please do not hesitate to send me an email or set up a time to meet.  Have a fantastic weekend!

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”  Aristotle

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler

Happy Birthday, Lily!!