5-2 Updates - 02/01

5-2 Updates ~ 01/27

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

Well, this blizzard just doesn't seem to be letting up!!  I've been out there shoveling three times already today - a family that shovels together, stays together, right??  I have to say that as we've discussed the polar ice caps melting in science and reading over the past weeks, it's been difficult to convince the kids that we are experiencing global warming with all this winter weather!!  Certainly doesn't feel like it here in the Midwest :)  Hoping they will have those roads and parking lots cleared so we can be in school tomorrow, but please watch for possible closing announcement early in the morning.

Important Dates
Everybody Counts ~ Tuesday, February 3rd ~ Everybody Counts is an organization dedicated to the empowerment and independence of people with disabilities.  Volunteers take the time to come into classrooms to help the students understand life with a disability in a powerful and engaging way.  THANK YOU to all the parents who volunteer in bringing this valuable program to our school  Our presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, 2/3 at 11:10.

Water Reclamation Treatment Facility ~ Friday, February 6th ~ In line with our science curriculum on Watery Earth, we have a Community Education Specialist  from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago coming in on 2/6 at 9:00 to teach students about how water is cleaned and pumped to homes and business in the area, as well as how wastewater is treated and cleaned after it leaves our homes.  This is a free in-school field trip, so you won't need to send in anything!

Valentine's Day Celebration ~ Friday, February 13th ~ Our Room Moms are hard at work planning a fun celebration for our kiddos!!  Thank you for all their hard work!  Just in case you haven't seen the new district policy regarding Valentine's Day candy:

Due to severe and life threatening allergies, 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! 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Math

We finally reached the end of Unit 6 this week.  With all the breaks, it's taken us an exceptionally long time!  Look for the graded assessments to come home for a sign and return this week.  We will start Unit 7 this week - exponents, scientific notation, and positive/negative numbers.  The best way to help them stay up with the many new concepts taught in this unit is to have them practice on Khan Academy nightly.

Science

We finished our discussion of the Earth's Water Model this week in science, learning more about groundwater, frozen water, and water in the air.  Our discussion included the amount of fresh water available to us on this planet which launched a discussion on our need to conserve.  We will continue these discussion in the next few weeks.

Students built a model of the water cycle on Friday, and brought them home over the weekend to finish up.  We will review Lessons 1-8 on Monday in preparation for a Mid-unit Quiz on Wednesday, 02/04.  Please encourage them to use those good study skills they have learned this year by studying the review and doing the vocabulary activities on Spelling City.  After the quiz, we will engage in some common core lessons on the water cycle using complex text.  They will have the opportunity to integrate information from a couple of non-fiction texts and a poem, and synthesize their learning into a poster on the water cycle.

Reading

We finished up Unit 3 Week 4 on Friday this week where we spent time comparing and contrasting characters in a fictional story, and deserts in informational text.  Students have practiced writing Common Core aligned essays during the week, as well as on the assessments.  I've been impressed with the effort they are bringing to this challenging skill!  I try to give them a great deal of feedback their weekly assessment essays so they can improve their essays each week.  Please take the time to review the comments with them, and encourage them by reminding them how hard they are working!!  I'm so impressed with their diligence on such a difficult skill.

Writing

We were able to start reading The Liberation of Gabriel King this week, and the kids are really enjoying it!  They are engaged in the text that explores the themes of racial discrimination, and have been asking excellent questions during the discussions.  They wanted to know who was president at this time and allowed such horrible things to happen.  It's a beautiful thing to listen to the innocence in their comments and questions when this type of discrimination took place not so long ago.  

We are reading this book to produce a Response to Fiction Essay.  In these lessons, students write numerous journal entries in which they explore their responses to the reading, learn to describe their textual observations, and practice new writing skills.  We started this week by brainstorming observations we make in life of people when we first meeting them, and the impressions those observations leave us with...and we drew a correlation to meeting characters in a book.  Just like we observe people in real life and write about them, we can observe characters in a novel and write about them.  The difference is, we can only observe what the author has written down for us.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. 
If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 

― Albert Einstein

Stay Warm!