5-2 Updates ~ 02/16

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for a wonderful Valentine's Day party put on by our dedicated room moms.  We had a blast decorating emoji masks, delivering valentine's, eating treats, and playing games....and then there was the photo booth!  Look to the end of this blog entry for more pictures (Photo Credit to Mrs. Burda - thank you for sending me all the pictures!!)  It was a delightful afternoon of laughing and socializing as we celebrated the day of "love." :)

Come on...are they not just the cutest?!

Midterms - Official Midterms were not sent home this second term as I have encouraged students to request their grades on their own.  I have been so impressed with how often they are checking in and asking for a copy of their grade report.  They are such responsible and invested learners!  Many of them frequently ask about their grades and how to improve their scores.  If you would like to see a copy of their midterm report, please encourage your child to ask me for another copy and I'll send it home.  You are always welcome to email me and request a copy as well - I would be happy to email an electronic copy.

Important Dates

Monday, February 16th ~ No School - President's Day!  Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 18th ~  Monday schedule

Wednesday, February 19th ~ Mr. Fowler will be visiting the 5th grade students to share information about digging wells in the Amazon!

Monty Fowler, Development Director for Amazon Outreach, will be presenting information on the unique challenges of digging wells in the Amazon rainforest to 5th grade students in conjunction with their Watery Earth Science Unit.  He will be speaking to students about the importance of fresh water sources in communities and the effect on health and sanitation. He will use the villages along the Amazon River in Brazil to illustrate how the water cycle provides a variety of fresh water sources, some more beneficial than others. The students will learn how a fresh water well is drilled & capped, and the importance of such clean water sources even in a place that has an abundance of fresh water.

PARCC Testing ~  Our schedule follows:

- Monday, March 9th, 1:30-3:00pm - Math #1
- Tuesday, March 10th, 1:30-3:00pm - Math #2
- Wednesday, March 11th, 1:30-3:00pm - ELA #1
- Thursday, March 12th, 1:30-3:00om - ELA #2
- Friday, March 13th, 1:30-3:00pm - ELA #3

Please encourage your child to get a full night's sleep prior to the test dates, and please do your best to minimize absences during these times.  It can be very challenging to schedule make-up tests since our window to do so is small.  Students often feel overwhelmed at missing instruction in order to makeup tests later in the week, resulting in additional homework.  Thank you for your support!

Math

We will be nearing the end of Unit 7 this week, which means we will be taking our Unit 7 Quiz on Friday.  The quizzes are good indicators of student performance on the final unit assessment.  I encourage students to take ownership of their learning by looking at these scores and determining if they need additional support in learning the concepts.  I often talk to the students about being proactive and requesting additional time with me to reinforce the concepts during class or lunch recess.  This is an important skill moving forward in their education.  The Unit 7 Assessment is currently scheduled for Tuesday, Febrary 24th, and the additional review session will be on Monday, February 25th at lunch recess.

We will be taking a short break from Everyday Mathematics after Unit 7 to review skills learned this year to prepare for the upcoming PARCC Assessment.  Please encourage your child to spend time nightly on Khan Academy to review these skills.

Science

We spent time in our Watery Earth science unit this week discussing water pollution.  Students will have an opportunity to filter pollutants from water on Monday, and will discover just how challenging this task can be.  Our discussions and experiment will develop a greater appreciation of our need to keep our water clean and conserve the clean water that we have.  This activity will tie in well to the presentation on Wednesday about drilling and cleaning water in the Amazon.

We will begin our review for the final unit assessment on Thursday.  Your child can get started on that review this weekend by logging on to Spelling City and playing the vocabulary games with the Watery Earth vocabulary list.  I've assigned the list to them early for them to begin practicing if they want to get a head start.  This unit is a vocabulary intensive unit - there are 44 words to study for the Watery Earth test.  The Watery Earth Assessment is scheduled for Friday, February 20th.

Reading

We wrapped up Treasures Unit 3 in reading this week.  Look for assessment scores to come home on Tuesday for a sign and return.  We will be taking a break from our Treasures curriculum to invest time in our Personalized Learning Experience.  Please look for the email detailing this process and experience, as well as a request to Share Your Knowledge.  I appreciate all of you who have already shared your information!  If you have any questions at all about this experience, please do not hesitate to contact me.

We will also be working on our Fairy Tale Novel unit.  Students have been assigned the fairy tale novel of their choice, and they are expected to be read by next Friday, February 27th.  These are lengthy novels, please be sure your child is reading every night.  Once they are read, we will begin work comparing and contrasting the novels with the original fairy tales, practice our persuasive skills by writing letters from the perspective of the villain, and writing fractured fairy tales ourselves.

Writing

We finished reading The Liberation of Gabriel King this week, but will continue to use the text to support our Response to Fiction unit in WEX.  This week we discussed how the author uses sensory details to show character traits in writing, and we learned how to properly cite that evidence in our writing.  We will begin finalizing our Response to Fiction essays during writing this week.

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

Stay Warm!