Hello 5-2 Families ~
I hope you're enjoying the slightly warmer temperatures this weekend. Keep thinking Spring, and we'll make it before too long!!
Important Dates
Monday, March 2nd ~ Due date for Six Flags Read to Succeed Reading Log. This is the program that earns your child a free Six Flags ticket for this summer. You simply need to complete the Reading Log, and they'll receive a free ticket at the end of the year. Your child was given this Reading Log early in the school year. I sent a copy of this Reading Log to your email - just print and complete!
Wednesday, March 4th ~ 5th Grade Band Concert at 7pm
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!
Friday, March 13th ~ Progress Reports will be sent home.
Thursday, March 19th & Friday, March 20th ~ As you have heard, these are now student attendance days due to the number of extreme weather days we have had to take this winter. This means we will no longer meet for parent-teacher conferences. Many questions during the 5th grade spring conferences are about middle school transitions, including placement into classes. I will do my best to continue to update you via this blog about the transitions, and try to answer those questions that I am frequently asked about the transition. Several other questions are related to the end of the year 5th grade activities. Again, I will keep you posted about all those activities via this blog. If you have ANY questions at all, please do not hesistate to contact me. I fully appreciate the additional anxiety families feel during this transition, and want to make it as smooth as possible :)
If I feel it is important to still meet with you about the progress of your child, I will reach out to you individually to set up a time to meet. If I do not reach out to you, please assume your child is making progress and I have no concerns about them. Several parents have approached me about setting up a conference time because those days have been canceled. If you have pressing concerns, I would be happy to meet with you. But if you have questions that can be answered via email, please feel free to contact me this way instead. It can get challenging trying to schedule 22 parent-teacher conferences after school :) That being said, I would be happy to meet with all 22 of you if there is a need!
I hope you're enjoying the slightly warmer temperatures this weekend. Keep thinking Spring, and we'll make it before too long!!
Important Dates
Monday, March 2nd ~ Due date for Six Flags Read to Succeed Reading Log. This is the program that earns your child a free Six Flags ticket for this summer. You simply need to complete the Reading Log, and they'll receive a free ticket at the end of the year. Your child was given this Reading Log early in the school year. I sent a copy of this Reading Log to your email - just print and complete!
Wednesday, March 4th ~ 5th Grade Band Concert at 7pm
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!
Friday, March 13th ~ Progress Reports will be sent home.
Thursday, March 19th & Friday, March 20th ~ As you have heard, these are now student attendance days due to the number of extreme weather days we have had to take this winter. This means we will no longer meet for parent-teacher conferences. Many questions during the 5th grade spring conferences are about middle school transitions, including placement into classes. I will do my best to continue to update you via this blog about the transitions, and try to answer those questions that I am frequently asked about the transition. Several other questions are related to the end of the year 5th grade activities. Again, I will keep you posted about all those activities via this blog. If you have ANY questions at all, please do not hesistate to contact me. I fully appreciate the additional anxiety families feel during this transition, and want to make it as smooth as possible :)
If I feel it is important to still meet with you about the progress of your child, I will reach out to you individually to set up a time to meet. If I do not reach out to you, please assume your child is making progress and I have no concerns about them. Several parents have approached me about setting up a conference time because those days have been canceled. If you have pressing concerns, I would be happy to meet with you. But if you have questions that can be answered via email, please feel free to contact me this way instead. It can get challenging trying to schedule 22 parent-teacher conferences after school :) That being said, I would be happy to meet with all 22 of you if there is a need!
Math
We finished up unit 7 on Friday, and will prepare for the test by reviewing on Monday and Tuesday. The Unit 7 Assessment will be Wednesday, Febrary 25th. The review session will be on Tuesday, February 24th during lunch recess. Please encourage your child to attend if they have been struggling with the content this unit. I continue to try to develop a sense of ownership in their learning by giving them guidelines for deciding if they should attend. Ultimately, however, I do leave attendance to these review sessions optional - please email me if you are concerned your child is not choosing to stay in for these sessions and you would like them to participate.
Before we begin Unit 8, we will spend several days preparing for the PARCC assessments by taking practice tests. I will send these tests home for you to review with your child. It might be valuable for you to review the expectations for the assessment as the expectations for these standardized tests are different than in previous years. Please let me know if you have any questions at all.
Before we begin Unit 8, we will spend several days preparing for the PARCC assessments by taking practice tests. I will send these tests home for you to review with your child. It might be valuable for you to review the expectations for the assessment as the expectations for these standardized tests are different than in previous years. Please let me know if you have any questions at all.
Science/Social Studies
The 5th grade students were super excited to meet Mr. Fowler and thoroughly engaged in the presentation about his work in the Amazon. He expanded their knowledge on the water cycle, specifically as it works in a rainforest climate. The children learned through pictures and videos about the dangers many villagers face with unclean water, and the solutions his organization bring to the Amazon by digging wells and teaching villagers how to use simple 5 gallon bucket water filtration systems.Mr. Fowler said it was a genuine pleasure interacting with the kids! He was very impressed with how attentive they were and the depth of the questions they asked - what a compliment! I was so proud of them :)
The Watery Earth Final Unit Assessment is now scheduled for Monday, 02/23. Students were given the review materials to study for the test this weekend. Please encourage them to use the study strategies we discussed on Friday: making vocabulary flash cards, studying the reviews (Ch 1-8 and 9-11), reviewing the chapter organizers, re-reading the chapters, or completing the Watery Earth vocabulary activities on Spelling City.
We will take a week to prepare for the PARCC tests before we move on to our Social Studies unit. As with the math, I will be sending home these tests after we take them so that you may review the new expectations. Again, please feel free to ask any questions you may have about these upcoming tests.
After PARCC practice, we will return to Social Studies for the next two months. We will pick up where we left off after the Revolutionary War, and I'm excited to bring in a new resource for the students to explore. I will be picking up a Revolutionary War trunk from Cantigny next Sunday that is full of authentic reproductions of items the soldiers would have worn and carried with them in battle. (Thanks Mrs. Borland for the suggestion!!) I can't wait to see how excited the students will be as they open the trunk and explore the items inside! We'll move on to study how our country formed a new government. We will spend time learning about the Constituion and Bill of Rights, then move on to Westward Expansion.
Reading
Students were super-excited to learn about Personalized Learning (Genius Hour) in our classroom. I'm including a link the students viewed this week that may help explain Genius Hour to you, as well as the type of questions they should be forming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEQzKH7v0-Q
Students should be thinking about their questions, but with the cold day, we didn't get a chance to choose a question. We'll be doing that on Monday after a "pre-search" activity, then students will be able to dive into their research. Please take a moment to help them choose a couple of topics they are passionate about, and begin to form open questions. We find students are much more successful if they have put some thought into the question prior to the time I give them to think about their question. Choosing a question can be the most difficult part of the process for many of them, but once they are over that hurdle, we find they dive into research with excitement.
Please remind your child their Fairy Tales are due on Friday!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEQzKH7v0-Q
Students should be thinking about their questions, but with the cold day, we didn't get a chance to choose a question. We'll be doing that on Monday after a "pre-search" activity, then students will be able to dive into their research. Please take a moment to help them choose a couple of topics they are passionate about, and begin to form open questions. We find students are much more successful if they have put some thought into the question prior to the time I give them to think about their question. Choosing a question can be the most difficult part of the process for many of them, but once they are over that hurdle, we find they dive into research with excitement.
Please remind your child their Fairy Tales are due on Friday!
Writing
We didn't make much progress on our Response to Fiction Essay with the short week, but we will still be able to complete them this week. We have a few more lessons to wrap up the essay, then the final essay will be due on Friday, February 27th.
Stay Warm!
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