September 29-October 3

Tomorrow will be a perfect day for our first marble party, our ice cream party- it's going to be up close to 80 again! 

Hopefully your child already gave you the permission form for ice cream for tomorrow. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

For those kids in Eco Club with Mrs. Covert, Monday is the first meeting (ends at 4:30).
Mrs. Beutler and I sponsor the Service Club, and we passed out applications to interested students this past week. Students can return their forms to either of us by October 6. 

During math class, each 5th grade teacher will be passing out an information sheet about Everyday Math Online which includes a login for each child. This site can be used as a resource to support your child's math learning. This should be coming home early this week with your child. If you do not receive one, please contact your child's math teacher. 

A couple weeks ago, Mrs. May shared a free typing practice web site with each 5th grade class. She also helped each student set up a recording sheet to show their progress using Google Drive. I have been assigning typing practice a couple times a week for homework (10 minutes or so) and then students are supposed to record their level, words per minute, and accuracy in the Google Sheet that they created. When I checked their sheets this weekend, a lot of students had not recorded additional practice since our first time. A few kids shared that they couldn't get logged into Google Drive at home. I will show them how to do this again on Monday. It's important for the kids to practice typing the correct way since technology is such a big part of our lives, also the PARCC (the new "ISAT") assessment will be done on computers, and students will have to type some answers (the questions are not all multiple choice). Please help me by having your kids practice, and please let me know if your child has any problems. 

5H Math: 

We continue multiplying multi-digit whole numbers for the first couple days of the week. We have been working with word problems and computation. We are working on being able to multiply at least a 3 digit by a 2 digit number or a 4 digit by a 2 digit number. As kids are feeling more confident with the standard algorithm, we will discuss why the standard algorithm works, to develop kids understanding of what they are doing when performing the steps of the standard algorithm. There will be a multiplication quiz Wednesday that will include computation and word problems. Later in the week, we will begin adding and subtracting decimals. 

-please notice the note above above the Everyday Math login, as well! 

Language Arts: 

We started our anchor text "Becoming Naomi Leon" that I shared with you at Curriculum Night. We will read from this text everyday and it is the source of much of our instruction. We work with new vocabulary, as well as focus on specific reading and writing standards that tie to the reading. 

Kids will be working on answering "text-dependent questions". This means kids will have to refer to the text to answer the questions, and reference what the author has said as evidence for their answer. We are learning about 3 of the main characters (Naomi, her grandma, and Naomi's brother) and writing about what makes them who they are by referencing specific lines of text.  We will then be writing poems about the main characters, using this information we've recorded. As a class, we talked about how many of us (including myself) don't feel particularly confident writing poetry. We're going to work on this together- and improve together! We tried one last week, that turned out pretty well! The poem will help us summarize the information we've taken from the text, this will also require kids to choose the most important information. 

This week we will also be reading a story from the Harcourt reading books, "Sees Behind Trees". We will be working on comparing and contrasting; comparing the main character from "Sees Behind Trees" to Naomi from our anchor text. 

Word Study:
With CogAT last week, we just did not get to word study! So, the plan will carry over from last week. We'll begin Lesson 4- Open Syllables. Kids will learn or review what this syllable type is (info below), learn a couple exceptions for this type and begin breaking apart some example words. An Open Syllable quiz will happen next week (week of October 6th)

Open Syllable: (op) Open Syllables have one vowel. The vowel is at the end of the syllable. The vowel is long.
o   Examples: me, so, she, I, go

Science
We are finishing up our weather unit this week. Kids will be doing some reading from their science texts about different weather instruments, and then we will review for the test. The test will be this Friday. Kids will have their science notes and the science text book as resources for studying- we don't have many other sheets to study from. I will get students water cycle diagrams back to them so they can use them to study from. 

Topics to study:
-What are the 3 main types of clouds? (be able to describe them and what they tell us about the weather)
-What are the 3 stages of the water cycle, what happens to water in each stage? (detailed explanation including what is needed to form clouds
-What is the atmosphere and what does it have to do with weather?
-What is air pressure? What causes high/low pressure?
-What instruments do meteorologists use to predict the weather? (know the instrument and its purpose)

Citizenship
This week we discuss what Empathy is, why it is needed and what it looks like. 

September 22-26

Some reminders for the week:

Curriculum Night is Monday from 6:30-8:00. The first classroom session is 6:30-6:55 and the second classroom session is 7:35-8:00. Inbetween the classroom sessions is a whole-school session led by Principal LeCrone in the gym from 7:05-7:25. Please remember to sign up for Parent-Teacher Conferences in the multi-purpose room and remember that Curriculum Night is for adults only. I look forward to seeing you all! 

Fifth Grade students will take the CogAT this week. The test is split between three days. Students will take sections of the test on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

Ms. Andrews is looking for parent volunteers to help with Track and Field Day. If you are available October 6th, she'd love your help! Please send her an email if you're interested (terri_andrews@ipsd.org). 

5H Math: Students will be coming home with their unit 1 tests tomorrow. Please take a minute to review their test with them, and celebrate what your child has accomplished and take note of areas your child needs continued support. Because of CogATs, we will not have math on Tuesday, but we will meet every other day this week. We are starting unit 2 this week, please take a look at the standards below. 

Unit 2 Standards

•  5.NBT.A.4. Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place.
•  5.NBT.B.5. Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm.
•  5.NBT.B.7. Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. 

(We will focus on adding and subtracting of decimals and may start to get into multiplication. Multiplication and Division with decimals will come later)

Language Arts
The kids did such an awesome job working to understand the poem, "Where I'm From". We've read it a few times and they are getting a better understanding each time as we go deeper into each line. We will work with the poem a couple more times this week. Kids will write what they believe the meaning of the poem is by referencing lines in the poem and explaining their inferences. Later in the week we will use nonfiction text to talk about the benefits of the text features (introduction, headings, picture captions, etc.) in these texts and how the features work with the text. 

Word Study
We begin lesson 4 this week which is about open syllables. We will not have a quiz this week, because I know we will be short on time because of the CogAT assessment. Kids will learn or review what this syllable type is (info below), learn a couple exceptions for this type and begin breaking apart some example words. 

Open Syllable: (op) Open Syllables have one vowel. The vowel is at the end of the syllable. The vowel is long.

o   Examples: me, so, she, I, go

Science
We've spent a bit longer on the water cycle than expected. We have been working on making sure we have an in-depth explanation. We are almost finished with our organizer. Kids may need to finish it for homework. This will be a helpful tool for reviewing! 

Next, we'll work on understanding air pressure, what causes it and how it changes with elevation. As well as how temperature changes with elevation. This knowledge is important in understanding how and why clouds form. Then we will finally be ready to learn about the different types of clouds :). We will be using our science textbooks this week, which will again be helpful when reviewing for our science test (this will probably be coming up the week of 9/29).  

Community Time/Citizenship
This week we will talk about the all important...MANNERS! 

Letter from 5H Room Parent

Hello parents,

My name is Meg Smith and I am excited to be Mrs. Happy's Room Parent this year.  I will be coordinating volunteers to work both in the classroom and from the home.  These opportunities include hosting 3 separate parties (fall, winter and Valentine's Day), supporting math explorations & science projects, reading to the kids, donating supplies, sharpening pencils and contributing in other ways that may arise throughout the year.

Periodically throughout the year I will be sending an email asking for volunteers for certain classroom activities. The first volunteer opportunity is to sign up for the classroom parties. We will have three parties. They are the Fall party on October 31st, the Winter party Dec 19th and the Valentine's Day party on February 13th. All parties are from 2:30-3:15 p.m.

At the meet and greet there were sign up sheets so we have a few spots already filled. We still need one volunteer for the Winter party and one volunteer for the Valentine's party. Please let me know if you would like to help out at one of those parties.

Because our school is so careful about everyone's privacy, I need to please ask for your e-mail directly.  When you send me your e-mail address, I will add it to my distribution list.  I would appreciate having all e-mail addresses by Monday, September 22nd, as we need to start the fun and get organized!

Thank you in advance for your help.

Meg Smith (Julia's mom)

September 15-19

Finally, our first full week of school! Please read below for information about the week, and let me know if you have any questions. 

5H Math: This week we will finish up Unit 1. Kids have a short quiz Monday (information in previous post) and we will take the unit test Friday. I will offer optional study sessions Wednesday after school until 4:15 and Thursday during lunch and/or recess. Students should use their math notes, math sheets we've done in class or as homework, and the links in the math tab to help them study. 

This week we will do additional decimal rounding practice. Students need to be able to round to any place (ones place, tenths, hundredths, thousandths). We will also spend a few days learning about multiplying by powers of 10. Students will need to be able to multiply whole numbers and decimals by powers of 10 (10, 100, 1,000, etc) as well as the powers of 10 written in exponential form 10^2.  

Language Arts
Thank you so much for talking with your kids last week about your family's culture- most of the kids shared new learning about their background. I called my parents and learned a little bit more as well :). 

Students' digital collages that show their knowledge of their culture are due Tuesday morning; many students are finished, those that are not need to finish at home. We will print their finished collages in school, unless they want to print them at home.

This week we will learn about the different literary and informational genres. We will also read the poem "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon. This is a difficult text to read because of the vocabulary as well as the context. We will read the poem several times this week along with discussion. Students will write in relation to this poem as well. 

We continue our first read aloud of the year, "Because of Mr. Terupt" as well as independent reading time and reading conferences. We are paying particular attention to the characters' attributes, comparing and contrasting each. 
Word Study 
This week we will learn about VCe syllables (vowel, consonant, "e"). For example, the word "save" is a VCe syllable, and the last syllable in the word "accelerate" is a VCe syllable. The vowels in VCe syllables are long. We will have a word study quiz on Friday. Students will need to spell words with VCe syllables and identify the VCe syllables in the words as well as mark long vowels with a line over each. 

Science
On Friday, we made a cloud in a bottle...fun stuff. This week we will try the experiment again by adjusting the variables. We are learning the factors necessary to make a cloud: water vapor, cooling temperatures and a drop in pressure. Next, we will spend a few days learning about the three main types of clouds, what they look like (shape, color), what they tell us about the weather, and at what elevation they occur. 


Community Time/Citizenship
Last week we started talking about problem solving in regards to conflicts. We talked about the importance of "cooling off" before reacting and this week we will talk about the next steps in the process... determining possible solutions as well as how to talk and listen to each other. 

Math Quiz Monday

This Monday kids will take a math quiz over the skills we've learned about so far. I shared this with the kids on Friday; below is a list of the skills that will be on the quiz. 

• writing numbers in standard and written (word) form (millions place to thousandths place)
• writing numbers in expanded form 
• comparing decimals and explaining their reasoning for their answer using place value words 

September 9-12

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Below are the details for the week!

Reminder

-Wednesday is "Picture Day", students brought home their picture order forms last week, and should return them by Wednesday.

5H Math: We continue Unit 1 this week by learning how to represent numbers in expanded form or notation as well as practicing comparing and ordering decimals and rounding decimals. Students should be able to compare and round decimals while explaining their reasoning based on their place value knowledge. Students will have math homework most nights this week. 

I will also start students on a math web site this week, Front Row (www.frontrowed.com). This web site has pre-tests that determine students' needs within Common Core standards. I also like the site because kids can watch a video about the skill if they are having trouble. Kids will try the site out in class on Tuesday and the web site will at times be assigned for homework as well as done in class. 

Language Arts: Last week kids defined and we discussed a number of words related to culture (race, ancestors, ethnicity, etc.). We also talked about what we know about our own cultures. Tomorrow kids will be coming up with questions they have about their cultural backgrounds. If possible, kids will need your help answering questions about your family's cultural background either Tuesday or Wednesday night, so they can come to school Thursday with a bit more knowledge about their background. Students will be putting together a digital collage of images and words that represent their culture. Kids can choose one or more of the cultures that make up their background. The purpose is to think about how each person's culture affects who they are. This will also be a discussion when we analyze fictional and historical people in the texts we read. 

I understand each family has varying levels of knowledge about their ancestor's culture as well as different levels of participation with these facets of your culture; please let this be a time to discuss traditions of your culture whether they are practiced by your family or not. Additionally, American culture and traditions could be discussed, particularly if your family does not feel a strong tie to another culture. 

I am trying out a new (to me) web site for the digital collages. Students will be able to put information they've learned about their culture into the collage in the form of words and images. Students will start working on this in school on Thursday. 

As some of you may know, fifth grade readers have been challenged to a "40 book" challenge the last few years. This will be continued in 5H this year. Students will learn about this, this week! There are several reasons for the challenge, a few of them being...to never stop reading all year long, to begin or nourish a love of reading in all students, to grow students fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and writing abilities and to expose students to a variety of genres. We will be studying different literary and nonfiction genres this week. 

More info to come about this at Curriculum Night. 

Word Study: We continue our lesson on words with closed syllables. We will have our first quiz this Friday (9/12). Students will need to correctly spell words as well as be able to separate the words into syllables and "mark" any closed syllables with "cl".  For those new to our word study program, the students will not receive words to memorize, but we will practice words with the same syllable type in class that will be on their quiz. 

Science: Students will be thinking about the water cycle this week...thinking about the importance of the water cycle, how it really "works", the different states of matter and how clouds are formed. We will then begin to learn about the different forms of clouds and what they can tell us about the weather. 

Community Time: We did not quite get everything in last week as planned, so this week we will start with defining different emotions and discussing how emotions are reactions to events. We will then talk about the difference between comfortable and uncomfortable feelings and later this week begin discussing how to problem solve. 

September 2-5

I hope everyone had a good weekend. We have a busy week ahead of us! Below are details about the week. 

Ice Cream Social: Wednesday 6:30-8:00 (hope to see you there!)
Monday 9/9: No school for students 

Students will take CBMs this week (Thursday and Friday) 

5H Math: We start math Tuesday. Students will take a pretest for unit 1, so I can get to know them as math students. Unit 1 is all about the place value system; a major goal is for students to understand that as they move to the left each digit is 10 times larger, alternatively each digit to the right is 1/10 the value. This week kids will practice reading and writing numbers as well as using expanded notation. 

Throughout the year, students should use the math tab of the blog for practice when needed. The standards for this unit are below. 

Unit 1 Standards: Place Value

5.NBT.1 Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.

5.NBT.2 Explain patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, and explain patterns in the placement of the decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10. Use whole number exponents to denote powers of 10.

5.NBT.3a Read and write decimals to thousandths using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form, e.g., 347.392 = 3 × 100 + 4 × 10 + 7 × 1 + 3 × (1/10) + 9 × (1/100) + 2 × (1/1000).

5.NBT.3b Compare two decimals to thousandths based on meanings of the digits in each place, using >, =, and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.

5.NBT.4 Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place. Language Arts:  Each quarter of the school year, we will have a different theme to help us have a common thread throughout instruction. This first quarter, our theme is Identity. We have already started learning about each other's identities, and will continue to do so. While we'll be learning about ourselves and each other, we will focus on the identities of the characters and historical figures we learn and read about as well.  This week we will listen to and read the lyrics of a song and look for connections to the theme. A heads up. we will begin talking about how culture relates to identity and will soon be thinking about and trying to learn about our own cultures. Your children will need your support with this. Please let me know if this will be a difficult or sensitive project for your child. More details will come home later this week.   Students will have independent reading time most days. Students will be practicing skills and strategies learned during whole group instruction. I will also be meeting with students individually for reading conferences during this time. This week we will be discussing some of the "things" readers do while they're reading (visualizing, predicting, etc.). Last week, I introduced the "Me: in a bag" presentation (directions in homework tab). Students will present on either Thursday or Friday. Before then, I will model my own presentation for students as well as have time for them to ask questions.  Word Study:  We will begin word study this week, with the closed syllable pattern. Closed syllables are those that have a consonant following a vowel, making the vowel short.  Science: Our first science unit is Weather. We begin this week by learning about the layers of the atmosphere and start learning about the tools people use to measure wind speed and direction.  **If anyone knows a meteorologist or professional that uses weather knowledge, we'd love for them to visit the classroom!  Other: These first 20 days of school, we will also be taking part in Social Emotional Learning lessons and discussions as we build our classroom community. This week we discuss what a friend is and how to make friends and then move on to discussion about feelings and emotions.  I will go over BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) expectations with students this week. After doing so, students will be able to bring devices to school with your permission. Students may bring their devices to use as e-readers as well as for use with research and other classroom activities. They will not be needed every day, but students may bring a device every day if they choose. Otherwise,  I will do my best to remind students the day before. Of course, students do not have to have a device. We have a few handheld devices at school and more laptops this year as well!