Note from Mrs. Donaldson, Music Teacher

Dear Fifth Grade Families,

Due to health issues, I will be on medical leave for six weeks beginning Friday, January 24th.  As a result, Mr. LeCrone and I have tentatively rescheduled the Fifth Grade Music Program to Monday, April 14^th at 7:00 PM.  My substitute, Mr. James Anderson, will continue to prepare the students for the program while I am gone.  I say “tentatively” in the event something unforeseen happens; however, it is my intention to do everything possible to provide this experience for our 5^th graders as it is their last year at May Watts.  Mr. Anderson will also continue holding chorus rehearsals as scheduled.  If you have any questions, you may email me until January 23^rd.  After this time, please direct your questions or concerns to Mr. LeCrone. 

 Thank you,

Danielle Donaldson

Music Teacher/Choral Director

May Watts Elementary School

Danielle_Donaldson@ipsd.org

One School/One Book - How it Works

 

• Every family at May Watts gets a free copy of the same book (Thank you, May Watts PTA!)

• • Students received their books Friday at the end of the day, with a reading calendar 

• Nightly reading assignments (Try to follow the schedule. Don’t read ahead!)

• Read aloud as a family – even big kids!

• Already read it? Read it again!

• Daily trivia questions (Get the right answer to put your name in a raffle – Every grade level will have a winner!)

• Friday activities 

 

 SIX FLAGS Read Across America

· Students in Grades 2-5 must enter their minutes online on maywattsreads.com. The cutoff for Grades 2-5 will be January 31^st.

January 8-10

Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and had some time to relax and enjoy family and friends. Hopefully everyone is staying out of the cold!

Events this week:
Representatives from Hill Middle School will be coming this Friday to talk to all fifth graders about scheduling options for next year. Please ask your child to share the information they receive with you.

Kids will be taking CBMs this week.

Friday is the end of second quarter! Students are supposed to present on a current event by Thursday, but kids may present on Friday if they need to. Several students have already done this, but there are MANY that still need to do so. The current event presentation counts as a social studies grade and a speaking and listening grade. Students have a sheet to fill out describing the current event of their choice; there are news web site links in the Social Studies tab, or kids may find an event through a different source.

After adjusting my plans a few times because of the weather, here's the plan for our now shortened week:

5H Math: Before the break, kids had practiced adding and subtracting fractions, as well as simplifying fractions. We'll start this week with a quick review and move into adding and subtracting mixed numbers. Students will follow this process:
1. find a common denominator
2. add or subtract the fractions
3. add or subtract the whole numbers
4. simplify as necessary
On Thursday, kids will work on subtracting mixed numbers where they have to regroup. So, for example in order to subtract 6   1/8 - 2   3/4, kids will need to regroup 6  1/8 after they find the common denominator. Students will need to make turn 6  1/8 into an improper fraction to make the problem easier to solve:  6  1/8 = 5   9/8.

Finally on Friday, kids will practice word problems of both adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers. Kids will have homework on Wednesday and Thursday. The unit 5 test will be the week of the 13th, probably that Friday (1/17).

Language Arts/Social Studies:  Kids will continue their inquiries about slavery this week, and will need to spend some time researching at home as well (Wednesday night). One of the major goals for kids is to be able to gather information from multiple sources and demonstrate their new learning by combining the information they've gathered.

This week I will again be modeling for kids how I gain new learning from gathering information about my topic (as well as how my questions drive my research) and we'll start thinking about the best possible way to share what we've learned. I will again model this, by presenting what I've learned in an interesting way (we're trying to move beyond the powerpoint!), and kids will brainstorm with their inquiry groups how to best share what they've learned. Kids will present next week.

Of course, kids will have time for independent reading as well this week and I will meet with kids for conferences.

Word Study: As we continue studying prefixes, I am giving kids a list of words that contain the prefixes we've learned about. Because these words don't contain a particular pattern, other than the prefix, I want the kids to study the specific words this time. Kids will take the quiz on the words below this Friday. They will need to be able to spell them correctly as well as identify the prefix and base-word in each word.

subway
semifinal
postpone
multivitamin
ultraviolet
antidote
counteract
internet
overtime
nonjudgmental
ultraviolet
extraordinary

Citizenship: We will continue some of our Bully Prevention lessons this week, which will include discussions about how to be an "upstander" instead of a bystander in a bully situation, cliques, and gossip.

Science: Students will learn about Maglev Trains beginning this week and will research how these trains work. Then kids will be able to create a Maglev Pencil. It's a really fun experiment, but also challenging to actually get it to work. On Friday, we will begin the transition to learning more about electricity and the connection between magnets and electricity.

December 9-13

Reminders

Monday: Service Club meeting after school until 4:40
Friday: Field Trip to Sci Tech, leaving school right away and returning around 1:20

• If possible, kids need to arrive at 8:50 on Friday so we can leave school right away to get to Sci-Tech on time. We will be leaving as soon as buses arrive, so please don't come to school late on Friday- we may be gone!  
• Kids need to bring a cold lunch with them; we will eat at Sci-Tech. There will be a separate table for students with peanut allergies. 

This week:

5H Math: Students will take the unit 4 test tomorrow. Remember, there is an optional study session Monday morning at 8:25. I will also give students a pre-test to get a feeling for their knowledge of the unit 5 skills. Unit 5 standards have been emailed to you. We'll start unit 5 by talking about fractions: what fractions are and why they are relevant to our lives, how to represent them, how they relate to decimals, and we'll learn the vocabulary as we go along (fraction, whole, numerator, denominator, mixed number, improper fraction, least common multiple, least common denominator, simplify, equivalent). By the end of the week, we should be working on adding fractions. 

I've also updated the links in the under unit 5 in the math tab.

Language Arts

As we continue the read aloud, The Liberation of Gabriel King, we will be working on responding to questions using information from the text to support our answers. Students will be able to choose from questions varying in difficulty to respond to.  

This week we will also read portions of various articles on the use of the word "Redskins". Students will write an opinion piece about the use of this word as a mascot. 

Students have been working on a Writer's Workshop piece for some time now (we do not work on this every day). I told students last week that their writer's workshop piece should be turned in before winter break. I will continue to meet with students individually for conferences before they finalize their writing pieces. 

Word Study: We did not get into prefixes last week. So we will do so this week. Kids will be making flash cards of the most common prefixes. They will need to memorize their meanings. There will be a quiz Friday. Kids will have a list of prefixes they will have to define. 

Science

We're starting our unit on Magnets and Electricity this week. Kids will get to do a lot o f experiments in this unit including finding a magnetic field, making electromagnets and circuits. This week I will introduce the unit and then we will learn a bit about the periodic table of elements, and the makeup of atoms. 

Social Studies

Some students need to finish their social studies tests from last week, so they will be able to do so on Monday. We will continue social studies, by incorporating social studies with language arts. We are going to begin by learning more about slavery, its beginnings, causes, and effects. 

Citizenship
This week we will talk about bullying- what it is (and is not) and how to respond to bullying as either the bullied or as a bystander. 

December 2-6

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Last week, I sent a survey link asking whether you'd like me to communicate through Edline or continue through the blog. I haven't gotten many responses; if you can please take a second and vote, I'd really appreciate it (click "survey" below)!

Survey

For my students in Service Club, we have a meeting this Tuesday until 4:40.
This Wednesday, students will be taking the Gates Reading Assessment in the morning.
Thursday is Culver's Night! I plan to be there from 6-7; hope to see you all there!


This week:

5H Math: Today we learned about vocab related to 3D figures (face, vertex, edge, height) and constructed a cube as well as another 3D figure. Some kids had to finish their 3D figures at home. Each figure is supposed to be labeled with its name, # of faces, # of vertices and number of edges.

Tomorrow we will talk about how we measure the space 2D and 3D figures take up (area and volume). Students will do a little practice finding the perimeter, area, and volume of figures. In this unit, students are only required to understand the concept of volume and be able to count unit cubes to determine the volume. Kids do not need to know the formula for determining volume at this time. If kids figure it out, that's great, but it will not be taught at this time. At this point, we want kids to understand what they're measuring when they're determining volume.

On Friday, kids will have a quiz over their knowledge of polygon attributes. Students will need to know the attributes of polygons as well as how the polygons are related (what attributes do figures have in common?). Kids have "geometry notes" sheets as well as a "Quadrilateral Family Tree" they should use to study. We will have the unit 4 test next Monday. I will let you and the kids know about study sessions soon.


Language Arts:

We started reading an article today about Black Friday "deals" that is pretty interesting. We're learning some new vocabulary and this will give kids a chance to form an opinion about the tactics companies use to make money...do you think it's fair/right for companies to overprice their items so we feel like we're getting a deal when they go on sale? OR Should companies do away with sales and price items low to begin with?  We'll finish reading the article tomorrow, discussing questions and kids will do some writing as well.

We'll also discuss the use of Native American names as mascots. The kids had a short article about the topic in their Time for Kids last week, and we'll read another this week. It also gives a chance to talk about the power of words.

Word Study: This week, I am spending some time reviewing some of the syllable patterns with kids who need review. On Wednesday, we will begin learning about common prefixes; there will not be a new syllable type this week.


Social Studies:

We are finishing up the Colonization unit this week. Kids are working on their choice of projects to demonstrate some of their learning from the unit. Ask your child what two projects they're working on. We started this last week and had some time today to work on this. Kids will have one more work period on Wednesday and will need to turn in their completed projects Friday morning. They will need to present one of their projects to the class on Friday as well. Kids will also take a colonization test this Friday. We will spend some time during class reviewing. Students should be able to write about the essential questions below as well as topics read about and discussed in class.

Why did people settle in North America? (who, why and where)
What natural resources helped each colonial regions' economy?
How did the geography of each colonial region affect the types of jobs people had?
What is a triangular trade route and what goods were traded?

If we have time we will begin the science unit Magnetism and Electricity by learning about atoms and elements.

Citizenship:
We are focused on using good manners and showing courtesy to others this week (and hopefully every week).  One major area we're focusing on is responding appropriately to others (please, thank you, you're welcome, saying "good morning" to others, etc.).