Spoke too soon....

...when I called last week a crazy week!!! While we have had quite a short week, it has been pretty productive.

Today our class began a program called Junior Achievement. This is a continuation of a program that the students have been participating in since 3rd grade. Mr. Michalski will be with us every Friday afternoon this quarter for Junior Achievement. Here is an excerpt from the teacher guide explaining this program:

Junior Achievement uses hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. In partnership with businesses and educators, JA brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential. 

Because of our short day, I chose to deviate from our nonfiction/Westward Expansion unit to use our reading time to learn about an important anniversary. Tomorrow is the 54th anniversary of the Greensboro Sit Ins so we read aloud the book, SIT IN: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney. Students analyzed the authors choice to highlight/bold certain phrases and quotes such as, "Practicing peace while others showed hatred was tougher than any school test". 

-A few announcements-

The Hands for Habitat Lego Blitz has been rescheduled for Wednesday February 19th in the Orange High School cafeteria. Registration will begin at 3:15.

Please cut out, count, and send in any "Box Tops for Education" that you have been saving.

**Last week yearbook order forms were sent out in grades k-4. Each 5th grader is given a yearbook as a going away gift from the PTA.**

What a crazy week here at HES!

Thank you so much to all of you who could make it out this morning to our DARE graduation ceremony. I am so proud of all of the kids hard work, especially on their essays. They worked on them independently with only one revision conference with me.

We have begun working on a research project to help us prepare for and get excited about our upcoming Washington DC field trip. Each student has chosen a topic and is currently researching. Before beginning our research we spent several days learning about how to choose appropriate books and websites for kids to use to conduct research. We identified ways to determine reliability and validity of a source and the pros and cons of book research versus internet research. Mrs. Shopmeyer did a wonderful lesson with them focused on identifying clues that a website might not be reliable….ask them about the “Northwestern Pacific Tree Octopus ”! If your child has headphones they may bring them in to keep in their locker. Now that we are using our computers regularly we are finding headphones to be very helpful.

**DC TRIP UPDATE**

- final payments due Friday 2/7,  let me know if you are unsure of your balance
- if you signed up as a chaperone but didn’t specify which parent will be attending, please let me know ASAP

**SUPPLIES NEEDED**

We are in desperate need of either:

mechanical pencils OR pencils & individual sharpeners

any donations will be greatly appreciated

A few updates before winter break:

Report cards will come home on Friday, December 13th.

If you are still interested in sending in something for our Christmas Around the World project check your child's assignment sheet for items we still need. 

On Tuesday your child will be bringing home important info about the recent 1:1 initiative/laptop roll out in Orange County Schools and the new playground to built at HES! :) 

Please encourage your child to read daily over the coming break. If you are interested in some extra math practice for them to do while out of school let me know. I can send home worksheets or they can work on websites we have used in class www.mrnussbaum.com  or www.coolmath-games.com. 

Have a wonderful break, see you on January 6th! 

Visit our class Pinterest page for links to activities we use in class! 

http://www.pinterest.com/a5thgrade/boards/

Weekly Update November 18-22

Where has the time gone? We are almost halfway though the school year!

By now you have (hopefully) heard about an exciting new part of our classroom....MONEY! Last week students began earning (and sometimes losing....) money as part of our classroom economy. Since the beginning of the year students have had weekly jobs and responsibilities. Now they are being paid for their jobs ($50/day) and fined for not meeting certain expectations. So far there are a few ways they can spend the money they earn, such as 1 writing homework pass/week, a day off from their recess lap, etc. As they start to build up more and more money they will have more options for spending it.One reward I would like to offer is a small classroom store- I would love to have items donated such as mechanical pencils, individual pencil sharpeners, or other 'school supply' type items. We still have supplies from the beginning of the year available to everyone, but those with extra money could buy nicer items. :) And now you are wondering how they can lose money, right? Together we compiled a list of behaviors and actions that would result in fines and we created categories of $1, $5, $10, and $15 fines. Things like talking, disrupting others, etc result in a $5 fine, forgetting homework is $10, disrespect toward classmates of teachers is $15. Students can also earn bonuses, last week the entire class earned an extra $1 when Mrs. Workman complimented their straight, quiet line. 

This week in math we will look at adding and subtracting mixed numbers. So far this has been relatively simple but as we move into subtracting with borrowing it becomes more complex. For many of them writing neatly and large enough makes a difference in their ability to solve correctly and find their own mistakes if necessary. We have talked about and practiced NOT squishing a fraction into one line of the paper and leaving space between problems to help avoid careless errors. 

In reading we are wrapping up our historical fiction book clubs focused on the Holocaust and working on a small group project about theme. At the conclusion of their book I want them to think deeply about what the story was really about....not details like the setting, or character traits, but broad ideas like survival and hope. 

In writing we have crafted thesis statements about Holocaust survivors and are now stretching them into essays. This is the longest, most intense writing project we have done this year, but we have slowly been building up to it and I think they are ready! We are hoping to have rough drafts mostly complete by the end of this week and crossing our fingers that next week they can type them on their brand new laptops! 

We are wrapping up our weather unit and will probably begin our social studies unit on government this Wednesday. I think they have really enjoyed becoming little meteorologists. We will revisit weather for a review in the spring before the science EOG, in the meantime watching/listening to weather forecasts on the news is a great way to reinforce the vocabulary and concepts we have focused on. 

A few other things....

At this time of year our school helps out 2 groups in our community. Over the next 2 weeks we will be collecting items for the Orange County Animal Shelter and the food bank at OCIM. All donations are appreciated! 

**Be on the lookout for info about a celebration/activity we will do on the last day of this 9 weeks, 12-13-13. We will be learning about how Christmas is celebrated differently in different countries and sampling foods from different parts of the world.**

Weekly Update October 7-11

Welcome back, I hope everyone had a great break! I am so excited that our week is off to a great start!

I was a little nervous to begin our work with alternate division strategies, as it usually illicits lots of grumbling from students and bewilderment for parents. This ‘box method’ is NOT the way you and I learned how to divide. Despite the initial confusion, I love that this method truly teaches children to understand that division is repeated subtraction of equal groups AND it makes large division problems workable for ALL students, regardless of their mastery of multiplication facts. If all they remember are their “2’s” they can still solve the problem- they may get tired of drawing boxes, but they CAN do it!

In reading we have begun our historical fiction unit. As I discussed with your in our report card conferences, this unit will focus on the Holocaust. Of course, this topic is not 100% age appropriate for 5^th graders, but we have worked to find novels for book clubs and picture books for read alouds that allow the students to learn about this period on their level. This week we are working to build the students prior knowledge and understanding by creating a timeline beginning in the early 1930’s to start identifying causes and important events leading up to World War II and the Holocaust. We have just started our read aloud novel, One Eye Laughing, One Eye Weeping  by Barry Denenberg.  Next week we will continue to add events to the time line and read picture books to build more background knowledge and start our book clubs.

In science we have started our unit on force and motion. Today we worked on essential vocabulary to prepare for some fun tomorrow! We will conduct experiments with Hot Wheels cars on difference surfaces to learn about friction.

In writing we are working on responding to reading by making predictions and writing opinions/thoughts about our new read aloud. So far we have learned that the main character Julie lives a very privileged life in Austria in the mid 1930’s. Based on what the students have written so far they don’t think too kindly of her and her fancy life. It will be interesting to see how their opinions change as Julie’s life changes when the Nazi’s invade Austria.

Important Dates:

October 16          Early release day, 11:20
             17          DC parent info meeting in the library 5:45

   

WEEKLY UPDATE AUG 26-30

This week in math:

We will continue our work with place value. We have reviewed rounding decimals and estimating with addition and subtraction and next will move on to multiplication. We have spent much time focusing what a number in either hundredths or thousandths place represents and creating a deeper understanding of what it means to be less than one but greater than zero.

This week In Reading:
Now that I have completed beginning of the year reading assessments for most students we will get into a somewhat normal routine of me having one on one reading conferences with students about their independent books. One of the main things I will work on is what they can tell me about the story that goes beyond a simple summary. We have talked a lot in our mini lessons about thinking deeply about characters, events, setting, etc and I am hoping to see that transfer into their work in their independent books.

This week in Writing:

Last week with Mr. Shabazz was so much fun! If your child hasn’t shared any of their poetry with you, take a peek into their Writer’s Notebook! You will love the creativity and imagination they used! This week we will pick up where we left off in the stories they had begun writing based on an idea generated after reading Wonder.

This week in SS:

We will finish our unit about Colonial America. We are almost finished with our class read aloud book Standing in the Light by Mary Pope Osborne. I have been really excited to see some of that deeper thinking we’ve been working on in reading transfer to their thinking about this book. Especially how they are seeing Native Americans through the main characters eyes and how her hatred has changed to respect, admiration, and connection.

*Read-a-thon News*

Pledge envelopes were returned today and pledges are due next Friday, September 6^th. If your child’s total minutes read were not listed, please turn in their signed tally sheet ASAP. We are hoping to meet a class goal of 14,000 minutes read and we want to make sure everyone’s efforts are counted.

 DC TRIP UPDATE

Please send in your child’s deposit of $25. Please check with me if you are unsure if you have paid yet. The total cost is $99 per student and $126 for adults. You may begin sending payments in at anytime. I will send out a payment schedule soon, but if smaller weekly payments is easier for your family I am happy to take $10/ week, etc.

~Scholastic Book Orders~

Last week your child received our first Scholastic Book Order for the year. These book orders are a wonderful, easy, and CHEAP way to build your home library (and find birthday and Christmas gifts J). Each month there are a few $1 books and lots of book sets that average out to $2-3 per book. Our class also earns bonus points that I can use to purchase books for the class. We are so excited that the September catalog has our beloved read aloud, Wonder . I am so glad I have some leftover bonus points to order several copies for our class library! If you are interested in ordering online you can go to www.scholastic.com/readingclub and order from the September “arrow” flyer. Our class code is MBKLF.

**please complete and return the report card conference sheet so that we can meet to discuss your child’s progress this 9 weeks and goals for the next quarter.**

           

Important Dates:

Sept    2    Labor Day- no school
         13    end of 1^st 9 weeks

Oct      7     1st day 2^nd 9 weeks

           16   early release, 11:20

           17   DC parent meeting, 5:45 pm