Newsletter 11-6-11

Newsletter 11/6/10

 We had a great short week! I hope your child enjoyed their Friday off. Hopefully they got a lot of rest and also got to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. It was great to see everyone at the auction on Saturday. It is always a good time to get together to have fun and to support our amazing school!

The Week Ahead:

Reading:

We will be finishing up our novel this week. This is the BEST part of the book, so please talk with your child about the novel! I know they will be excited to share the tragic events of the book with you.

There are no book reports in the month of November or December. The explorer's project takes place of the book report in November, and there is no book report in December due to the very short and busy month.

Math:

The math test is on Monday. Remember, Tuesday is the LAST day that I will accept corrected work on any math from chapter 3. This includes Study Links, SMJ, and the test.

We will start unit 4 of math on Tuesday. This chapter covers long division. Mrs. Latteman and I have decided to stray away from the SMJ a little for this unit on division. We will be working on new skills in class and completing a worksheet each day. They will also be completing the math boxes (not the lessons in the SMJ, just the math boxes) and the matching study link each night. There may be special instructions on the study links. The kids will know what they are to do.

Social Studies:

The grand explorer research paper in underway! All the rubrics and information sheets will be sent home tomorrow. Make sure to take a quick look at them.

Remember, the kids will be given adequate time to complete this in class. If your child doesn't use his/her time wisely, they will have to bring it home to work on.

Your child will be assigned an explorer on Monday. Once your child knows their explorer to research, please reserve some books from Mid Continent Library. Your child will need at least 1 book and a total of 3 sources. Make sure these books are on a reading level that your child can independently read. If the book is too difficult, it is not very useful.

This week we will start researching and working on note cards. The kids will have specific topics to be researching and will be required to write 80 note cards total. I will break down the 80 cards into small increments for the kids to complete on different days. If your child is not keeping up with the expected amount of cards to be completed each week, they will have to take their supplies home to keep up! I will be checking the kids' progress, but I will need your help as well. I am going to have the kids write how many note cards they have finished each day on their planner so you can check as well.

Science:

We will discuss clouds and complete activities in the weather science packet.

The kids will be charting the weather this week. They will need to fill in the weather chart each night this week.

Vocabulary:

The kids will have a vocabulary test on Friday over unit 6.  

FYI:

• The 5^th graders will be traveling to St. Pius X on Thursday to watch the high schoolers perform a teaser for the musical, The Sound of Music. The permission slip will come home Monday.
• Smart Clubs are on Friday.
• I will be getting some new items for my classroom! Thank you so much to everyone that donated to my Grant-A-Wish list on Saturday at the auction. I will get a new camera to use at school for pictures on my blog and I will also be using the camera as a video camera to capture the kids when they are presenting projects!!! I am so excited! I will also be getting new books!! You can NEVER have too many books! Thank you so much!

Table Talk Questions:

1.      Of course, talk with your children about our novel. How did they feel about the ending of the book?

2.      Find out what information your child is discovering about their early explorer.

3.      What kind of clouds are in the sky each day this week?

Have a great week!

-Julie Alley