Happy birthday to our super cool TA Matt!! We love our high school students!
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
August 24, 2016
Greeting families! We have had an excellent two weeks together and I hope your children feel like they are settling in to 5th grade.
Writing: We have been reviewing and analyzing our 6 traits of writing. I have been very impressed with what they remember from last year. We will start our first holistic piece of writing in a few weeks. There are a few more traits to cover and it is important we lay this foundation first. Ask your children about the Beetles song, "Hey Jude," they should have lots to share!
Projects: Social Studies: We dove right in this first quarter. This week we created our first Google Presentation of the year. It was a short two slides on the 3 Branches of Government and the 2 Houses of Congress. These were not graded. However, each student presented and we focused on the formatting of our slides (background, font, color etc), and the usage of Google as a tool rather than THE product. We also focused on the format we will be using to takes notes for writing, and projects and making sure we understand why this tool for organization is so important to us.
Reading: We have been reading Social Studies content based text for reading, as well as small narrative pieces. Our afternoon schedule is a little wacky, so we are just now into a rhythm and have most of our procedures down. We are also working on our spelling words twice a week during this block as well.
Community Service: Mr. Lenon is our new school counselor as well as our community service teacher. Ask your students about him. He is "really cool" (quote) and we are enjoying him very much.
Thank you for sharing these little people with me (I can usually only say that until Christmas when they are as tall as I am), I am enjoying them!
Writing: We have been reviewing and analyzing our 6 traits of writing. I have been very impressed with what they remember from last year. We will start our first holistic piece of writing in a few weeks. There are a few more traits to cover and it is important we lay this foundation first. Ask your children about the Beetles song, "Hey Jude," they should have lots to share!
Projects: Social Studies: We dove right in this first quarter. This week we created our first Google Presentation of the year. It was a short two slides on the 3 Branches of Government and the 2 Houses of Congress. These were not graded. However, each student presented and we focused on the formatting of our slides (background, font, color etc), and the usage of Google as a tool rather than THE product. We also focused on the format we will be using to takes notes for writing, and projects and making sure we understand why this tool for organization is so important to us.
Reading: We have been reading Social Studies content based text for reading, as well as small narrative pieces. Our afternoon schedule is a little wacky, so we are just now into a rhythm and have most of our procedures down. We are also working on our spelling words twice a week during this block as well.
Community Service: Mr. Lenon is our new school counselor as well as our community service teacher. Ask your students about him. He is "really cool" (quote) and we are enjoying him very much.
Thank you for sharing these little people with me (I can usually only say that until Christmas when they are as tall as I am), I am enjoying them!
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Here are some first week pics!
Wow! I sure do like these kids a lot! We have gotten through so much in a few days and next week will be smooth sailing!
Reminder that back to school night is this Thursday and we hope to see you all here!
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Are they ready??
I am so excited for Monday, are your children ready? Uniforms clean, new lunch box, new backpack, way too much $$ spent on school supplies (we did!), and no more sleeping in. That will be a hard one for our family for sure!
Don't forget that back to school night is very different this year, and will be held on Thursday night instead of before school starts.
All supplies need to be brought in Monday morning. We will sort and label and organize first thing. Pizza cards can be purchased on line this year, so make sure to take care of that as well.
We will be doing an activity called, "Sharing From A Sack" on Tuesday. Your child needs a small paper bag (something we can't see through) and one item placed inside. This item needs to be of some importance to them. Examples are awards, gifts that have special meanings, a picture of someone special in their life, an object that they cherish etc....We will be sharing these with the class as part of our TRIBES activities to help us get to know each other on a deeper level, while fostering appreciation and mutual respect for our differences. It is one of my favorite beginning of the year activities.
I hope you enjoy the weekend, and have a calm and prompt Monday morning! See you all soon, 5th graders rock!
Don't forget that back to school night is very different this year, and will be held on Thursday night instead of before school starts.
All supplies need to be brought in Monday morning. We will sort and label and organize first thing. Pizza cards can be purchased on line this year, so make sure to take care of that as well.
We will be doing an activity called, "Sharing From A Sack" on Tuesday. Your child needs a small paper bag (something we can't see through) and one item placed inside. This item needs to be of some importance to them. Examples are awards, gifts that have special meanings, a picture of someone special in their life, an object that they cherish etc....We will be sharing these with the class as part of our TRIBES activities to help us get to know each other on a deeper level, while fostering appreciation and mutual respect for our differences. It is one of my favorite beginning of the year activities.
I hope you enjoy the weekend, and have a calm and prompt Monday morning! See you all soon, 5th graders rock!
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