Halloween Party

It has been a pleasure to meet with so many of you for Parent Teacher conferences.  I appreciate the hard work your children are doing in the classroom.  It makes our classroom a great place to be.  I enjoy each day with them.

This week we have a few new things, we started a new project today about Native Americans and the European explorers.  This will be a shorter one, just three weeks, with a building component, so be prepared for the supply lists to come home on Wednesday of this week.  We also got new classroom jobs.  Ask your child if he or she applied for a job this quarter.  If they have not, it is not too late.  Get those applications in!

On Thursday, we will celebrate Halloween.  Please have your child wear his or her costume.  Make sure it follows the school guidelines for costumes.  Our class is having a nacho party at 1:30, with a Halloween game inside.  We will have drama at 2:30 - 3:15, then we will finish the day with pumpkin bowling outside from 3:15 - 4:00 when we dismiss.  Ask your child if you have a food assignment.  Those went home last Thursday.  Thanks for all you do!

Parent Teacher Conferences and Tuck Project

Parent teacher conferences are this Friday, 10/24, and next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I sent an email with specific times.  Please let me know when is the best time for us to meet.  Your student may come to the conference of you may come without him or her.  

This week in Reading, we are working on a Tuck Everlasting project in class.  Your student will need to gather 10 items from home that represent a character.  The items will come home after your child presents and should fit in a lunch bag.  Your student has chosen the character and is doing the writing in class.  

We have finished up auctions for the first quarter.  Thank you to all who sent in such great items!  It was a lot of fun to watch the students manage their money and make decisions about how much to spend on something.  Such great lessons for life outside the classroom!  

Have a great week!

End of Quarter Auctions

This is a big week in fifth grade.  We are ending the quarter, but we are also finishing up some major things in the classroom.  We finished our read aloud Wonder on Thursday.  We will finish Tuck Everlasting this week.  With both of these books, we will be discussing themes and how characters change during the course of the book.  These are two of my favorite books, both of them have great opportunities for discussion.  I highly recommend them, even to parents!

This week is our auction week.  Thank you to the parents who have already brought in auction items, Mrs. Wadsworth, Mrs. Baldwin, Mrs. Sorensen, and Mrs. Swan.  We will do auctions every day this week, so it's not too late to send in a treat or two.  I really appreciate it!

The Parent teacher conference schedule will be available soon!  I will hold some conferences on a Friday and some the following week, so I can accommodate everyone's schedules.  I am looking forward to meeting with everyone.  I will email you when the schedule is available for signing up.

Junior Acheivement, Bio Narrative, PE volunteer needed

In our economics project, we have been working with Washington Federal Bank to have the Junior Achievement program brought into our classroom.  This is a nationwide curriculum for 4th and 5th graders about economics.  They have trained presenters who have excellent materials that they share with us each week.  We played a game today with them, learning about different types of resources. It has been really helpful to learn with them and we appreciate having this program in our classroom.

This week, we are working on a biographical narrative in writing. We organized our narrative today and we will have it completed by Thursday.  Ask your child who they are writing about and why.

We have a wonderful Oasis PE parent, who is actually not a parent of any of our students, who takes our class each week Wednesdays from 3:15 - 4:00.  This person is not able to come for PE on Wed. 10/15 and Wed. 11/5.  If you can sub, please email me!  The students look forward to this all week.  It is a great way to enjoy this nice weather and play.  Can you help us out?  Let me know!

Game of Life Project

This week we are really getting the foundation set for our Game of Life project.  The students chose a career from a list.  They interviewed for three possible jobs, and they were selected for one.  We had a great discussion about how to interview, how to introduce yourself, shake someone's hand, They will use the sample salary to set a budget.  They will house shop and car shop with their budget and income in mind.  They are learning some great life skills.  Ask them about it at home.

We continue to read Tuck Everlasting in the classroom.  We have another vocab quiz on Monday 10/6.  We will soon start writing a biographical narrative as well.  Things are going great in the fifth grade!

Have a great week.

Economics Project

What a great day in fifth grade today!  We took a Tuck Everlasting Vocabulary quiz, learned 10 new words for next week's quiz, worked on our personal narratives, and learned the rules to play the game of Life.  Thank you to the Dales, the Wadsworths and the Sorensens who sent in their games for us to use.  We are taking good care of them.  We are also being introduced to many real life decisions that come up in that game, such as, should I go to college or start right in with a career?  Should I use my money to make a long-term investment?  What if it doesn't pay off?    This is our entry event for an economics project we are starting this week.  We will also get new vocabulary words for that unit as well, but not until Wednesday.   This might bring up some great dinner table conversations for this week.

As far as assignments for this week, we have a personal narrative due this week, our first one of the year.  This one will be done totally in class, but you may want to ask your student about his or her topic.  We will continue reading Tuck Everlasting this week, with another vocab quiz next Monday morning. We are having a great time in the fifth grade.  You have great students who are working hard!

New Tribes, Picture Day, and Vocab Quizzes

This week we have new seats, or tribes.  The students work cooperatively on many tasks in the classroom, so they should get to know the members of their new group.  We are doing some activities this week where they will get to know their new tribe members and where they will learn strengths of their new group members.  It is always fun to see students work together and develop leadership within their tribe.

Picture day is Wednesday.  Susan Robertson does a lovely job on these portraits!  If you send in your money early we will keep it in the classroom. Our time was moved from 3:00 to 10:00, which is good news for keeping students looking neat for their picture.

In reading this week, we will start reading Tuck Everlasting.  This is a great book that has a powerful message and is beautifully written.  With this lovely writing style, there are many vocabulary words we will study over the next three weeks.  We will have a vocabulary quiz each Monday for the next three weeks.  Your child will make a study guide in class and will have a few minutes each day to study, but should really prepare at home as well.

Overall, things are going great in the fifth grade!  This is a great group of students.  I love spending my day with them!