Week of May 19th

Week of May 19

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone enjoyed another weekend of beautiful weather :)

Reading: Our weekly reading story this week is The Hindenburg. As we read this story we will focus on identifying facts and opinions throughout the text. We will continue our study of text structures, and will practice identifying these in various picture books I think the students will enjoy. In stations this week students will continue to work on fluency, as well as ordering and justifying "just right" words. Students will also practice identifying nonfiction text features and identifying facts and opinions independently. In guided reading, students will read Birds and Planes: An Unhappy Rendezvous in the Sky and answer comprehension questions using text based evidence.

Math: We have officially finished all of our Everyday Math Units! I can't believe it. As a fifth grade team, we have decided to focus on long division this week. This is a concept that the majority of students struggle with, and one that they will need to know in middle school. Some students are stressed because we are teaching them through the long division method. Although many students use a different method that works for them, we are emphasizing this specific method because this is something they will be expected to know in middle school.

Writing: This week we will wrap up our compare and contrast writing unit. Students' compare and contrast writings will be due tomorrow. Students were given class time today to work on these. I have told students that Character Essays will be due this Wednesday. They do not have to be typed, but I am encouraging students who finish early to do so. This week we will begin our State Research Projects. I will introduce these to students on Wednesday. This project will require students to create three different types of writing pieces. I think students will really enjoy these!

Other Notes:

**Reading Counts: Just a reminder, all students must have 30 reading counts points by May 30.

**The fifth grade ISTEP celebration was cancelled last week. It has been rescheduled for this Wednesday from 1:55-2:55.

 

**As a fifth grade, we will be holding another round of "Battle of the Books". Students were able to meet with their groups today and decide on books. This will be a fun way to end the year and encourage students to keep reading!

 

Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thanks!

Miss Hetzner

Week of May 12th

Week of May 12

Happy Monday!

I hope that everyone enjoyed the beautiful weather this past weekend. Hopefully we have seen the end of the cold :)

Reading: Our weekly reading story this week is King Midas and the Golden Touch. Throughout the week we will be focusing on the various text structures we find in the texts we read. The class finished Shiloh last week and will be making a "theme" collage over the book during this week. We began working on these today in class, and students will have time throughout the week to complete these. In stations this week students will continue to work on fluency, word choice, identifying features in nonfiction texts, and comparing and contrasting various ideas in the texts we read. In guided reading, students will read Train Your Dog and answer comprehension questions using text based evidence.

Math: Students will have their Unit 7 Math Test this Friday. Students will receive their study guides Wednesday and will be expected to have these complete on Thursday so that we can review them as a class. I am finding that the trickiest concept for students seems to be adding and subtracting with negative numbers. I am more than happy to send home extra work if you feel this could benefit your child. Also, I am finding that during this time of year students begin to RUSH through their work :) I have noticed, especially when working with order of operations, that students seem to do this. These steps are very "straight forward", but I am emphasizing to students that when they do not show all of their work they are more inclined to skip steps and make silly mistakes.

 

Writing: This week we will continue our compare/contrast writing unit. Students have begun to brainstorm topics for their own compare and contrast writing piece. Throughout this week I will model for students how to turn our four square model into effective and detailed paragraphs. It is my goal for students to complete their compare and contrast writing by this Friday. I will also be introducing the Character Essay this week for all students. These will be due by May 28th, as Mrs. Larkey will be picking a winner on May 29th.

 

Science: *** Students will have a Science test this Friday, May 16th.

Other Notes:

**I sent home slips for the fifth grade party with students this afternoon. The party will be held on Wednesday, June 4th. Please feel free to fill these slips out and return them if you are planning on helping out or providing anything for the party. Any donations are greatly appreciated!

 

** Please feel free to send your child with any extra change this week to donate to penny wars. We will be counting Mr. Koning and Mr. Kelley's jars at the end of the week. The teacher with the most money will be shaving his head! If we raise a total of over $2,000 BOTH teachers will have to shave their heads! I know the kids would really enjoy this, so please feel free to donate.

 

**We will be having our fifth grade ISTEP celebrate this week from 1:55-2:55. It will be a great way to celebrate the students' hard work throughout the year!
Thanks!

Miss Hetzner

Week of May 5

Happy Monday!

I hope that everyone enjoyed the beautiful weather this past weekend. Hopefully we have seen the end of the cold :)

Reading: There is no reading street story this week due to ISTEP Monday and Tuesday. We will finish our class novel, Shiloh, this week. The kids really seem to be enjoying this book! Our main focus with the novel this week will be on analyzing the characters and identifying the theme. Students have done a wonderful job with this book, and they really seem to be enjoying it.  We will continue stations this week. In guided reading, we will focus on making inferences with informational texts. In stations, students will practice identifying the author's purpose, summarizing and identifying nonfiction text features, word choice (ordering and justifying words within their context), and practice with fluency. In guided reading, students will read "cliff hangers" and predict the end of the story using text based evidence.

Math: We will continue Unit 7 this week in Math. As ISTEP concludes tomorrow, students will be receiving math homework throughout the rest of the week. It is important that students are able to practice the order of operations as much as possible. We have practiced using parentheses and exponents during the last few lesson. We will also begin incorporating negative numbers by the end of this week.


Writing: This week we will continue our compare/contrast writing unit. Today, the students were introduced to a new format we will begin to use when planning our writing. I really think students will enjoy this new strategy. It should help students plan their writing more efficiently and effectively. We worked on the four square strategy as a class today. Students will have practice developing their own compare and contrast "four square" throughout the week over a topic of their choice.

Other Notes:

**ISTEP will be ending Tuesday, May 6th (tomorrow). I am VERY proud of the students for their efforts they have shown over the past week!

**This Friday students will be attending Career Day from 1:00-3:00. This should be an amazing event, and a great way for students to learn about all kinds of jobs they may want to pursue! Students will receive their agenda on Friday so that they know what their classroom rotations are.

Thanks!

Miss Hetzner

Week of April 28th

Happy Monday!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and relaxing weekend.

This week (starting tomorrow) will mark the beginning of ISTEP testing. Testing will continue until next Tuesday. With that said, please make sure your child is getting plenty of rest and eating a big breakfast to fuel their brains! :) The students have been working so incredibly hard throughout this semester. I am completely confident that they are going to ROCK this test! As I know many of them get stressed, I will be reminding them tomorrow to RELAX and be CONFIDENT in their abilities. They have been preparing for this for a long time, and I have complete faith in their capabilities.

Schedules will be a bit different this week due to ISTEP. On Tuesday and Wednesday, our class with will take the math portion of the exam from 9:40-10:13. On Thursday, students will take the first session of Language Arts from 11:15-11:56. On Friday, students will take the second session of Language Arts from 11:24-12:07.

Reading: There is no reading street story this week due to ISTEP. Instead we will begin our class novel, Shiloh. I am very excited for this book, and I think the kids will really enjoy it! I thought this would be a nice way for the kids to relax and enjoy a good back after testing :) We will continue stations this week. In guided reading, we will focus on making inferences with informational texts. In stations, students will practice identifying figurative langauge in texts, differing between facts and opinons, and summarizing nonfiction texts. These are all things that will be great review for students as they begin Language Arts testing on Thursday.

Math: We will begin Unit 7 this week in math. This unit will cover exponents, negative numbers, and order of operations. Students will not be receiving math homework (or any homework at all this week). All math work will be done in class.

Writing: This week we are going to be doing a lot of review over combining sentences (using conjunctions), identifying and placing modifiers, and appositives. Students reviewed these skills last week, as we did class rotations with the rest of the fifth grade. This week we will work on making sure we have mastered all of these skills!

*** Please contact me with any questions or concerns regarding this week.

Thanks!

Miss Hetzner

Week of April 14th

Week of April 14th

Reading: Our weekly reading story this week is The Truth About Austin’s Amazing Bats. We will practice the reading strategy of drawing conclusions throughout the week. In stations, students will continue analyzing nonfiction texts and identifying the main idea in various texts.  Students will also be doing a lot of work with word choice and identifying the just right word using context clues. We will continue to meet for book clubs on Wednesday and Thursday. Students will be assigned a certain number of pages to be read each week for book clubs. Students will also be assigned a response piece that they will need to bring completed to book club every week. This is something they will response to in their reader’s notebook.

Math: The math test over Unit 12 will be this coming Friday. We will go over the study guide in class on Thursday to review for the test. The main concepts on the test will be probability, ratios, least common multiple, and greatest common factor.

Writing: This week in writing students will be rotating on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday amongst the fifth grade teachers. Each teacher will be reviewing a different concept. The concepts that will be covered are sentence flipping, combining sentences, appositives, and the types of sentences.

Spelling: Students will have a spelling test on Thursday over the words for The Truth About Austin’s Amazing Bats.

Social Studies: Please contact your child’s Social Studies teacher for an update in this subject.

Science: Please contact Mrs. Hennette for an update in this subject!

Week of April 7th

Reading: Our weekly reading story this week is Ghost Towns of the American West. This week we are focusing on making generalizations about the texts we read. Students will have a lot of practice with this reading strategy throughout the week. In stations, students will work on identifying fiction and nonfiction texts, as well as identifying the main idea and theme of various texts. We will be starting up book clubs in guided reading this week. We will also begin doing a daily review over word choice, main idea, sentence structure, figurative language, and context clues. This will be a quick ten minute review I am incorporating in class every day. This will be a great way to get students ready for ISTEP!

 

 

Math: This week we will begin Unit 12 in math. This chapter will cover probably, ratios, rates, least common multiple, and greatest common factor. These are very important concepts and ones that students will certainly have to work hard at understanding. I will be handing back Unit 11 math tests tomorrow with Tuesday folders. If students scored a C or below and would like to correct these they will have until Monday to return them to me.

 

 

Writing: This week in writing students will be working on word choice. We will work on using more descriptive verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs to make our writing more exciting. Students will work with partners throughout the week to practice using WOW words in their writing.

 

 

 

Spelling: Students will have a spelling test on Thursday over the words for Ghost Towns of the American West.

 

 

Social Studies: Please contact your child’s Social Studies teacher for an update in this subject.

 

 

Science: Please contact Mrs. Hennette for an update in this subject!

Week of March 17th

Week of March 17th

 

Reading: Our weekly reading story this week is Journey to the Center of the Earth. We will practice identifying the cause and effects in the story to help us better understand what we are reading. This week in reading we will be spending a lot of time on the various elements of fiction and nonfiction texts. Today we made an anchor chart, which we will use throughout the week as we identify texts as fiction and nonfiction. In stations, students will focus on identifying the main idea and supporting details, analyzing characters, and identifying the text features of their nonfiction National Geographic,   

 

Math: Students will take the Unit 11 this Friday. This week we will be covering surface area and will also get in a lot of practice with volume of the 3D shapes we have been working with. Study guides will be due on Thursday, as we will use these to review for the test.  

 

 

Writing: Today we began our compare and contrast writing unit. The students and I filled out a T chart after reading about 2 different types of snakes. Students began a rough draft paragraph using this graphic organizer. Students will create their own T chart comparing and contrasting an animal of their choice this week. Students will use this chart as a foundation for the compare and contrast paragraphs they will develop later on this week.

 

 

Spelling: Students will have a spelling test on Thursday over the words for Journey to the Center of the Earth.

 

Social Studies: Please contact your child’s Social Studies teacher for an update in this subject.

 

 

Science: Please contact Mrs. Smith for an update in this subject!

Other Notes:

·         Students will be watching the Social Health video this Friday afternoon. Please contact Jan Kennedy, the school nurse with any questions.

·         I am SO proud of everyone for their hard work on ISTEP last week! I am confident that our hard work over the last couple months is really paying off J