Week of November 23 - November 27, 2015

Dear Families and Friends,

Thanksgiving Break: Wednesday November 25-November 29

Jupiter Grades. Most of you and your children have logged in and changed your pass codes. If you have not had a chance to do this, please do so now. This will help you and your child monitor grades and assignments together as a team. This tool should be utilized to help your child develop as a life-long learner teaching them the value of responsibility and expectation as they grow as scholars. Jupiter Grades

Play: "13 Colonies."  Roles have been selected, and we are practicing our play daily as we have a relatively short time to prepare given the Thanksgiving Holiday. Please be sure that your child practices his/her lines over the break. It would be great if the kids could have their lines memorized when they come back.

Play performance dates: Thursday December 10 at 7 p.m. for parents and friends and Friday December 11 at 11 a.m. for the school. Mark your calendars! You don't want to miss this wonderful event!

Parent help and volunteers needed: costumes (talk to Marika) rehearsing lines, practicing dances and songs, assisting with the set and back stage, etc. I have put together a sign up sheet on google docs for those who would like to sign up to help. Thank you in advance! Your participation is greatly appreciated!

Shared Music and Scripts: I have shared the music with lyrics and the instrumental version along with a script of the play. Your child also brought home a script today which is to stay home and be used to read and practice from nightly. 

ELA/Social Sciences: We will read and do various activities that support our theme of learning about the colonies. Students will continue to work on their Native American essays and their colony research and posters.

Art: Students will complete their tribal shadow boxes this week, and we will start to create set designs for our play with the help of Mary Beth in the Art department!

Read Aloud: Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

Math: Despite our commitment to the play, we will continue to weave our math curriculum into our days. We took our multiplication pretest on 10's, 100's and 1000's on Thursday. I hope to build a solid foundation with these skills. We have been working diligently toward this goal. We will review division with a single digit divisor and introduce the 5th graders to 2-digit divisors. Then, we dive into fractions in the coming weeks.

Writing and Grammar: There is no grammar homework this week.

Spelling: There is no spelling homework/packet this week due to the holiday.

Nightly Reading: Please remind your child to read their lines and go over their script for nightly reading this month. This will help students reinforce and build confidence with their parts. 

Thank you for supporting both our classroom and your wonderful child!

Have a great Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Warmly,

Mrs. Young

Week of November 16 - November 20, 2015

Dear Families and Friends,

Report cards and parent conferences are complete and went very well. Including students in their conferences marks and important transition in ownership and accountability for most scholars. Congratulations to all students! Well done.

Jupiter Grades. Most of you and your children have logged in and changed your pass codes. If you have not had a chance to do this, please do so now. This will help you and your child monitor grades and assignments together as a team. This tool should be utilized to help your child develop as a life-long learner teaching them the value of responsibility and expectation as they grow as scholars. Jupiter Grades

Play: "13 Colonies."  We read through our play today for the first time and listened to all of the songs.  We will watch a kid's production of the play on video tomorrow to give students a complete sense of the play. Students will be asked to consider 3 different parts and 3 different songs/dances that they would most like to perform. Then, I will use fair sticks to select students for parts knowing that all students within our class are completely capable of doing a marvelous job in whichever role they may get. 

Play performance dates: Thursday December 10 at 7 p.m. for parents and friends and Friday December 11 at 11 a.m. for the school. Mark your calendars! You don't want to miss this wonderful event!

Parent help and volunteers needed: for filling in missing items for costumes, rehearsing lines, practicing dances and songs, assisting with the set and back stage, etc. I will put together a sign up sheet on google docs for those who would like to sign up to help. Thank you in advance! Your participation is greatly appreciated!

Shared Music and Scripts: I have shared the music with lyrics and the instrumental version along with a script of the play. Your child also brought home a script today which is to stay home and be used to read and practice from nightly. 

ELA/Social Sciences: We will read and do various activities that support our theme of learning about the colonies. Students will continue to work on their Native American Reports.

Art: Students will complete their tribal shadow boxes this week, and we will start to create set designs for our play with the help of Mary Beth in the Art department!

Read Aloud: Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

Math: Despite our commitment to the play, we will continue to weave our math curriculum into our days. We are working on the multiplication algorithm, multiplication using mental math strategies with 10's, 100's and 1000's as well as the operations and properties. I hope to build a solid foundation with these skills. We have been working diligently toward this goal. A review of former concepts will continue as we dive into fractions in the next few weeks.

Writing and Grammar: We will continue to study subjects and predicates and use them in our essays and daily writing assignments.

Spelling: We have started our spelling packets and tests on Fridays. Please support your child with this new addition to our nightly home work. There is a place that requires a parent signature. Our words come from student papers and authentic pieces of their writing. The spelling packet this week is geared toward our play and the study of the colonies.

Nightly Reading: Please remind your child to read their lines and go over their script for nightly reading this month. This will help students reinforce and build confidence with their parts. 
Thank you for supporting both our classroom and your wonderful child!

Have a great week!

Warmly,

Mrs. Young

Week of November 2 - November 6, 2015

Dear Families and Friends,

Report cards and parent conferences are coming up quickly--November 4-10. If you haven't done so, please click on the SignUpGenius link below to select a slot for our conference. 

SignUpGenius

**Please remember, your child is to come with you to the parent conference so that they can be directly involved in their progress thus far. 

ELA: Now that assessments for report cards are complete, we will continue with our literature circle book--The Birchbark House.

Read Aloud: We are putting the finishing touches on the Kit Carson report we did as an assessment on the computer. We are reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, currently, which is a novel loaded with figurative language. This will be a rich experience for language enrichment.

Math: I am please to say that students overall really knocked the ball out of the park on their first trimester math assessment. They should be very proud of themselves. They have worked very diligently on the subject. For those who still need to do so, math facts should be practiced each night for 5 minutes. Please check your child's planner for specific math practice assignments. We are beginning order of operations this week.

Science: Building circuits begins very soon. Remember those Christmas tree lights when you were a kid? The ones in series that made your parents very testy? Well, we'll be creating some of those very soon. Hopefully, we'll all still get along when it's over....

Social Studies: We're ready to start our writing on our tribes and will start that now that assessments are complete.

Writing and Grammar: We will continue to study grammar and use it in our essays. 

Spelling: Starting this trimester, spelling tests on Fridays! More on that soon.

Have a great week!

Warmly,

Mrs. Young