Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Welcome Class of 2023

Karen
Lizbeth
Rosa
Miguel
Brandon 
Isaac
Carlos
Carlos
Alma
America
Miguel
Justin
Susana
Valeria
Emily
Rogelio
Christopher
Deffny
Zylisa
Noberto
Jessica
Jose

Friday, July 17, 2015

SCHOOL SUPPLY LIST 2015-2016

You'll need the following school supplies for 5th grade this year.

2 boxes of 12 pencils
5 composition books
3 folders without prongs
     (one of each color: red, yellow, green)
2 packs of wide ruled notebook paper
1 box of facial tissue
1 pack of glue sticks



NO BINDERS this year! We are doing interactive notebooks instead.

Art supplies (markers, crayons, etc.) are not required. I have markers and crayons in the room. However, if your child wants new art supplies to keep in his or her cubby, that is up to you.

OPEN HOUSE

I hope that I get the opportunity to meet you at OPEN HOUSE 

Monday, August 3rd, 3:00-6:00 PM

Please bring your school supplies with you if you can.

(If I miss you at Open House, the first day of school is Wednesday, August 5th. My classroom will be open at 7 am.)

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Week of 3/23

Dear Families~

Coming Up This Week:
Mon. 3/23: Book Fair begins
Tues. 3/24: Report Cards go home
Wed. 3/25: Return Report Cards; our class visits the Book Fair at 1:00
Thurs. 3/26: Music/step performance 8:20 and at 9:20


Coming Soon:
Mon. 3/30: Spring Pictures

Thank you to everyone that turned in the field trip permission slips and $15 deposit by Friday. We were able to turn our final numbers in to the charter bus company and I know it is going to be a GREAT trip. Please expect the remainder money $15 to be due very soon. A letter will be coming home soon about it. 

Science
This week we will continue science class with Ms. Creel. They will be working on a variety of science topics.

Math
This week we will continue our study of  the metric system. Students will be working on a variety of activities in the classroom. Please make sure your child spends time at home on IXL. Students will be working on W.1-W.12. We will also revisit the customary system (American). We will test on Friday. Students will have a review sheet for homework each night to complete. Also for homework, I expect students to spend as much time as possible on IXL. We really want to win that pizza party that I told you about last week. Here is the information in case you missed it. 

Spring Learning Showdown IXL Competition
I have entered our class into this IXL competition. How many new problems can we as a class work on beginning on March 23-April 24? If our class wins. . . .we will win a PIZZA PARTY! If you do not currently encourage your child to spend time on IXL at home. . .please do so! It will help build their confidence in math and if we win---it will fill our bellies! Students can practice any skill that they notice they should be more confident in. The purpose of IXL is to build math confidence. We want students to be confident when we get ready to take the GA Milestones Test in just a few short weeks from now. 

Reading
This week in reading we will begin something new. What was Harriett Tubman's Greatest Achievement? We will be reading several different articles as well as looking at several maps and photographs to help us answer that very question. 

Monday, March 16, 2015

Week of 3/16

Dear Families~
I really think that spring has finally sprung here in North Georgia. I want to encourage EVERYONE to get outside as much as possible and play! I know that may sound silly, but research shows that children who get outside and play do better in school compared to the children who stay inside and play video game day after day. Please take some time to enjoy the beautiful weather yourself.

A special THANK YOU goes to everyone that came out last Friday and supported our Bruster's Scooper Night. We were able to raise over $400 to go towards our 5th grade field trip to Atlanta. As soon as I have more specific information for you about the field trip, I'll pass it along as soon as possible. Thank you!

Book Fair HELP NEEDED
If you are able to help, please sign up. Thank you so very much.
We're using VolunteerSpot (the leading online Sign-up and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming Sign-ups.

Here's how it works in 3 easy steps:
1) Click this link to see our Sign-Up on VolunteerSpot: http://vols.pt/xUEWiC
2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.
3) Sign up! It's Easy - you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on VolunteerSpot.


Our class is scheduled to attend the Book Fair on Wednesday, March 25th at 1:00. 

Coming up this week
Mon. 3/16: No School for students. Teachers are in training
Tues. 3/17: St. Patrick's Day; Tuesday folders go home
Wed. 3/18: Return Tuesday folders; class visit the library
Thurs. 3/19:
Fri. 3/20: First day of SPRING

Coming Soon
Mon. 3/23: Book Fair begins
Tues. 3/24: Report Cards go home
Wed. 3/25: Return Report Cards; our class visits the Book Fair at 1:00
Thurs. 3/26: Music/step performance 8:20 and at 9:20
Mon. 3/30: Spring Pictures

Science
For the next 2 weeks our homeroom will be with Ms. Creel for science class. They will be working on a variety of science topics. They will also have the chance to watch a civil rights movie that goes along with our social studies unit we just finished.

Math
For the next 2 weeks, we will be learning customary units of measurement as well as the metric system. Students will be working on a variety of activities in the classroom. Please make sure your child spends time at home on IXL. Students will be working on W.1-W.10.

Spring Learning Showdown IXL Competition
I have entered our class into this IXL competition. How many new problems can we as a class work on beginning on March 23-April 24? If our class wins. . . .we will win a PIZZA PARTY! If you do not currently encourage your child to spend time on IXL at home. . .please do so! It will help build their confidence in math and if we win---it will fill our bellies!

Reading
This week we will continue our literature circle books as well as working on comparing and contrasting two text.

Please make sure to keep your child at home if they are sick. Thank you for your help and support with this.

If you have read this blog post and discussed it with your child, please have your child write the following in their agenda . . . . . .SPRING is HERE! It will be your child's responsibility to show their agenda to me for a special prize.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Week of 3/9

Dear Families~

It was brought to my attention last week by students that you have been missing my weekly blog posts. Since I had not had anyone mention this to me until now, I honestly thought no one had found the information useful, so I quit posting. I will continue to update the blog as long as it is useful to you. 

Coming up this week
Mon. 3/9:
Tues. 3/10: Tuesday Folders go home
Wed. 3/11: Class visits the library 1:15
Thurs. 3/12: Skate Country
Fri. 3/13: Bruster's Scooper Night 3:30-6:30-Come and support our 5th grade field trip. Have a 5th grade teacher scoop your ice cream!

Coming up Soon
Mon. 3/16: No school for students
Wed. 3/25: Scholastic Book Fair visit 1:00-1:30--come and join us

Social Studies
SS5H8 The student will describe the importance of key people, events, and developments between 1950-1975. 
  1. Discuss the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. 
  2. Explain the key events and people of the Civil Rights movement; include Brown
    v. Board of Education (1954), the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and civil rights activities of Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 
  3. Describe the impact on American society of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 
  4. Discuss the significance of the technologies of television and space exploration. 
SS5H9 The student will trace important developments in America since 1975. 
  1. Describe U. S. involvement in world events; include efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Persian Gulf War, and the War on Terrorism in response to September 11, 2001. 
  2. Explain the impact the development of the personal computer and the Internet has had on American life. 
This week we will have a short quiz over the information on the Civil Rights movement--most likely on Wednesday. We will also have a quiz covering the Modern American portion of our unit on Friday. 

Math
We are studying 3D figures and how to measure their volume this week! (We will test this Friday.) We started off by understanding what volume means and measuring it by counting units that fill up a shape last week. We will finish off the week learning the formula to find volume. Students will also be reviewing geometry skills we learned several weeks ago. 

Reading 
Last week we finished reading Number the Stars. Students really enjoyed this book. We read it as a read aloud. For our next book, students will be required to do some reading outside of the classroom. I'm hoping that this will help to prepare them for reading at the middle school level. Please help me make sure your child is reading the required material. Each student will be reading something different, based on interest and or reading level. We will spend the majority of our class time diving into the text rather than simply reading the text. A way that you can help me is to make sure your child sits down and has a quiet place to read. They should also be taking notes on sticky notes as they are reading. This will help guide their discussions with their classmates. Thank you for your help with this matter. 
This week we will also finish up writing about our paired text  "The Mermaid of Kona, Hawaii" and "From City to Farm." Students will be analyzing each story based on all 19 literature and informational text standards. This will be a great practice for the Milestones coming up in April. We will begin 2 new texts this week as well. 

If you have read this blog post with your child, please have them show me the SUPER SECRET CODE: SPRING---that you have written in their agenda. I will accept this code until Tuesday, 3/10.  

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Week of 1/12

Dear Families~

We had a great week last week. Once again, we will be very busy this week. Let's take a look at what we have going on:

Mon, 1/12: Reading Easy CBM test--data used to check your child's progress
Tues, 1/13: Tuesday Red Folders go home, Report cards go home,
Wed, 1/14: Math Easy CBM test--data used to check your child's progress
Thurs, 1/15: School Wide Spelling Bee--Congratulations Tanija and Jerry for representing our class
Fri, 1/16: Autobiography due in book form; Science test; Reading test
Mon, 1/19: NO SCHOOL

Homework
Please help your child stay on task this new year by setting aside time for them to do their homework. When students have a quite area and a specific time to complete the assigned task they are able to get the job completed much quicker than if they have tons of distractions. Your child HAS homework EACH night. They should be completing 40 minutes of independent reading as well as working on math. The math homework worksheet (spiral review) consists of 5 problems per night. Once they finish that, they should log onto IXL math and practice there as well. This will help build math confidence as well as help them with the daily rigor of math class. Thank you for your help.

Absences
Keep in mind that it is very important to be at school each day. However, if your child is sick, please do not send them to school. Students should be fever and stomach ache free for 24 hours before coming to school. If your child is absent, it is their responsibility to get the missed work to make up. When your child is absent, please be sure to send a note stating why. Thank you.

Report Cards
If you would like to meet with me to discuss your child's progress at school, please call the school office to schedule a conference (770) 287-2044. Be sure that you sign the report card and return it to school as soon as possible. 

Science
Students will continue working with Ms. Creel this week to study electricity and magnets! They will test this week. 

Math
We began one of our biggest units of the year - multiplying and dividing fractions. We started with what a fraction really means - it's a division problem. Therefore, 12/4 means 12 divided by 4. We created story problems for fractions to help us understand the meaning of that fraction. We do need to spend some time reviewing this week based upon our mini assessment done on Friday of last week. One thing that I noticed is students are having trouble with the dividend and the divisor.

This week after our review of what we learned last week, we will begin to work with multiplying whole numbers by fractions.

We will discuss that if you multiply a whole number times a fraction that is less than one, the product will “decrease” (less than the whole number). But if you multiply a whole number times a fraction that is greater than one, the product will “increase” (greater than the whole number). 

Please make sure that your child spends some time on IXL math at home if possible. Please go to section "N" Multiplying Fractions and begin with N.1. Continue to work and earn ribbons! We do not have any working technology in our classroom, so the only time that your child will be able to be on IXL will be at home. Thank you for allowing them to have this time.

Reading & ELA
Students will begin working with point-of-view (RL.6). There are two parts of this standard:

Point of View: 1st person (told from a character's point of view; I did this, we did that, this happened to me) and 3rd person (told from a narrator's point of view who is NOT a character in the story)

Viewpoint: how a character or narrator feels about something that has happened in the story or how they feel about another character

We will text this Friday.

This past week we began writing our own autobiographies. Students have has about 20-30 minutes each day to work on this in class. They should have brought home a paper to use as a guide. They may have even asked you some questions about themselves when they were younger. Students have been given several different examples of ways to make their autobiography into a book. The autobiography should be in chapter form and include either drawings or actual pictures of themselves/family. All autobiographies are due on Friday. We will have a very short amount of time each day in class to discuss and fix any errors. Please be sure to ask your child about this. Thank you for your help.