Parents and Students,
Well, it seems to me that we are going to be quite busy in the next couple of months. There is a lot going on, field trips, the play, as well as full curriculum. I'm looking at my plan book right now and every moment of next week is filled with important standards to be taught. I have very few absences in my room, great! Keep that up.
Important dates coming up are:
Friday the 13th of September - Auditions for the play, singing and speaking roles. The scripts have been passed out to those who wish to audition. There is a link to this website, in Links and Resources, that has another fifth-grader singing the song, so you can practice at home. The audition forms with the behavior side signed, must be turned in before auditioning, or you may not audition.
Week of September 16 - Conferences - Remember no school that Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday are minimum days. Also, Monday and Tuesday will be early release days, students getting out at 2:00. The conferences are short. I'll talk fast, and you, parents, bring a list of questions. If we need more time, we'll arrange it.
October 14 - Ronald Reagan Museum - This will be awesome. A simulation of the Granada incident. The students will prepare ahead of time and take on roles. This one is new to me but I'm looking forward to it.
Only two volunteers are allowed, I'll, choose by lottery, a notice will come home about that later.
October 17 - Castaic Water Agency - Yes, that's right, two field trips in the same week. This one is short but lots of fun for fifth graders. It's another role playing field trip. They take on jobs, inspectors, builders, and safety and actually build a working model of the plant. Same thing for volunteers, we get only two, and I'll pick those by lottery, information to be sent in the future.
November 15 from 9 - 10 in the morning - The fifth grade performance. We audition this week. The leads start their extra rehearsals soon and the rest of the classes will be rehearsing very steadily during October and November. Be sure to mark your calendars and talk to your bosses to get this morning off.
Curriculum for this week -
Writing - Working on clustering for narrative paragraphs.
Speaking and Listening - Working on engaging effectively on fifth grade topics, and building on the ideas of others. (That last part is new).
Reading - McElroy Readers are starting the story Thunder Rose. We will work with the Greek root words "struct" and "port", study Cause and Effect, identify and write simple subjects and predicates, and study multiple meaning words. The next text is set for next Tuesday.
Math - Students will complete functions tables, identify solutions to algebraic equations, solve equations mentally, and rewrite expressions using the distributive property. The test for Chapter 1, will be next Tuesday, September 17th.
Social Studies - This week, we will study a very short unit on Pre-Columbian Native Americans. During this time I will combine the Social Studies Standards with the Common Core Nonfiction reading standard of "Quote accurately from a text when explaining explicitly or inferencing".
We will also pass out a new spelling packet this week.
Finally - students are beginning to struggle when it comes to getting in all their work on time with names. I am still generous this month about giving full credit to late work. However, I will begin to charge them class money. Five dollars for missing, or incomplete names, and 10 for late work. Next trimester, there will be a grade reduction for late work.
Have a great week everybody.
Mrs. McElroy
Well, it seems to me that we are going to be quite busy in the next couple of months. There is a lot going on, field trips, the play, as well as full curriculum. I'm looking at my plan book right now and every moment of next week is filled with important standards to be taught. I have very few absences in my room, great! Keep that up.
Important dates coming up are:
Friday the 13th of September - Auditions for the play, singing and speaking roles. The scripts have been passed out to those who wish to audition. There is a link to this website, in Links and Resources, that has another fifth-grader singing the song, so you can practice at home. The audition forms with the behavior side signed, must be turned in before auditioning, or you may not audition.
Week of September 16 - Conferences - Remember no school that Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday are minimum days. Also, Monday and Tuesday will be early release days, students getting out at 2:00. The conferences are short. I'll talk fast, and you, parents, bring a list of questions. If we need more time, we'll arrange it.
October 14 - Ronald Reagan Museum - This will be awesome. A simulation of the Granada incident. The students will prepare ahead of time and take on roles. This one is new to me but I'm looking forward to it.
Only two volunteers are allowed, I'll, choose by lottery, a notice will come home about that later.
October 17 - Castaic Water Agency - Yes, that's right, two field trips in the same week. This one is short but lots of fun for fifth graders. It's another role playing field trip. They take on jobs, inspectors, builders, and safety and actually build a working model of the plant. Same thing for volunteers, we get only two, and I'll pick those by lottery, information to be sent in the future.
November 15 from 9 - 10 in the morning - The fifth grade performance. We audition this week. The leads start their extra rehearsals soon and the rest of the classes will be rehearsing very steadily during October and November. Be sure to mark your calendars and talk to your bosses to get this morning off.
Curriculum for this week -
Writing - Working on clustering for narrative paragraphs.
Speaking and Listening - Working on engaging effectively on fifth grade topics, and building on the ideas of others. (That last part is new).
Reading - McElroy Readers are starting the story Thunder Rose. We will work with the Greek root words "struct" and "port", study Cause and Effect, identify and write simple subjects and predicates, and study multiple meaning words. The next text is set for next Tuesday.
Math - Students will complete functions tables, identify solutions to algebraic equations, solve equations mentally, and rewrite expressions using the distributive property. The test for Chapter 1, will be next Tuesday, September 17th.
Social Studies - This week, we will study a very short unit on Pre-Columbian Native Americans. During this time I will combine the Social Studies Standards with the Common Core Nonfiction reading standard of "Quote accurately from a text when explaining explicitly or inferencing".
We will also pass out a new spelling packet this week.
Finally - students are beginning to struggle when it comes to getting in all their work on time with names. I am still generous this month about giving full credit to late work. However, I will begin to charge them class money. Five dollars for missing, or incomplete names, and 10 for late work. Next trimester, there will be a grade reduction for late work.
Have a great week everybody.
Mrs. McElroy