Miscellaneous:
The parents who have planned our Holiday Party are asking each child to bring a Christmas tree ornament to give to a classmate. The ornament should be wrapped when they bring it to school and cost less than $5.00. This will be something the kids can put on their tree each year and remind them of 5th grade memories. 🙂
The 5th graders will begin the annual 5th grade Candy Cane sale. Staff, students, and parents can purchase a candy cane for $1.00. This sale helps fund 5th grade camp and the 5th grade celebration. We hope it will be another successful sale!
The holiday shopping at Georgetown will be this coming week. Mrs. Walenta’s class will be shopping on Tuesday Dec. 11th! Send money with your child on Tuesday if you wish them to shop.
The date, Jan. 11th has been set for our classes to take the field trip to the planetarium. The information about this trip was sent home and the students need to bring $3.00 by Monday Dec. 10th. We thank the PTC for paying the remainder of the cost for this class trip! 🙂
The gym teachers have asked that the students make sure they have any extra pair of tennis shoes at school for PE. The gym floor can become very slippery and dangerous if students are wearing dirty shoes into the gym. Thanks.
Miscellaneous:
Our 5th graders will begin the SAVE program this coming week. For the next 8 weeks Officer Petroelje will be coming to talk with the students about making positive life choices! Just a reminder that Turkey Trot will be taking place on Tuesday October 23rd.
Math: On Monday we will begin Unit 3 which develops the concept of place value for whole numbers and decimals. Students gain a deeper understanding of addition and subtraction of whole numbers and decimals and the relationship involved in these operations. Please continue to check your son/daughter’s math teacher’s blog for when math homework, quizzes, and/or tests will be coming up.
Writing:
Congratulations! We have just finished our first published writing piece of the year on memoirs. Everyone worked extremely hard and did their very best to get their story out there. A pizza party celebration is a good way to cap off our first unit. However, we are not done with memoirs just yet. This week we will be getting with a partner and spending two days peer-revising each others story. This is an incredibly valuable part of our writing process and becoming a good writer. It also helps us when we do writing on the MEAP. Looking forward: Our next writing unit will be informational writing, more specifically interpretative essays. Therefore at the end of the week, each student will be given a pre-assessment on information writing with the help of a prompt and be asked to spend two days on showing us what they can do. It should be fun.
Reading: Students have been reading independently at school and the teachers have been assessing their reading level so they are able to find books to read at their “just right” level. We will also be working on and practicing reading strategies. Please continue to have your son/daughter read as much as possible at home.
Social Studies: This upcoming week each class will be wrapping up their review of government and the principles that are the foundation to our constitution. Watch your classroom teacher’s blog for when their class will be assessing on this first unit of study.
Also, this week we will begin switching for social studies. Our week will begin by thinking of events from a historian’s point of view. Later in the week our learning will focus on the difference between primary and secondary sources, and the cause and effect of events in history.
Science: We will begin switching for our science curriculum starting Monday. Our first unit will be about objects in the sky. We will be covering seasons, solar system, moon, eclipses and tides. The students will be introduced to the vocabulary for this entire unit at the beginning of the week. Please have students check out the science link on our blogs to study this vocabulary! 🙂
Miscellaneous:
Hopefully the students have been selling items for the camp fundraiser. The forms and money are due on Monday, October 15th. This is a reminder to please send in only one check for your whole order made out to Georgetown Elementary. We will continue the MEAP this week. On Tuesday we will take the math portion and on Wednesday the science portion of this test. Since the students have worked so hard on this assessment we will have a pizza party for lunch on Friday to celebrate their hard work! Look for a note to come home on Monday about this party. Lastly, if you have not completed the parent conference survey please take time to visit the following link Parent/Teacher Conference Survey. Thank you!
Math:
Unit 1 has come to a close and we will be moving on to a very brief Unit 2 about Area and Perimeter. In this second unit we will review how to calculate area and perimeter of various figures and teach students how to select appropriate metric units for measuring a particular object. Students will likely have homework on area and perimeter and will take a quiz over these two lessons by the end of the week. Look for Unit 1 test to come home next week. Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication and division facts because this will make life in math much easier as they continue to move through the year.
Writing:
Our memoir unit is coming to an end this week. We hope to start editing and revising our rough drafts early in the week with the goal of publishing by Friday. We have spent the last week conferencing with students, working on details, leads, and dialogue, and pushing them to create reflective pieces. We are excited to see the growth in the students as a writer as each day goes on; can’t wait to share with you at conferences.
Reading:
Independent Daily Reading and reading conferencing is being done intermittently throughout our week. The majority of our Reading block is being spent administering the M.E.A.P.
Social Studies:
Currently each classroom teacher is reviewing the material learned in fourth grade about our government. Next week our focus in 5th grade will be studying the United States Constitution, and the principles that established it. Focusing on the Separation of Powers and Federalism will be our goal in our lessons. Also, look for your child to be taking a vocabulary quiz next week on this unit. Each teacher’s classroom blog has an interactive website that the kids can review the terms that will be assessed.
