5-2 Updates ~ 10/24

Hello 5-2 Families ~

I hope you have a chance to relax and enjoy some family time weekend.  Thank you to all of you who took the time to come out and visit our classroom on Thursday night for Open House!  It was so nice to see all of you, and the students were SO proud to show you around the classroom!

Important Dates

Team Building with the Principals ~ Wednesday, October 28th - Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Ms. Davis will take the 5th graders on Wednesday morning for a fun team building activity.  Always a favorite with the 5th graders!!

Halloween Party ~ Friday, October 30th at 1:10pm - The kiddos are getting excited for our Halloween celebration on Friday!  Our Annual Halloween Parade begins at 1:30pm, with the party immediately following.  We look forward to seeing you all along the route!  Please refer to the Olive Blog for more information on rain plans, as well as Halloween costume expectations.

Math

My math class began to work on geometric concepts in unit 3 this week.  They were introduced to a new online resource this week - LearnZillion.  They should be working on Classifying and Comparing Quadrangles at home for extra review on polygons.  They will also be working on Khan Academy this unit ~ Properties of Shapes.

Social Studies

After our exciting start to the unit on Wednesday, we didn't get to return to our social studies unit until Friday.  But we were interrupted with some great activities!  On Wednesday, our Genius Hour fell during the social studies, so the students were engaged in personalized learning.  On Thursday, Mrs. Watanuki visited our room with the Maker Cart and introduced your children to dozens of engaging STEM activities.  They had a blast!  Ask them what they chose to explore for the hour.  I'll include some pictures of the activities below.  We did return to the rising tensions in the American colonies on Friday, and we will continue our discussion next week.  Students will create posters on one of the 6 events leading up to the Revolutionary War next week as well!

Reading

We wrapped up our Launching Unit in Reading this week with students doing reflections on themselves as readers.  I continue to meet with the students individually to discuss their reading goals and to have them evaluate their reading notebook using a rubric.  This will be the assessment grade for our Launching Unit since the objective of this unit was to establish routines and procedures.

We also began rotating for Target Time this week.  Target Time is a 30 minute block in our afternoon where we have the opportunity to focus on each student's greatest need, and provide additional instruction.  It may be re-teaching or enrichment depending on their needs, but all students will enjoy rich instruction, as well as have the opportunity to experience different classrooms and instructors.

Writing

We began the process of writing our final Personal Narratives this week.  We will work slowly through the process for about 2 weeks, focusing on how to pull a Personal Narrative together into a polished piece with an engaging introduction and reflective conclusion, then they will be expected to write a Personal Narrative independently while being timed.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Have a fantastic week ~

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler

Happy Birthday, Tommy!

5-2 Updates ~ 10/17

Hello 5-2 Families ~

Hope you are enjoying our beautiful fall weekend!  GO CUBS!!

Important Dates

Open House ~ Thursday, October 22nd at 6:30-8:00pm - please plan to enjoy us for an evening at our annual Open House!  Students have fun showing their parents around the classroom and building, and it's a great chance for a chat :)

Halloween Party ~ Friday, October 30th at 1:10pm - Our Room Moms have been very busy planning an exciting party for your children - a great big thank you to Mrs. Dattilo, Mrs. Melachrinakis, and Mrs. Zagorski!  I emailed a letter on Thursday about the foods that will be served at the party, along with our food policy.  I didn't get the permission slip for Halloween lunch on Friday, so I will send it home on Monday.  Please return this permission slip before Friday so that I know your child's plans for that day.  Our Annual Halloween Parade begins at 1:30pm, with the party immediately following.  Please note the parade route has changed - we will be walking along Belmont to Thomas, then back to Olive.  We hope to see many of you along the route!  Please refer to the Olive Blog for more information on rain plans, as well as halloween costume expectations.

Math

My math class will be spending Monday and Tuesday reviewing for the Unit 2 Assessment on Wednesday.  A review will come home on Monday to help your child prepare for the test, and they will take a quiz in class on Tuesday to determine readiness.  You may want to review both of these with your child when they come home.  Your child should also be preparing for the test by practicing Adding and Subtracting Decimals and Multiplying Decimals on Khan Academy.  A few students still struggle with the automaticity of their math facts - please be sure if your child does not know their math facts well, they practice their facts every night.  

Science

After learning about the digestive system, and how our bodies are organized, we finished our Human Body unit this week with two days of review for the Final Unit Assessment.  The Final Unit Assessment is scheduled for Monday.  Your child should be preparing for the test this weekend.  We discussed good study strategies this week, including reviewing the organizers and review, creating study or vocabulary review cards, re-reading the chapters, or practicing the vocabulary with games on Spelling/Vocabulary City.  I also posted the answers to the review on Edmodo for students to use as a study guide.

Social Studies

We begin our study of the Rising Tension in the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War this week in an exciting way!  Though I would love to share details with you....I can't spoil it!  Just be sure to ask your child about it Tuesday afternoon...it's one of my favorite days of the year (hehe!)

Reading

We will be wrapping up our Launching Unit this week in reading.  Students have done an amazing job learning the routines and practices for our Reading Workshop, and they have developed such an excitement for reading!  In the Launching Unit, students were exposed to many genres of writing as they established routines, and they spent time this past week reflecting and setting goals for the upcoming weeks in reading.  We will be starting our Nonfiction Unit this week!

Writing

We took a break from our WEX curriculum on Personal Narratives this week and learned to develop strong, descriptive language with a study on poetry this past week.  Students wrote Acrostic, Cinquain, Diamante, and Haiku poems about autumn.  Students will be able to choose their favorite poem to polish up for final publication this week.  They have been asked to bring in leaves on Monday to do a leaf rubbing, so head outside and take a walk tomorrow with you kiddos to pick up some of those beautiful fall leaves!

We will begin the process of writing our final Personal Narratives this week.  We will work slowly through the process for about 2 weeks, focusing on how to pull a Personal Narrative together into a polished piece with an engaging introduction and reflective conclusion, then they will be expected to write a Personal Narrative independently while being timed.

We have many excellent writers in 5-2, and quite a few of them are very interested in getting their writing published this year, so I have been working hard to provide additional opportunities for those students.  I'm excited to say that our Advanced Learning Facilitator, Mrs. Watanuki, will be partnering with my husband, a published author, to work with interested students occasionally during our writing time.  They will spend time planning, revising, and preparing their work to submit for publication later this year.  This opportunity is available for advanced writing students in 5-2, and is above and beyond the expectations for writing this year.  

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Have a fantastic week ~

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler

Happy Birthday, Katy!!

5-2 Updates ~ 10/12

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

What an absolutely beautiful day we had for the Re-enactment Day!!  The field was transformed into a Revolutionary War-time frontier Thursday night, and the students had such a great time learning as they visited the Tavern, the toymaker or learned what it was like to be in the militia or a trapper at that time.  Each student was assigned to summarize one persona's presentation ~ they took notes and pictures on iPad as they traveled from station to station.  When they returned to the classroom, they were asked to create an Explain Everything on their iPad and reflect on their experiences from the Re-enactment. Reflection is an important skill we will be focusing on this year as they learn how to look back at an experience, make connections, and think about how the experience impacted them as learners.  They integrated the information they learned on the field with the on-line biographies of each persona to create a presentation with pictures.  We will be uploading the presentations this - stay tuned!  The kids are excited and now ready to start our Revolutionary War Unit in two weeks!!  Check out the pictures I've posted below :)

Important Dates

Open House ~ Wednesday, October 22nd at 6:30pm - please plan to enjoy us for an evening at our annual Open House!  Students have fun showing their parents around the classroom and building, and it's a great chance for a chat :)

Midterms

Midterms were a little delayed this week as a result of so many students wanting to re-do some graded assignments to improve their grade - kudos to them for taking responsibility!  It took me some extra time to grade all their re-submissions.  They will go home with them on Tuesday afternoon.

Please review this mid-term with your child, then return it with a signature on Wednesday.  I have already discussed the reports with the kiddos, letting them know that I do send these home in the middle of the term so they know how their performance is impacting their grades.  They still have plenty of time to change any grade they are not pleased with.  If they are not happy with their grades, please encourage them to meet with me to discuss how they can improve their grades.  It is important as they move forward in their education that they learn how to advocate for themselves, that they understand how their daily performance impacts their grades, and that they seek support to achieve the grades they want to earn.  I have also told them that they may ask for a midterm report from me at any time to check on their grades.  It should never be a mystery to them how they are performing, and their Progress Report should never be full of surprises!  If you have any concerns at all, please don't hesitate to contact me yourself.

Math

We continue to work on computation skills in Unit 2 in my math class.  Our Unit 2 Assessment is currently scheduled for Wednesday, October 21st.  This means their CCPs will be due on Thursday, October 22nd.  Please continue to encourage your child to log on to Khan Academy to continue practicing adding and subtracting with decimals.  If they've mastered these skills, they can continue to work on their mission to enrich their math skills.

Science

Students had a great time this week learning about how our body uses the respiratory system to bring oxygen to the muscles so we can move. Their experiment had them breathing through a straw and a coffee stirrer while doing different activities to focus on how our body's need for oxygen increases as our activity increases.  It also promoted a great discussion on the effects of asthma on our respiratory system. 

We will shift our focus to the digestive system on Tuesday, when they will learn that this system breaks down food to provide nutrients to our muscles.  They will learn how salivary amalyze (the enzyme in our saliva) begins to break down different foods in our mouths.  

We will be reviewing the Human Body unit this week as well, and taking the Final Unit Assessment on Monday, October 19th.  I will be assigning a review packet on Thursday, as well as some vocabulary activities on Spelling City.  We will be reviewing in class on Thursday and Friday.  Please help your child prepare for this test by carving out some time for them to review the vocabulary and concepts for this unit each night.  They can start reviewing on Spelling City this week!

Reading

In our short reading time this week, we practiced writing and sharing excellent Book Reviews - your children are very passionate about what they read and are excited to share reviews with their friends!  I'm impressed with how many were able to "sell" their books to others.  We also spent time reading about the Re-enactment Personas and prepared questions to ask during the Re-enactment.  Next week, we will continue our Launching Unit by focusing on story elements and characters in the fictional stories we read.

I continue to meet with students individually during reading time to share their reading level and to have them evaluate their work in the Reading Notebook using a rubric.  Look for both of these pieces of information to come home with your child over the next week.

Writing

With the short week and the re-enactment, we only worked on WEX for a couple of days this week.  We spent a few days adding strong verbs and showing to our writing this week, as well as worked on combining short sentences to create longer, more interesting sentences.

This week, we will take a break from our WEX Personal Narratives to practice developing strong, descriptive language with a study on poetry.  Students will practice writing Acrostic, Cinquain, Haiku, and Diamante poems about autumn.  Students will be able to choose their favorite poem to polish up with a leaf rubbing for final publication next week - hopefully we will have them published for Open House!

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Hope you enjoyed your long weekend ~

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children.

 One is roots; the other, wings.

~ Hodding Carter

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler

Personalized Learning ~ Genius Hour

Dear 5-2 Parents,

Your child will be beginning a new Personalized Learning (PL) experience on Wednesday of this week - we call it Genius Hour in 5-2 :)  It is an exciting and weighty task where students will be engaged in an individualized research-based learning experience.  

Arlington Heights School District 25 defines Personalized Learning as a student-driven, process-centered opportunity for learners to explore their own interests. Students will be given time and space during the school day to identify a challenge, problem or question. With the support of staff, peers and community resources, students will plan, manage and reflect upon their learning. Placing a focus on the process of inquiry fosters the development of a flexible mindset. It allows students the freedom to think independently and interdependently, take risks, and learn from their attempts. This experience is correlated with District 25 Habits of Mind (HoM).

All children wonder, Personalized Learning allows them to investigate their questions about the world.  The very first element covered in Personalized Learning will be Questioning. After learning about the difference between open and closed questions, your child will be guided through the process of brainstorming research questions that grow from an individual child’s “wonders”. The questions need to be “big”, and require research from multiple sources and personal thought and reflection to be answered. In other words, Google doesn’t have the answer!

Please see the bottom of this post for examples of questions students might consider for their project, and subsequent actions they might take based on their research.

After they are introduced to PL on Wednesday, your child should be thinking about their question.  Please take the time to review this question with your child.  All school appropriate topics are acceptable; however, an open ended question about a topic on which your child possesses some background knowledge lend themselves to more successful experiences.  In addition, a question that truly reflects his/her curiosities is important.  

They will engage in the PL experience at least once per week for the remainder of the school year - usually on Wednesdays.  As they finish their research and prepare their action, they will present the information to the class.  Then they will have the opportunity to choose another topic and begin questioning and researching again!

Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy post!  Please let me know if you have any questions at all about the Personalized Learning Experience.

Theresa Fowler

Personalized Learning-Search for a Winning Question!

Name: Sample Students

Topic	Question(s)	Opinion or Think/Decide Part	Action or Activity
Hockey	What is the history of Hockey and how has it changed over time?	What change to the game of hockey would I suggest and why?	Wrote a letter sharing her ideas on changes to the game and emailed it to the NHL.
Mermaids	What are interesting facts about the legend of mermaids?	What do mermaid stories have in common and how could I include these common elements in a mermaid story I write.	Researched mermaid facts,read 3 mermaid stories and filled out story charts, looked for common traits and wrote a new story.
Legos	How have Lego sets changed over time?	If I was a Lego designer, what sets would I design?	After researching the history of Lego, he noticed there were few sports sets and drew and described 2 football sets. May mail to Lego.
Adopting Dogs	Are puppies or adult dogs easier to train? Why?	What age of dog do I think would be best for my family?	Researched dog training and compared puppies and dogs. Decided what would be best for her family and wrote a letter to her parents.

5-2 Updates ~ 10/02

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

Well, it definitely felt like fall was in the air today...brrr!  Now that the weather is turning colder, please be sure that your child has appropriate outerwear.  We will be going outside for recess everyday, unless it is raining.  They need to be dressed warm enough to be outside for 30 minutes at a time.  It’s also a good idea to label ALL outwear – gloves, hats, scarves, coats, boots – with their names.  It would amaze you how many items end up unclaimed in the lost and found!

Students - The students met Mr. Carpenter today - he is a student teacher from Harper College who will be doing about 25 hours of observation in our classroom this fall.  Your children were so welcoming to him as he jumped right into math groups!

Mid-term Grades ~ It's hard to believe, but we're already halfway through the first trimester!!  I will be sending home mid-term grade reports this week for you to sign and return.  The purpose of these grade reports is not only to communicate their progress to both you and your child, but also to continue to encourage your child to take ownership of their grades.  If your child is not pleased with their grades, please encourage them to come to me to discuss how to improve their grades.  

Tenth Inning ~ We had our first Tenth Inning Celebration on Thursday of this week...and the kids had a blast!!  Students were able to choose from a variety of activities:  indoor games, movies, arts & crafts, and online games.  We are so proud of those students who earned the reward of our Tenth Inning celebration!  An additional bonus of a Tenth Inning HW pass was given to those students who didn't receive any strikes at all during the month of September!  We started a new month, which means a clean slate for everyone...hoping to see everyone at the end of the month celebration :)

Important Dates

International Walk to School Day ~ Tuesday, October 6th - Encourage your child to walk to school on Tuesday in celebration of International Walk to School Day!  Our staff will be at a number of pick-up points throughout the neighborhoods, looking forward to walking to school with your children :)  See the Olive Blog for pick-up points, and join us for the walk!

Re-enactment ~ Thursday, October 8th - Permission slips came home last week. If you have not returned it yet, please sign and return as soon as possible.  The Re-enactment is an interactive demonstration of life during colonial times set up in the field at our Administration Office.  It is conveniently scheduled near the beginning of our Revolutionary War unit, and serves as an excellent introduction to the unit.  Students will have the opportunity to interact with pioneers living on the frontier during this time period to gain a unique perspective of what life was like during the Revolutionary War.  Always a favorite for the 5th graders!  

SIP Day (No School) ~ Friday, October 9th

Columbus Day (No School) ~ Monday, October 12th

Open House ~ Thursday, October 22nd at 6:30pm - please plan to enjoy us for an evening at our annual Open House!  Students have fun showing their parents around the classroom and building, and it's a great chance for a chat :)

Math

My math class began to work on computation in unit 2 this week, as well as making magnitude estimates.  With this unit, students have assignments on Khan Academy.  While they do have time in class to complete these assignments, it would be a great idea if they continued to practice their skills on Khan at home.  They will be assessed on their progress on the skills learned on Khan at the end of this unit.  Please continue to encourage the students to practice addition, subtraction, and multiplication with decimals and their multiplication facts.  

Character Education
During the month of October, we will focus on the character trait of Courage - choosing to do the right thing, even when it's difficult.  We started the unit with a self-assessment on Courage - ask your child how they scored themselves!  We also began reading a Reader's Theater about choosing to do the right thing when friends pressure you to do the wrong thing.

Science

Students took their first science test this week on lessons 1-6 in the Human Body - please look for those tests to come home for a sign and return early next week.  There was a delay in sending these scores home due to the number of absent students in our class over the past week of so.  This was our first content area assessment this year, and an excellent opportunity for students to start improving their study skills.  If your child is not pleased with their test score, please encourage them to request a re-test.  Studying for a test is a specific skill many students struggle to learn in 5th grade, so we discuss often how we can intentionally prepare for an assessment.  We discuss what studying looks like, and the resources we can use: re-reading the chapter, creating flashcards, creating quizzes, reviewing the graphic organizers.  As the content gets more complex, students need to spend more time with the information independently, and this doesn't come naturally for some students.  Please encourage them to spend time studying prior to assessments!  If they need any additional help, please encourage them to come see me :)

Reading

Your children are developing such a love for learning in our new reading program!  Since the texts are self-selected, they are more motivated to read.  I also encourage students to create book clubs with their peers, and they have been doing an amazing job challenging one another and self-assigning chapters.  Please continue to encourage your child to read at least 20 minutes at home every night, and to record their thinking in their Reading Notebooks.  They should also be recording the length of time they read at home and how many pages they read during that time.  We're trying to help the students become aware of how many pages they typically read in a 20 minute period.  We will use that information to help set goals.  

I have also finished benchmarking your children's reading level in Fountas & Pinnell.  I will be meeting with each of your children in the next couple of weeks to share their independent reading level - I will write their reading level inside the front cover of their reading notebooks.  This level will help students to choose books at their appropriate reading level, and we will use the information to set reading goals.  When you visit the AHML, use their reading level to help select books - the staff at the library can help you determine the level of each of the books on their shelves. If you would like to know your child's reading level sooner, please just email me and I'll send it to you.  The on-level reading levels are S-T for 5th Grade.

Writing

This week, we focused on adding strong verbs to our writing, and practiced properly punctuating dialogue in our personal narrative writing unit.  We're getting close to the end of the unit, and will be taking one journal entry to final publication as an assessment grade.

We took a break from our WEX curriculum today to have Mrs. Watanuki in our room to present a lesson on formally publishing our writing in an online or printed publication.  Since this class is full of advanced learners who are eager to have their writing formally published, Mrs. Watanuki and I brainstormed ways to get interested students published.  I was blown away by the excitement in the class during the intro lesson!!  This is NOT a mandatory assignment - but if your child is interested in this opportunity, please have them complete the organizer by Friday, 10/16.

 “Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children, and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. 

Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children.” 

~ Rosaleen Dickson

As always, should you need anything at all, please don't hesitate to contact me!  Have a delightful weekend :)

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler