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