5-2 Updates ~ 1/31

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

As we move into the 2nd half of 5th grade, our schedules become full with transition activities!  I've included many of those dates below, and will send out more information as I receive it.  The transition can be confusing, and at times cause some anxiety for both the students and parents.  My hope is that I can keep the lines of communication as open as possible, and do my best to ease the transition.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions at all during the process!

Important Dates
Everybody Counts ~ Tuesday, February 2nd ~ Everybody Counts is an organization dedicated to the empowerment and independence of people with disabilities.  Volunteers take the time to come into classrooms to help the students understand life with a disability in a powerful and engaging way.  THANK YOU to all the parents who volunteer in bringing this valuable program to our school  Our presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, 2/2 at 11:10.

World Language Parent Information Night ~ Wednesday, February 3rd ~ This event is scheduled as part of the transition process to middle school, and will be helpful in choosing your child's language class for middle school.

Winter MAP Scores mailed home ~ Friday, 2/5

CogAT Administration ~ February 8th - 12th ~ The Cognitive Abilities Test will be given to all 5th grade students this year, and will be used with the MAPS test to determine students' eligibility to take the Advanced Language Arts placement test.

Valentine's Day Celebration ~ Friday, February 12th ~ Our Room Moms are hard at work planning a fun celebration for our kiddos!!  Thank you for all your hard work!  Just in case you haven't seen the new district policy regarding Valentine's Day candy:

Due to severe and life threatening allergies, we are asking that you DO NOT INCLUDE ANY FOOD OR CANDY ITEMS with your child's individual Valentines. There are many clever and creative alternatives to food items, including pencils, tattoos, stickers, & bubbles... but the nicest way to say "Happy Valentine's Day" is to write a nice note! 

Incoming 6th Grade Parent/Principal Coffees

All Schools:  Wednesday, February 17th at 7:00pm ~ Thomas Middle School
Thomas:  Thursday, February 18th at 9:15AM
South:  Monday, 2/29 at 9:45 am & 6:30pm, Thursday, 3/10 at 1:30pm, Wednesday, 3/16 at 9:45am

Advanced Placement Testing (Math + ALA) ~ March 14-16th

Progress Reports ~ Friday, 3/11

Parent Teacher Conferences ~ Thursday, 3/17 & Friday, 3/18

Spring Break ~ 3/21 - 3/28

Visit to Thomas/South - Wednesday, 4/20 - Students will visit the middle schools with teachers during the school day.

Incoming 6th grade Parent & Student Orientation - Thursday, 4/21 - evening event, time TBD

Math

We will be wrapping up Unit 6 in math this week and taking the assessment on Monday, 2/8.  We have focused on finding data points using line plots, stem and leaf plots, and bar graph.  This week we will focus on adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators.  Students can prepare for the assessment by reviewing study links and these concepts on Khan Academy.

Science

Students have been quite engaged in our science lessons during the Energy unit - we have raced boats using different forms of energy, watched butter melt to evaluate conductors, and tested insulators on water bottles.  They were given a challenge at the end of last week to find an insulator at home that could beat the foam insulator we tested in class.  Insulators are due in class tomorrow - I'm excited to see what they will come up with!  After we test their insulators tomorrow, we will move on to a discussion of energy efficiency in light bulbs later this week.  Next weeks we will be reviewing for the assessment and preparing our Rube Goldberg inventions.

Reading

We have been focusing on literary elements in fiction for the past few weeks, specifically discussing characters and conflict in literature.  Students have learned to identify the different types of conflict (person vs person, person vs self, person vs society, and person vs nature) and how the conflict changes the character.  I've been impressed with the students ability to make inferences in the stories we've been reading!  We will use this new understanding to help us determine the theme in the stories we read.  Our fiction unit will wrap up next week with a Fiction Unit Assessment scheduled for Wednesday, 2/10.

Writing

We will be finishing The Liberation of Gabriel King this week - the kids are really enjoying it!  They are engaged in the text that explores the themes of racial discrimination, and have been asking excellent questions during the discussions.  They wanted to know who was president at this time and allowed such horrible things to happen.  It's a beautiful thing to listen to the innocence in their comments and questions when this type of discrimination took place not so long ago.  

We are reading this book to produce a Response to Fiction Essay.  In these lessons, students write numerous journal entries in which they explore their responses to the reading, learn to describe their textual observations, and practice new writing skills.  We started this unit by brainstorming observations we make in life of people when we first meeting them, and the impressions those observations leave us with...and we drew a correlation to meeting characters in a book.  Just like we observe people in real life and write about them, we can observe characters in a novel and write about them.  The difference is, we can only observe what the author has written down for us.  Students use these observations of characters to determine character traits, and will eventually use these observations to write a Response to Fiction Essay.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. 
If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 

― Albert Einstein

Stay Warm!