5-2 Updates ~ 02/06

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

Important Dates

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.

The scheduled test dates are:

Monday, 2/8 11:10-12:10

Thursday, 2/11 11:10-12:10

Friday, 2/12 11:10-12:10

Valentine's Day Celebration ~ Friday, February 12th ~ Our Room Moms are hard at work planning a fun celebration for your kiddos!!  THANK YOU for all your hard work! Please see the email I sent home yesterday for details about the celebration.  Specifically, please note:

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 finished Unit 6 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, and we learned to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators.  We took a Unit 6 quiz today to determine how prepared the students are for the test - I was impressed with how well your children did on the quiz!  Ask your child how they scored on this quiz - if you would like to see an electronic copy of the quiz, let me know and I will send you one.  Your child can prepare for the assessment by studying the review and these concepts on Khan Academy.

Science

Due to the CogAT testing next week, we will have an interrupted science schedule.  Students were assigned the review for the Energy Assessment today - we will go through the review on Tuesday, and the Final Energy Assessment will be on Wednesday, 2/10.  Your child can also log on to Spelling City to practice the vocabulary introduced in this unit over the weekend to help prepare for the test.  

Students were also introduced to Rube Goldberg inventions this week - machines that use several energy transfers to accomplish a simple task.  They were challenged to create a Rube Goldberg of their own with at least 6 steps and 2 different types of energy transfers.  Your children were given the option to either work independently on this project or in teams - they brainstormed their projects today.  Expect them to come home today requesting to bring in a few toys for their trial run next week.  They will work in teams to create and label a Rube Goldberg diagram, and then they will have the chance to create the actual machine to demonstrate for their classmates.  They are SUPER excite to create their machines!!  

Here is a link to the video I shared in class to demonstrate a Rube Goldberg machine - your children enjoyed watching it, they may want to share it with you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

Reading

We continued our lesson on how conflict changes characters in the fiction stories this week, and learned to identify different literary elements on a plot diagram - characters & conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.  This is challenging for many students so we've worked with several different texts to build their skills.  Since we've spent a little additional time on this strategy, our Fiction Unit Final Assessment is put off for another week - we will most likely take it on Wednesday, 2/17 as we still need to cover theme and elements of drama next week.

Writing

We continued to work on identifying evidence to support our claims about character traits in The Liberation of Gabriel King in our WEX lessons.  This week we focused on finding supporting evidence in sensory details and how to identify emotions in dialogue and narration.  Next week, we will focus more on the grammar of showing with direct quotes and how to use literary verb tense.

“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”      ~ Angela Schwindt