Sept 26th-30th

Have you heard about our author visit? Mike Lupica, spoke to JYJ 4th and 5th graders on Tues morning.  He writes books about sports that focus on the life lessons we learn from participating on a team. "Character matters every day" was a quote he shared with us. Watch a great author video at this link.          

Thanks so much for returning field trip forms and payment for our upcoming trip to the Poe Health Center. In this week's Wed. folders I hope you found picture day forms, opportunities to participate in the fight against juvenile diabetes and first quarter progress reports. Please sign and return the progress reports.

  Thursday I asked students to sign up for the materials needed to plan and create landform models next week.  Please check agendas for this information. I would also greatly appreciate if 2 to 3 parents could join us next Fri morning to assist with our creations! Looking right now like 8-9:30 would be our time frame.

We completed our focus on author's purpose and our math unit on place value this week.  Students also completed thank you notes to our guest speaker from last week.  They focused on capitalization, punctuation, using Peak vocabulary words, and the editing process. Next Wed. or Thurs. we will have a quiz on Peak Vocabulary Unit 2.

Hope everyone enjoys the long weekend and cooler temperatures.

Sept. 19th-23rd

Please forgive the delayed post due to an unexpected out of town trip to take care of my mom who is now thankfully improving.  I was pleased upon my return Thursday, to hear about all that was accomplished in my absence. Thanks to the students for their hard work and cooperation with our sub.

 Last week students focused on author's purpose during our mini lessons, learning that authors write to inform, entertain and persuade.  We also read three more chapters in Peak and began our second set of vocabulary words for this novel.  (It is a challenging list and can be found in a plastic protective sheet in the language arts section of  students' binders) We will have a test on these words a week from this Wed.

In math we are continuing our unit on number sense and place value with a focus on rounding numbers from thousandths through millions. In science we developed our understanding of different landforms by matching, illustrating and comparing the landform terms.

 Friday the fifth grade was most fortunate to host a real live mountain climber who shared his journey up Mount Everest with us.  Chip Popoviciu climbed Mt. Everest in 2008.  His presentation provided excellent backgound information to help us understand the journey our protaganist is taking in Peak.  Please find below a picture of the 2008 Expedition Patch he gave to JYJ. . I will also add to our links a slide show of Chip's climb up Mt. Everest. Along with building our knowledge about Mt. Everest and climbing, Chip provided a powerful example  for all of us about how to dream and achieve our goals. 

Sept.12th-16th 2011

Parents,

I am looking forward to seeing all of you at Open House on Thursday evening. Open House is  a great opportunity for you to hear about the curriculum your child will be learning  during their 5th grade school year.  We will also be providing an intinerary for the DC trip.  Please see the open house schedule below.

This week we are examining non fiction text features as well as working on our Peak vocabulary unit.We will have a vocabulary quiz on Friday.  In math we are continuing place value with an emphasis on ordering and comparing whole numbers and decimals. Students have begun to switch for math based on the math pretests results. Please continue to practice multiplication facts 1-12 with your child.

 Students are creating flip books to learn and practice their landform vocabulary in science. We will be examining some areas of erosion on the playground and discussing the causes.

Thanks so much for checking your students agendas each evening.  I have seen some very creative reading logs this week.

See you Thursday evening. :)

Open House Schedule

6:00-6:30 General PTA Meeting in the Multi-purpose room.

Session I

6:30 –7:05   (Meet with Grade Level Teachers for Presentation of Curriculum and Connections Sheets) Note: This is a formal presentation by the classroom teacher and not a time for individual conferences. 

                                        OR

(Meet with Specialists and/or Spanish  Teachers) Chance for parents to meet with Spanish teachers and Specialists. 

Session II

7:15–7:50  (Meet with Grade Level Teachers for Presentation of Curriculum and Connections Sheets) Note: This is a formal presentation by the classroom teacher and not a time for individual conferences. 

                             OR

(Meet with Specialists and/or Spanish  Teachers) Chance for parents to meet with Spanish teachers and Specialists. 

September 6th - September 9th

Welcome to our class website, a place to keep in touch with our class and the Joyner community. Look for weekly updates regarding what we are learning and experiencing during this important final year of elementary school.

 Hope everyone had a great Labor Day Weekend.    Thanks so much  to those who have sent in copies of  Peak. This novel is part of our initial IB unit, How the World Works. Fifth graders will be researching and building background knowledge about Tibet, Nepal, Mount Everest and landforms. In math we will continue our review of place value and number sense. At the end of the week we will have a quiz to make sure everyone knows their multiplication facts through 12s.  Check out  the helpful practice link under suggested links on this page.

Parents, I want to encourage you to come into the media center and register to be a school volunteer.  You must go through this process in order to volunteer in the classroom and/or attend field trips.  It only takes a few minutes!