Jan. 16th-20th

Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. I shared a section on Dr. King, Tuesday, from an autographed copy of Kadir Nelson's new book entitled, Heart and Soul, the Story of America and African Americans. Besides being an excellent historical text the book has AMAZING illustrations. Take a look the next time you are in our room. 

Speaking of our room here is a picture of our new room arrangement. Everyone seems to like it.

 

This week we are discussing generalizations in our reading mini lessons.  Students will be looking  for generalizations during our read to self time each day. We have completed our preassessment for our new math unit on data and graphs.  Students will be grouped based on the data from their performance on the preassessment and new groups will begin on Thursday.  Weather test will be Friday.  Students should be bringing home their science journal and binder with science handouts each evening to study. We will also spend two days reviewing in class. Friday is of course the last day of the second quarter.  Report cards will go out next week.

A quick reminder to those who have signed up to chaperone our DC trip.  Please plan to meet with the fifth grade teachers on Wed Jan. 25th at 5:15 in Mr. Butler's room.

Good luck to our spelling bee finalists who will be participating in the JYJ School Spelling Bee next Wed evening! 

Finally, hope everyone can come to  CHARACTER EDUCATION NIGHT tomorrow Jan 19th from 5:15-8:00 pm.

Jan. 9th-Jan.13th

Have you heard about our new class set up?  I took advantage of my college son being home on break to move our desks from a U shape to tables of seven.  The students seem to like the change.  Wish I had taken pictures as students came in the door the next morning.   Great expressions of surprise.  The tables allow for more room to spread out when we are reading and working in groups. 

We completed our study of  inferences today.  Students have improved their ability to use information available in the text combined with their own experiences to infer.  We are also  approaching the end of our weather unit.  Our focus this week has been on climate and weather patterns.Students have taken notes in their science journals documenting key vocabulary and weather symbols used in forecasting.  They have also kept a weather journal.  We will discuss different types of storms next week and the final assessment will be next Friday. 

Our next math unit is data and probability.   Students will soon be taking a pre-assessment and new classes will begin on Wed of next week.  

A reminder that Friday is an early release day with school dismissing at 12:30.  Monday is a holiday for students to celebrate MLK day.  Hope everyone will enjoy the long weekend.

Tues. Jan.3rd - Fri. Jan 6th

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

Hope everyone enjoyed a restful break. Thanks again to those who helped, supported, and donated towards our holiday crafts and celebration...we all had a good time. 

 Students came in focused albeit a bit chilled Tuesday.   :)  They settled in for 20 solid minutes of "read to self" time.  You could have heard a pin drop! I was most impressed! Making inferences and drawing conclusions is the targeted reading skill this week.  In science we are learning about clouds, weather instruments, and climate.  Students will create a cloud finder to help them distinguish different types of clouds. In math, we reviewed what we have learned thus far about fractions and will spend at least one more day reviewing before we jump into multiplying fractions.

On another note, please be on the look-out for a notice coming home in today's Wednesday folder indicating how much money you have paid and how much is still owed for the DC trip. 

If you are opting to pay in full, then the full amount of $290.00 per person is due by January 31, 2012. 

If you are continuing the payment plan, please pay the next amount of $58.00 per peron by January 18. 

Also, there is a strong possibility that we may be visiting the White House.  If so, then we will need some confidential information from chaperones and students for security clearance.  More info to come.

DC Chaperones...today's notice also indicates whether you have completed Level 4 chaperone clearance  for this school year (2011/2012).  ...we will  have a chaperone meeting  a few weeks prior to our trip. Details coming soon.