WEEK OF OCTOBER 29

Costume Parade/Halloween Party
Students need to bring their costumes to school on Wednesday. Please understand that costumes might need to be simplified for school purposes since students need to be able to change in a short amount of time. Also, students will be changing in classrooms designated for either girls or boys. Washrooms will not be available for costume changing. Finally, please remember that no weapons, even fake, are allowed at school.

Junior Achievement Program
During session 2, Mr. Blocker reviewed the profit model: revenue - expenses = profit. He also discussed the three types of resources (natural, capital, and human) and the concept of supply and demand. We look forward to Monday when Mr. Blocker will share about production.

2nd Quarter Late Homework Policy
Please take note of the Late Homework Policy for the 2nd Quarter:
1 day late - minus 15 %
More than 1 day late until unit test is taken - minus 25%
After unit test is taken - 0% earned
*Ungraded work - 1 point deducted from "Homework Completion" bank of points


Subject Update:

• Spelling - The Lesson 9 pretest will be given on Monday. The students will be assigned homework during the week to practice their words, and a final test will be given Friday. *Students may only print up to 10 words on the tests "just in case" they are unsure of their cursive! Please continue to review cursive at home!!
• English - We will learn how to write direct quotations correctly. This can be challenging since it involves many rules about capitalization and punctuation! To make it easier, we will practice a different way to write a direct quotation each day: naming the speaker at the beginning, naming the speaker at the end, and naming the speaker in the middle of the sentence.
• Reading - Students will continue to focus on the skill of drawing conclusions. The students are learning to use clues from the text along with their own knowledge or experiences to help them come to a conclusion about the text.  The students will also complete some word work with analogies. 2nd Quarter Reading Project: I will introduce the next genre and project on Monday,... details to come!
• Science - We will learn about the ecology of a barn owl and dissect owl pellets in a "virtual lab" on the computer. After we dissect owl pellets at this interactive website, we will try our hand at the real thing!
• Social Studies - The students will finish the chapter learning how some of the other 13 original colonies were established. The Chapter 5 Test is scheduled for Friday, November 2!
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students will learn how to estimate decimal quotients, learn how to "deal with the decimal" before dividing by a decimal divisor, and understand when to use zeros in division of decimals. We hope to also work with multiplication and division expressions before the end of the week.

Mark Your Calendar:

Oct. 26 - End of 1st Quarter

Oct. 29 - Junior Achievement (Session #3)

Oct. 29 - Nov. 2 - Parent/Teacher Conference Week

Nov. 5 - 6 - No School

WEEK OF OCTOBER 22

Junior Achievement Program
During our first session with Mr. Blocker, he introduced the class to many core concepts used in business today. The class learned about entrepreneurs, cost of business (expenses), profit, and supply and demand. We look forward to our next visit from Mr. Blocker on Monday, October 22!

Book Fair Thanks
Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered to help make our book fair run smoothly. Also, thanks to the families who purchased gift certificates for me to add some great new titles to our classroom library!



Subject Update:

• Spelling - The Lesson 8 pretest will be given on Monday. The students will be assigned homework during the week to practice their words, and a final test will be given Friday. *Starting with Lesson 8, students will only be able to print up to 10 words on the tests "just in case" they are unsure of their cursive! Please continue to review cursive at home!!
• English - We will continue to focus on capitalization and punctuation in Unit 5. Students will learn how to use commas to set off introductory words or nouns in direct address, and use interjections correctly. Later in the week, we hope to start working with direct quotations.
• Reading - We will begin to target another reading skill - drawing conclusions.  The students will also complete some word work with analogies. 1st Quarter Reading Project: I enjoyed the students' presentations of their Memory Bag projects. I will introduce the next reading project once the 2nd Quarter begins.
• Science - We will take a break from science this week and learn more about the upcoming election.
• Social Studies - The students will learn about English settlers in search of religious freedom establishing new colonies in New England.
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students will divide whole numbers, divide decimals by powers of 10, divide decimals by whole numbers, and look at patterns when dividing by tenths, hundredths, and thousandths.

Mark Your Calendar:

Oct. 22 - Junior Achievement (Session 2)

Oct. 25 - Early Dismissal (11:00 a.m.)

Oct. 26 - End of 1st Quarter

WEEK OF OCTOBER 15

Junior Achievement Program
Our class will be starting Junior Achievement on Monday, October 15th. Our Junior Achievement volunteer, Mr. Blocker, will be visiting our classroom over the next several weeks to present lessons about creating and running a business. The sessions will teach students different concepts such as supply and demand, use of resources, cost of business, and profit. This program shows students real-world applications of several ideas from Social Studies.


Subject Update:

• Spelling - The Lesson 7 pretest will be given on Monday. The students will be assigned homework during the week to practice their words, and a final test will be given Friday. *Starting with Lesson 8, students will only be able to print up to 10 words on the tests "just in case" they are unsure of their cursive! Please continue to review cursive at home!!
• English - We will continue to focus on capitalization and punctuation in Unit 5. Students will learn how to write titles correctly, use commas in variety of ways, and use interjections. 
• Reading - We will finish up our work with non-fiction texts and homophones.  Reminder...1st Quarter "Memory Bag" Project is due Tuesday, October 16th - Your student should be finishing his/her project. Be sure to use the grader as a checklist to make sure all expectations are met!
• Science - The students will finish the chapter learning about other natural cycles that affect ecosystems. The Chapter 5 Test is scheduled for Thursday, October 18th!
• Social Studies - Ask your child about the Jamestown Colony activity we did in the computer lab. Was your student worthy of being governor of Jamestown? Next, we will learn how the search for a Northwest Passage led to other European countries founding colonies in North America.
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students are finishing the chapter with a review of various problem solving strategies. The Chapter 2 Test is scheduled for Tuesday, October 16th! Then we will dive into division of whole numbers and decimals in Chapter 3.

Mark Your Calendar:

Oct. 15 - Junior Achievement (Session 1)

Oct. 22 - Junior Achievement (Session 2)

Oct. 25 - Early Dismissal (11:00 a.m.)

Oct. 26 - End of 1st Quarter

WEEK OF OCTOBER 8

Parent Helper Opportunity
The fifth grade teachers would like help in organizing their classroom libraries in a different way. We would like to label each book with its lexile score so that students can make better choices for independent reading. Selecting books at appropriate lexile levels will help students increase fluency and comprehension while reading books that are of high-interest to them. Please contact me if you are interested!


Subject Update:

• Spelling - The Lesson 6 pretest will be given on Tuesday. The students will be assigned homework during the week to practice their words, and a final test will be given Friday.
• English - Students will continue to work on their pyramid poems. We will also begin Unit 5 which focuses on capitalization and punctuation.
• Reading - We will continue to focus on the organization of non-fiction text and asking good questions before, during, and after reading to help us understand the text better. Students will also do some "word work" with homonyms and homographs. Reminder...1st Quarter "Memory Bag" Project is due Tuesday, October 16th - your student should be finishing his/her realistic fiction book, and beginning to work on the project.
• Science - The students are learning how energy is passed through an ecosystem. Next week, we will look at the "Pyramid of Energy" to understand how only a small portion of energy is actually passed on to the next organism in a food chain.
• Social Studies - We are learning about Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Ask your child how the Virginia Company of London helped get the Jamestown colony started.
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students will continue working on multiplication of whole numbers and decimals. We will be working specifically with exponents and the use of exponents to write numbers in scientific notation.

Mark Your Calendar:

Oct. 8 - No School (Columbus Day)

Oct. 25 - Early Dismissal (11:00 a.m.)

Oct. 26 - End of 1st Quarter