WEEK OF DECEMBER 3

Too Good For Drugs Program Begins
On December 5th, our class will begin the fifth grade "Too Good For Drugs" program. Deputy Seward from the DuPage County Sheriff's Department will be coming to our classroom on Wednesdays to discuss various topics of drug prevention. A letter explaining more about the program will be sent home after our first session.


Subject Update:

• Spelling - The Lesson 12 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 the week of December 10, students will only be able to print up to 5 words on the tests "just in case" they are unsure of their cursive! Please continue to review cursive at home!!
• English - Students have been learning how to identify nouns, to distinguish between common and proper nouns, and to correctly write plural nouns. Next week, we will work with singular and plural possessive nouns.
• Reading - Students will be working in small groups as they continue to read the novel, Jacob’s Rescue. We have already had some great whole group discussions about the first chapters as we read together, worked with vocabulary, and reviewed various reading skills. Reminder...2nd Quarter "Biography Shape Booklet" Project is due Thursday, December 13th - Your student should be finishing his/her biography and starting to put together the booklet. Be sure to use the grader as a checklist to make sure all expectations are met!
• Science - The students have learned how ecosystems change over time through primary and secondary succession. Next we will learn more about ecosystems changing due to human actions. The Chapter 6 Test is scheduled for Friday, December 7!
• Social Studies - What a talented, creative class this is! Our trade fair showed off some hidden skills of our classmates! Plus, the students learned a great deal about supply and demand, product value, presentation, and bartering. Now we are learning about life in the cities, the towns, and the plantations of colonial times.
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students will continue working with equations and inequalities next week. We will also be solving addition and subtraction equations by applying properties of equality.

Mark Your Calendar:

Nov. 30 - Check Student Progress

Dec. 5 - Too Good For Drugs (Session 1)

Dec. 12 - Too Good For Drugs (Session 2)
 

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 19 and NOVEMBER 26

Robert Crown Field Trip
Students need a sack lunch on the day of our trip since we may not be back in time for a school-purchased lunch. Also, each student will receive a booklet from the Robert Crown Center about the program that he/she attended. The booklet is a great resource about the material covered during the program, but I encourage parents to also have a discussion with their student to field any questions he/she may have.

Junior Achievement
During session 4, Mr. Blocker taught the students about finding a job. He discussed the importance of choosing a profession that you enjoy, the ability to communicate your strengths to a potential employer, and a common set of skills that employers look for when hiring. Mr. Blocker also gave each student a CD with games and activities related to this week's concepts. We will have our final Junior Achievement session on Monday. The students will receive a certificate of completion, and the class will present Mr. Blocker with a card and gift as a token of appreciation for all of his hard work. Hopefully, students will use some of the concepts taught during Junior Achievement as they prepare for our upcoming trade fair!


Subject Update:

• Spelling - No spelling lesson next week. For the week of November 26, the Lesson 11 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.
• English - Students will do some writing activities and begin our next grammar unit on nouns.
• Reading - The students will be starting the novel, Jacob’s Rescue. This book is historical fiction, but based on a true story of a Jewish boy named Jacob in Poland during the holocaust. 
• Science - The students are currently learning about different types of symbiosis. Next, we will learn more about predator-prey relationships and how ecosystems change over time. 
• Social Studies - To understand better about working and trading in Colonial times, we will hold a Trade Fair on Wednesday, November 28. Students have received a hand-out with guidelines to follow, and their idea for what will be made along with the bottom portion of the hand-out is due by Tuesday, November 20!
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -We have started Chapter 4 - Expressions and Equations. The first lessons cover order of operations, translating multi-step word phrases and expressions, evaluating algebraic expressions, and working with equations and inequalities.

Mark Your Calendar:

Nov. 19 - Junior Achievement (Final Session)

Nov. 20 - Robert Crown Field Trip (Need Sack Lunch!)

Nov. 21 - Nov. 25 -  Thanksgiving Break

Nov. 28 - Mrs. Strong's Classroom Trade Fair

Nov. 29 - Picture Retakes

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 12

Paper Recycling = Money For Our School

Did you know that you can help our district earn money by recycling paper here at school? You can bring in any paper (no cardboard, please) to the green and yellow bin marked "Paper Retriever" located in Lakeview's parking lot to be recycled.  The more paper we collect, the more money we can earn.  The provider of the bin uses the paper to make newsprint, which is then sold to other companies.  That is how we are paid to recycle paper. Thank you for your help - and for helping the environment at the same time!

Junior Achievement
I thought it might be nice to present Mr. Blocker with a token of appreciation on his last session of Junior Achievement. Junior Achievement representatives visit schools on a purely voluntary basis, and Mr. Blocker really goes beyond what is expected in regards to preparing lessons and materials. If you would like to contribute to a classroom gift, please send in $1 before Friday, November 16th.

Subject Update:

• Spelling - The Lesson 10 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. *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 - Students should be preparing for the Unit 5: Capitalization and Punctuation Test scheduled for Wednesday, November 14! Then we will finish the week with some creative writing activities.
• Reading -  We will review skills such as summarizing and inferring character traits before starting novel studies. 2nd Quarter Reading Project: The students should now be reading their chosen biographies. The final project is due Thursday, December 13!
• Science - Now that we have previewed some key concepts from Chapter 6, we will begin reading Lesson 1 about organisms competing and surviving in an ecosystem.
• Social Studies - The students will learn about life in Colonial times. We will learn how people worked and traded.
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students will take a "homework review" of lessons 10-13, then prepare for the Chapter 3 Test scheduled for Thursday, November 15.

Mark Your Calendar:

Nov. 12 - No School (Veteran's Day)

Nov. 14 - Robert Crown Parent Night (6:30 p.m.)

Nov. 15 - Junior Achievement (Session 4)

Nov. 19 - Junior Achievement (Final Session)

Nov. 21 - Nov. 25 -  Thanksgiving Break

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 5

Hurricane Sandy "Flash" Drive
One of the attachments sent out this week with the Prairieview Weekly Reminders was information about a "flash" drive for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Please check out the flyer and consider making a donation to our efforts. Thank you in advance for your generosity and compassion toward others!

Halloween Party - Thanks Parent Helpers!
Thank you to Mrs. Zimmerman, Mrs. Selig, Mrs. Swain, and Mrs. Rapinchuk for planning such a "spook"tacular Halloween party for our class. Also, thanks to Mrs. Bastuga, Mrs. Zimmerman, Mrs. Topp, Mrs. Jarmakowicz, and Mrs. Barowski for sending in some delicious snacks and drinks for us to enjoy.

Junior Achievement Program
During session 3, Mr. Blocker taught the students about unit and mass production. The students had fun assembling ballpoint pens to better understand how to make a product as efficiently as possible. We look forward to his next visit on Thursday, November 15.


Subject Update:

• Spelling - No spelling lesson due to the short week!
• English - We will review all the different ways to write quotations correctly. Then we will begin to review Unit 5 in preparation of the test scheduled for Wednesday, November 14!
• Reading - We will finish up our work with drawing conclusions and analogies. 2nd Quarter Reading Project: The students now have information about the Biography Shape Booklet project. Biography books choices are due by Friday, November 9.
• Science - Ask your student about the virtual owl pellet dissection we completed this week. Did your child earn a certificate as "Bird Barfologist?" Next, we will dissect real owl pellets, examine the contents, and draw conclusions about our findings.
• Social Studies - The students will start Chapter 6 about life in the English colonies. The first lesson discusses how people worked and traded.
• Mrs. Strong's Math Class -The students will evaluate multiplication and division expressions, round quotients that seem to never end (no matter how long we extend our dividend with zeros), and solve problems that require them to interpret remainders.

Mark Your Calendar:

Nov. 5 - 6 - No School (Teacher Institute)

Nov. 12 - No School (Veteran's Day)

Nov. 14 - Robert Crown Parent Night (6:30 p.m.)

Nov. 15 - Junior Achievement (Session 4)