5-2 Updates ~ 10/26

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

I hope you have a chance to relax and enjoy some family time weekend.  It's getting cold out there!! Thank you to all of you who took the time to come out and visit our classroom on Thursday night for Open House.  it was so nice to see all of you, and the students were SO proud showing you around the classroom!

Important Dates

Class of 2014 T-shirts ~ due Monday, October 28th - Information about the Class T-shirts came home this week - you need to choose a size and how you would like your child's name to appear on the t-shirt.  It is very important that these forms are returned on Monday so the committee can get the information to the printer - they would like to have the t-shirts soon so the kids can start showing their OMS graduating pride!!

Halloween Party ~ Wednesday, October 31st - A great big thank you to our room moms ~ Mrs. Orzechowski, Mrs. Thompson, and Mrs. Tader ~ for all the time they've invested in planning for such a fun party for the kids!  They are so excited :)  If you signed up to bring something in for the party, please send in the supplies ASAP.  I haven't received many supplies at this point.  Thank you so much for your help!  

Please refer to the Halloween Food Letter on this blog for information about the food being served at the party.  

If you child is planning on coming home for lunch, they must have a permission slip turned in by tomorrow.  Our lunch schedule is modified on Halloween if your child stays for lunch.  They will eat first at 12:15, then have recess until 12:55.  At that point, all students will be brought in to change into their costumes.

Our festivities begin with our annual Halloween parade beginning at 1:30 and follow the route: OMS to Greens Park, South on Douglas, West on Oakton, North on Belmont, Back to OMS through our playground area.  Please plan to join us...and don't forget your camera!  Our party will follow the parade.  

Veteran's Day ~ Monday, November 11th  - NO SCHOOL!

Think Energy! Presentation ~ Tuesday, November 12th  - The National Energy Foundation will be presenting Energy conservation to our students, tying into our spring science unit on Energy.  More information will come on this presentation - watch for details.

Cultural Arts ~ Spooky Hollow ~ Students were treated to a humorous presentation of the classic play Sleepy Hollow this week by our Cultural Arts Committee.  A great time was had by everyone as this "spooky" comedy brought on the Halloween season.  Mrs. Watanuki and a few students were even invited to participate in the drama!  I've included some pictures of the production below:

Math

My math class will test on Unit 3 (Geometry) on Wednesday, and pre-test on Unit 4 (Division) on Thursday.  They should prepare for the test by playing any of the Unit 3 games (Angle Tangle and Polygon Capture), then study the review that will come home on Tuesday.  As always, I will have a review session at lunch recess the day before the test (Tuesday) - please encourage your child to come if they are struggling with the concepts.  Unit 4 is another computation unit that requires automaticity of math facts and repetition.  Please encourage your child to play the Everyday Mathematics math facts games, as well as practice long division problems.

Social Studies

Our social studies unit starts with the rising tensions that led to the Revolutionary War.  In the first unit, students will study 6 major events that led to the colonists' decision to declare their independence:  The French and Indian War, The Proclamation of 1763, The Stamp Act, The Boston Massacre, The Boston Tea Party, and The Intolerable Act.  We spend a great deal of time discussing perspective in this unit, and try to help the students understand both the perspective of the colonists and the British in the events that led to the war.  We will debate "Who's fault was it, anyways?" and our research project will look at both perspectives of these 6 events.  We started this unit by helping the students understand the perspective of the colonists with a fun activity - I read them a "letter" from the PTA declaring they could no longer have classroom parties during instructional hours, and they would have to pay if they wanted to be a part of the party (sorry to all you PTA moms!!).  Their reaction was priceless, as they started to plan protests, sign petitions, and design posters.  It was easy to make connections to the colonists' perspective once I let them know I pranked them - though it took more than a few moments to get them to forgive me ;)  The learning was quite impactful, though...and it was extremely fun to prank them all!

The Unit 10 Assessment will also be on Wednesday, October 30th.  I realize the students will have 2 tests on Wednesday (math and social studies), but with Halloween on Thursdays, I don't want the kids testing on that day or the following day.  We will have plenty of time to prepare for the assessments in class, and I will lighten the load in our other subjects so they don't have as much homework Monday and Tuesday night so they will be able to focus on preparing for the tests.

Reading

We returned to our Treasures curriculum this week and worked on the comprehension strategy of inferencing.  This is a challenging concept as students learn to dig deeper into the text and "read between the lines," but they were able to come to a deeper understanding of the text through discussion.  Students will start our new novel groups this week as we shift our focus to the Revolutionary War.  The topic in many of these books does present the war in an age-appropriate, but realistic perspective.  Each novel presents the war from the perspective of a child about the age of your child, as they wrestle with the difficult realties of war. If you have any concerns or questions about the topics discussed in these novels, please let me know.   

Writing

Students continued to work on strong word choice, figurative language, and poetry as they created their fall poems earlier this week.  They enjoyed the change of pace, as they pondered the change of season this time of year, and had fun creating their leaf rubbings for the backdrop of their poems.  I hope you all enjoyed reading their poems when you visited for Open House!  We did return to WEX at the end of the week, and will continue working on developing our personal narrative stories through next week.  Students will have a final narrative due at the following week.

Book Buddies

Our 5th graders were SO excited to get started with their Kindergarten Book Buddies this week!  Many of them fondly remember their 5th grade Book Buddies when they were Kindergarteners themselves, and were excited to give the same experience to a little kindergartener.  We met this week and just spent time on an activity that helped them get to know each other a little better.  We will be meeting with them every Friday afternoon for the remainder of the year, working with the little ones on important literacy skills.  I've included pictures of our first meeting below:

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Have a fantastic weekend ~

 If you are tempted to make a poor choice because no one is

looking, remember this: Someone is really looking. You are

looking, and what you think about you is important.

5-2 Updates ~ 10/20

Hello 5-2 Families ~

Hope you had a restful weekend...great weekend for board games and football :)

Important Dates

Cultural Arts Assembly: Spooky Hollow ~ Tuesday, October 22nd - Thanks to our PTA, our students will be enjoying a staged production of Sleepy Hollow on Tuesday morning in place of math class.

Science Behind Drugs ~ Thursday, October 24th - Science Behind Drugs is a program that presents the physiological dangers drug use can have on the body.  Here is a synopsis of the presentation:

Kids face tough decisions, especially regarding the issue of drug use. The newly designed “Science Behind Drugs and Prevention” program helps kids make healthy choices and lead a drug-free life.  The program uses research-proven effective, interactive teaching methods. The neurological effects of drug addiction are demonstrated using the “Reward Pathway” display in the transparent brain model. Addiction is defined and the underlying neurological response to drugs that leads to addiction.

Program Goals:
Students will…

1. Increase knowledge about drugs and their affects on total wellness (physical, mental social, emotional) with intense focus on neuroscience.
2. Feel empowered to take personal responsibility for increasing their total wellness and increase disapproval of alcohol and other drug use
3. Develop strategies/tools to make healthy decisions and explore alternatives to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use/abuse.

NOTE: In response to the Chicago area heroin crisis, this class will include a component about heroin prevention. The Reed Hruby Prevention Program focused specifically on heroin will be available to the schools in the fall of 2013.

Open House ~ Thursday, October 24th at 6:30pm - please plan to enjoy of for an evening at our annual Open House!  Students have fun showing their parents around the classroom and building, and it's a great chance for a chat :)

Halloween Party ~ Thursday, October 31st at 1:30pm - Our Room Moms have been very busy planning an exciting party for your children - a great big thank you to Mrs. Orzechowski, Mrs. Tader, and Mrs. Thompson!  I will email a letter and post a letter on this blog about the foods that will be served at the party, along with our food policy.  You should have seen a permission slip come home about lunch on Halloween Day - please return this permission slip as soon as possible so that I know your child's plans for that day.  Our Annual Halloween Parade begins at 1:30pm, with the party immediately following.  We look forward to seeing you all along the route!  Pleae refer to the Olive Blog for more information on rain plans, as well as halloween costume expectations.

Jesie Chinese Delegation
5-2 was privileged to have the Jesie Chinese Delegation visit our room on Friday afternoon.  We were chosen to demonstrate the use of technology in a classroom with Common Core Standards instruction.  While it was a little strange to have about a dozen adults walking around the room and taking pictures of their activities, your children were phenominal hosts as they paused to explain the activities they were engaged in when asked questions.  They were respectful and helpful - I was so proud and impressed to watch them represent the Olive community to our international visitors :)

Math

My math class continues to work on geometric concepts in unit 3.  Tomorrow, we will be our Re-teach/Game Day - once every unit, we take a break in the middle of the unit to re-teach and solidify concepts that have been taught earlier in the unit.  It gives me the opportunity to work in small groups with students who struggle with concepts, and gives other students the opportunity to strengthen their skills with games.  On these days, students are also assigned the Open Response problems as homework.  Several students have brought in notes from parents about the difficulty of these problems, so I thought I would take a moment to comment on these problems.  These are intended to be challenging problems that require students to push their thinking outside the box.  I assure you that they are 5th grade level problems, and our students have been solving them in 5th grade for quite some time...so they are grade level appropriate.  The most important element of these problems is that students become comfortable with annotating their thinking as they work to solve the problem, not just that they get the correct answer.  Let them struggle with the problem, and write down the step they took to think through the problems.  Some strategies for helping them include:  have them re-read the problem a couple of times and identify what they are being asked to do, then have them re-word the problem.  Have them identify the important information that they know, then have them try a strategy to solve the problem.  Don't solve the problem for them, or they lose the opportunity to develop those important problem-solving skills.  Finally, rest assured that we always go through the problem together the following morning.  If they fail to answer it properly, they are always given another opportunity to solve the problem on their own after our class discussion.

Science

We finished our Human Body unit this week with a Final Unit Assessment.  I was SO pleased with their scores on this assessment!  It looks like many students learned from their struggle with the mid-unit assessment, and worked to develop their study skills - an important 5th grade skill!  I will be sending home these scores for a sign and return this week - please look for them.  You will only receive the written portion of the test, but the score includes their mimio test results as well.  If you would like to see their mimio test results specifically, please email me and I will send you an electronic copy.

Reading

With our short week, students were given another opportunity to examine the elements of a drama titled Study Skills.  They've enjoyed the ability to read through and determine the theme of these dramas for the past two weeks.  Next week, we will return to our Treasures curriculum with unit 2, where we will intensify our instruction on the comprehension strategy of inferencing.

Writing

We took a break from our WEX curriculum on Personal Narratives this week and learned to develop strong, descriptive language with a study on poetry this past week.  Students wrote Acrostic and Haiku poems about autumn - we will further our study of poetry by writing Diamante and Cinquain poems this coming week.  Students will be able to choose their favorite poem to polish up for final publication later this week - hopefully we will have them published for Open House!

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Have a fantastic week ~

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

5-2 Updates ~ 10/11

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

What an absolutely beautiful day we had for the Re-enactment Day!!  The field was transformed into a Revolutionary War-time frontier last night, and the students had such a great time learning from as they visited the Tavern, the school or learned what it was like to be in the militia or a trapper at that time.  Each student was assigned to summarize one persona's presentation ~ they took notes and pictures on iPad as they traveled from station to station.  Next week, they will integrate the information they learned on the field with the on-line biographies of each persona to create a presentation with pictures.  We will be blogging our presentations - stay tuned!  The kids are excited and now ready to start our Revolutionary War Unit in two weeks!!

Here are some pictures of the fun we had today ~

Important Dates

Columbus Day (No School) ~ Monday, October 14th

SIP Day (No School) ~ Tuesday, October 15th

Science Behind Drugs ~ Thursday, October 24th - Permission slips came home for all of the Robert Crown presentations for 5th graders last week.  Please sign and return as soon as possible.  This is the first of 4 presentations the 5th graders will participate in with Robert Crown.  Science Behind Drugs is a program that presents the physiological dangers drug use can have on the body.  They will also participate in the Linda/Michael Program which presents the physical changes puberty brings; and the Life Begins program which presents conception to birth.  If you have any questions about any of these programs, please do not hesistate to contact me.

Open House ~ Thursday, October 24th at 6:30pm - please plan to enjoy of for an evening at our annual Open House!  Students have fun showing their parents around the classroom and building, and it's a great chance for a chat :)

Midterms

In the chaos of the afternoon, returning from the Re-enactment a little late and packing up quickly, I forgot to hand out the Mid-term Progress Reports!  Ooops!  I will email each report to you individually this weekend.  

Please review this mid-term with your child some time this weekend.  I have already discussed the reports with the kiddos, letting them know that I do send these home in the middle of the term so they know how their performance is impacting their grades.  They still have plenty of time to change any grade they are not please with.  If they are not happy with their grades, please encourage them to meet with me to discuss how they can improve their grades.  It is important as they move forward in their education that they learn how to advocate for themselves, that they understand how their daily performance impacts their grades, and that they seek support to achieve the grades they want to earn.  If you have any concerns at all, please don't hesitate to contact me yourself.

Math

My math class began Unit 3 - Geometry Explorations - this week.  We will practice measuring angles with protractors and studying the properties of polygons.  Please help your child review the concepts taught in this unit by playing the unit 3 games in Everyday Mathematics.  

Science

Students had a great time this week learning about how the digestive system breaks down food to provide nutrients to our muscles.  On Tuesday, students learned how salivary amalyze (the enzyme in our saliva) begins to break down different foods in our mouths.  As them what kinds of foods salivary amalyze breaks down!

We will be reviewing the Human Body unit next week, and taking the test the Final Unit Assessment on Friday.  I will be assigning a review packet next week.  Please help your child prepare for this test by carving out some time for them to review the vocabulary and concepts for this unit each night.  

Reading

We spent this week learning about the structure of dramas, summarizing and analyzing dramas, and finally performing a Reader's Theater called Accepting Responsibility.  Students were given the freedom to stage the play as they wanted, complete with props...I was SO impressed with the production quality!!  You all have a bunch of actors and actresses as children!  I did video tape them and hope to be able to post them, but had trouble getting the video off of my iPad.  I will be working on it - I'll let you know if I can figure out how to post them.  We will be continuing dramas next week during the short week - hopefully, I'll be able to properly record those!

We also took the Unit 1 Assessment today - students will bring home these grades for a sign and return on Monday.  On their assessment form, you will also notice review quiz scores for this unit vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.

Writing

With the short week and the re-enactment, we only worked on WEX for a couple of days this week.  After correcting some of their Revision Assignments on Tuesday, students will begin work on their Final Personal Narratives next week.  I will also send home a WEX Summative Rubric early next week - this scores your children in their writing behaviors.  Please look for it to sign and return the next day.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Enjoy your long weekend ~

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children.

 One is roots; the other, wings.

~ Hodding Carter

5-2 Updates ~ 10/06

Hello 5-2 Families ~

Well, it definitely felt like fall was in the air today...brrr!  Now that the weather is turning colder, please be sure that your child has appropriate outerwear.  We will be going outside for recess everyday, unless it is raining.  They need to be dressed warm enough to be outside for 30 minutes at a time.  It’s also a good idea to label ALL outwear – gloves, hats, scarves, coats, boots – with their names.  It would amaze you how many items end up unclaimed in the lost and found!

Important Dates

International Walk to School Day ~ Wednesday, October 9th - Encourage your child to walk to school on Wednesday in celebration of International Walk to School Day!  Our staff will be at a number of pick-up points throughout the neighborhoods, looking forward to walking to school with your children :)  See the Olive Blog for pick-up points, and join us for the walk!

Re-enactment ~ Friday, October 11th - Permission slips came home this week. If you have not returned it yet, please sign and return as soon as possible.  The Re-enactment is an interactive demonstration of life during colonial times set up in our field.  It is conveniently scheduled near the beginning of our Revolutionary War unit, and serves as an excellent introduction to the unit.  Students will have the opportunity to interact with pioneers living on the frontier during this time period to gain a unique perspective of what life was like during the Revolutionary War.  Always a favorite for the 5th graders!  

Columbus Day (No School) ~ Monday, October 14th

SIP Day (No School) ~ Tuesday, October 15th

Science Behind Drugs ~ Thursday, October 24th - Permission slips came home for all of the Robert Crown presentations for 5th graders on Friday.  Please sign and return as soon as possible.  This is the first of 4 presentations the 5th graders will participate in with Robert Crown.  Science Behind Drugs is a program that presents the physiological dangers drug use can have on the body.  They will also participate in the Linda/Michael Program which presents the physical changes puberty brings; and the Life Begins program which presents conception to birth.  If you have any questions about any of these programs, please do not hesistate to contact me.

Open House ~ Thursday, October 24th at 6:30pm - please plan to enjoy of for an evening at our annual Open House!  Students have fun showing their parents around the classroom and building, and it's a great chance for a chat :)

Team Building with the Principals
How lucky our fifth graders are to have such involved and dedicated principals!  Our 5th Grade students were treated to a special team building activity with Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Mrs. Perri on Friday morning.  Fifth grade classes had to utilize patience, teamwork, and clear communication to "cross the river" on "stepping stones," all the while avoiding the "curmudgeons" (our principals) who made the challenge even more daunting.  See the Olive Blog for pictures and more information :)  What a great time they had!!

Math

My math class finished up unit 2 this week, and will begin their review tomorrow.  The Unit 2 Assessment is scheduled for Tuesday, 10/8.  They should be studying for their assessment tomorrow night.  As always, I offer study session during lunch/recess for students on the day of the review.  Students will be sent home with copies of their Review Quiz with answers tomorrow - please be sure they look over this quiz, as it is a good indicator as to how they will perform on the assessment.  They will also assigned a Review packet that should be reviewed tomorrow night.    

Science

Students took their first science test this week on lessons 1-6 in the Human Body, and we moved on to learn about the respiratory and circulatory system.  Ask your child how they find their heart rate, and what they noticed about their heart rate as their physical activities changed!  They should also be able to tell you the reasons why.  All students also had the opportunity to experience what it is like to try to breathe with restricted airways, as a person with asthma struggles.  Ask them how they felt during this experiment!

Reading

We wrapped up Unit 1 in Treasures this week learning the strategy of cause and effect.  This was a much easier strategy for the students to master, providing some relief to the increased rigor in our reading program. Next week, we will take a break from our Treasures program since it is week 6, and turn our attention to dramas.  They will learn a little about the structure and history of dramas, and then get to participate in a character building play - should be a fun week!

Writing

In writing this week, we discussed how to "show, not tell" in our writing.  I did a little dramatic acting :) and asked the students to describe my actions, facial expression, and words in their writing rather than tell me the emotion.  While I cried my eyes out in pain, your children giggled uncontrollable...guess I've got to work on my acting.  But the lesson was effective, nonetheless, as they were very descriptive in their showing details of my intense emotion.  I was proud of them!

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.  Have a fantastic weekend ~

“Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children, and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children.” ~ Rosaleen Dickson