5-2 Updates ~ 02/22

Hello 5-2 Families ~

I hope you're enjoying the slightly warmer temperatures this weekend.  Keep thinking Spring, and we'll make it before too long!!

Important Dates
Friday, February 28th ~ Due date for Six Flags Read to Succeed Reading Log.  This is the program that earns your child a free Six Flags ticket for this summer.  You simply need to complete the Reading Log, and they'll receive a free ticket at the end of the year.  Your child was given this Reading Log early in the school year.  I send another copy of this Reading Log to your email - just print and complete!

Tuesday, March 4th ~ 5th Grade Band Concert at 7pm

ISAT Testing ~ It's that time of year again!  Our ISATS are scheduled as follows:

- Monday, March 3rd, 1:30-2:45pm - Reading #1
- Tuesday, March 4th, 1:30-2:45 - Reading #2
- Wednesday, March 5th, 1:30-2:45 - Reading #3

- Monday, March 10th, 1:30-2:45 - Math #1
- Tuesday, March 11th, 1:30-2:45 - Math #2
- Wednesday, March 12th, 1:30-2:45 - Math #3

Please encourage your child to get a full night's sleep prior to the test dates, and please do your best to minimize absences during these times.  It can be very challenging to schedule make-up tests since our window to do so is so small.  Students often feel overwhelmed at missing instruction in order to makeup tests later in the week, resulting in additional homework.  Thank you for your support!

Friday, March 14th ~ Progress Reports sent home

Thursday, March 20th & 21st ~ As you have heard, these are now student attendance days due to the number of extreme weather days we have had to take this winter.  This means we will no longer meet for parent-teacher conferences.  Many questions during the 5th grade spring conferences are about middle school transitions, including placement into classes.  I will do my best to continue to update you via this blog about the transitions, and try to answer those questions that I am frequently asked about the transition.  Several other questions are related to the end of the year 5th grade activities.  Again, I will keep you posted about all those activities via this blog.  If you have ANY questions at all, please do not hesistate to contact me.  I fully appreciate the additional anxiety families feel during this transition, and want to make it as smooth as possible :)

If I feel it is important to still meet with you about the progress of your child, I will reach out to you individually to set up a time to meet.  If I do not reach out to you, please assume your child is making progress and I have no concerns about them.  Several parents have approached me about setting up a conference time because those days have been canceled.  If you have pressing concerns, I would be happy to meet with you.  But if you have questions that can be answered via email, please feel free to contact me this way instead.  It can get challenging trying to schedule 19 parent-teacher conferences after school :)   That being said, I would be happy to meet with all 19 of you if there is a need!

Math

We finished up unit 7 on Friday, and will prepare for the test by reviewing on Monday.  The Unit 7 Assessment will be Tuesday, Febrary 25th.  The review session will be on Monday, February 26th during lunch recess.  Please encourage your child to attend if they have been struggling with the content this unit.  I continue to try to develop a sense of ownership in their learning by giving them guidelines for deciding if they should attend.  Ultimately, however, I do leave attendance to these review sessions optional - please email me if you are concerned your child is not choosing to stay in for these sessions and you would like them to participate.

Before we begin Unit 8, we will spend several days preparing for the ISAT assessments by taking practice tests.  I will send these tests home for you to review with your child.  It might be valuable for you to review the expectations for the assessment as the expectations for these standardized tests are changing. Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

Science/Social Studies

Please look for the Watery Earth Final Unit Assessment grade to come home on Monday for a sign and return.  

We will take a week to prepare for the ISAT tests before we move on to our Social Studies unit.  The ISAT tests this year have been modified to better represent the Common Core aligned PARCC assessment they will be taking next year.  The 5th grade team has worked hard to gather sample assessment to better prepare students for these tests.  As with the math, I will be sending home these tests after we take them so that you may review the new expectations.   Again, please feel free to ask any questions about these upcoming tests.  

After ISAT practice, we will return to Social Studies for the next two months.  We will pick up where we left off after the Revolutionary War, and study how our country formed a new government.  We will spend time learning about the Constituion and Bill of Rights, then on to Westward Expansion.

Reading

We will be swapping our Treasures weeks for the next few weeks because it makes more sense with our curriculum.  This week, we will be working on Unit 4 Week 4 and practice identifying text structures and writing summaries for non-fiction texts on extreme weather.  This ties in well to the end of our Watery Earth unit, and works best in a full 5-day week.  We will be teaching Week 3 during the ISAT testing weeks.  We will teach one unit of Treasures over the course of two weeks, minimizing classwork and homework during the testing period.  The week 3 text focuses on the Constitutional Convention, and ties in nicely with our Social Studies unit.  

Writing

We continue to prepare for our Response to Fiction essay by analyzing characters in The Liberation of Gabriel King.  Students are learning to identify character traits as demonstrated by the main characters in a text, and finding multiple places in the text to defend their claims. We only have one more prepartory lesson on Monday, then we will begin the work on our final Response to Fiction essay on Tuesday.  These essays will be due late next week.

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Stay Warm!

5-2 Updates ~ 02/15

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for a wonderful Valentine's Day party put on by our dedicated room moms.  We had such a great time decorating bags, delivering valentine's, eating treats, and playing games.  It was a delightful afternoon of laughing and socializing as we celebrated the day of "love." :)

Important Dates

Monday, February 17th ~ No School - President's Day!  Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 19th ~  Monday schedule - we will have PE/Music, please be sure your child brings or wears their gym shoes!

ISAT Testing ~ It's that time of year again!  Our ISATS are scheduled as follows:

- Monday, March 3rd, 1:30-2:45pm - Reading #1
- Tuesday, March 4th, 1:30-2:45 - Reading #2
- Wednesday, March 5th, 1:30-2:45 - Reading #3

- Monday, March 10th, 1:30-2:45 - Math #1
- Tuesday, March 11th, 1:30-2:45 - Math #2
- Wednesday, March 12th, 1:30-2:45 - Math #3

Please encourage your child to get a full night's sleep prior to the test dates, and please do your best to minimize absences during these times.  It can be very challenging to schedule make-up tests since our window to do so is so small.  Students often feel overwhelmed at missing instruction in order to makeup tests later in the week, resulting in additional homework.  Thank you for your support!

Math

We will be mid-way through Unit 7 this week, which means we will be taking our mid-unit quiz.  The quizzes are good indicators of student performance on the final unit assessment.  I encourage students to take ownership of their learning by looking at these scores and determining if they need additional support in learning the concepts.  I often talk to the students about being proactive and requesting additional time with me to reinforce the concepts during class or lunch recess.  This is an important skill moving forward in their education.  The Unit 7 Assessment is currently scheduled for Tuesday, Febrary 25th, and the additional review session will be on Monday, February 26th at lunch recess.

Science

We wrapped up our Watery Earth science unit this week as we discussed water pollution.  Students had an opportunity to try to filter pollutants from the water, and found this experiment to be quite challenging.  Our discussions and experiment developed a greater appreciation of our need to keep our water clean.

We will begin our review for the final unit assessment on Tuesday when we return.  Your child can get started on that review this weekend by logging on to Spelling City and taking the vocabulary games with the Watery Earth vocabulary list.  I've assigned the list to them early for them to start practicing if they want to get a head start.  This unit is a vocabulary intensive unit - there are 44 words to study for the Watery Earth test.  We will spend several days reviewing next week before taking the Watery Earth Assessment on Friday, February 21st.

Reading

We working in Unit 4 Week 1 this week and studied how the setting can greatly impact a story as we read several texts set during the Civil Rights Movement.  Your students struggled to understand why people would treat African Americans in such a discriminating way.  Their innocence is heart-warming.  As a teacher, it is a privilege to look into the eyes of the next generation each day, and see hope for a better future :)  

We will still have a full Treasures week next week despite the short week.  They will be given packets and spelling assignments on Tuesday that will be due on Friday, but they will be given additional time in class complete their work.  They will take their weekly assessments on Friday as well.  We will be determining the theme of a story, including how characters respond to challenges.

Writing

We finished reading The Liberation of Gabriel King this week, but will continue to use the text to support our Response to Fiction unit in WEX.  This week we discussed how the author uses sensory details to show character traits in writing, and we learned how to properly cite that evidence in our writing.

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” 
 ~ Aristotle ~

Stay Warm!

5-2 Updates ~ 02/09

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

We had a busy week this week as we had 5 full days together!  Hope you enjoyed some family time this weekend watching the Olympics.  It helps to make me feel a little better about all the snow outside.  But when they are finished, I would really like to see it all go away :) We need some warm sunshine out there!!

Important Dates

Friday, February 14th - 2:00pm ~ A great big thank you to our wonderful room moms (Mrs. Orzechowski, Mrs. Tader, and Mrs. Thompson) for working hard to plan a "love"-ly celebration on Friday afternoon!  Please join us if you would like to be a part of their last classroom party!

Monday, February 17th ~ No School - President's Day!

Math

We began unit 7 by reviewing exponential notation, then learning about the powers of 10 and scientific notation.  This week we will look at parentheses in equations and order of operations, then on to negative numbers.  Please encourage your child to continue to practice their multiplication facts and play the unit 7 review games online to improve skills.  The unit 7 assessment will be the following week.

Science

Students enjoyed learning about how our water moves - from faucet to flush - on Friday during their visit from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation Facility of Greater Chicago.  They learned where our water comes from and how it is cleaned, then how the water is cleaned and put back into the water cycle once it leaves our homes.  

They should have come home with an assignment to collect and measure the amount of water used while they brush their teeth this weekend.  We will use this amount to begin our discussion of how much water we use in our homes on a daily basis.  We will discuss wants versus needs, and how to conserve the water that we use.  Our unit will end on Friday as we discuss water pollution and how to keep our water supply clean.  We will spend a few days of review next week, then take a final unit assessment.  I will announce the date of the assessment to the students later in the week, and put it in next weekend's blog.

Reading

Students enjoyed putting their creative skills to work with chalk drawings as they analyzed poetry this week.  They used these drawings to help reflect on mood and tone of the poems in a common core type compare/contrast prompt.  By breaking down the poems, and reflecting on the word the poet chose to use, the kids were able to do some very complex analysis of these poems and compare the metaphor in one to the simile in the other.  I was impressed!

We will begin the Unit 4 Week 1 literacy unit on Monday.  It will give us an opportunity to read more texts about the Civil Rights Movement while discussing how the setting of a story impacts the plot.  For the first time in a while, we will be following our traditional literacy schedule - packets and spelling will be due on Friday.  They will take their assessments in the morning before the Valentine's Day party.

Writing

We are nearing the end of our novel The Liberation of Gabriel King, and the students stay quite engaged in the story.  It is prompting excellent discussions on segregation, discrimination, friendship and conquering fears.  Students learned how to identify character traits over emotions this week, and how to support their claims about a character with textual evidence.

“Children see magic because they look for it.” 
― Christopher Moore

Stay Warm!

Valentine's Day Party Information

Happy Valentine’s Day!! 

February 1, 2014

Dear Parents and/or Guardians:

We will be having food in class on Friday, February 14^th at 2:00pm as part of our Valentine’s Day party festivities. Please feel free to join us!

Refreshments to be served in class:

Water bottles

Minute Maid Fruit Punch

Minute Maid Pink Lemonade

Strawberries and Raspberries with Cool Whip

Skinny Pop Popcorn

Heart shaped sugar cookies from Mariano's

Foods containing peanuts or nut products are not allowed and will not be served.

Please do not plan on sending any additional treats or goodies for students to enjoy as part of the party celebration. Sometimes students send in candy to share in Valentine’s Day bags. This is allowed, but please do not send in any candy or treats with peanut ingredients. Anything sent to school should be store-bought and pre-packaged/wrapped. Students will be instructed not to eat these treats during or after the party but to bring them home.

Please encourage your child to make good choices during our celebration. I am aware of all students with severe food allergies through our nurse’s office; however, please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thank you!

Mrs. Theresa Fowler

5-2 Class List

Please be sure to include everyone on the list!

Brandon Attea

Emily Balla

Meric Farag

David Guza

Jordan Johnson

Blake Knauss

Avery Larson

Daniela Mancheva

Ethan Marunde

Vivian Mizuno

Grace Niemiec

Molly Nikolai

Alex Orzechowski

Veronica Rokicki

Kevin Szwedo

Olivia Tader

Lauren Thompson

Ronan Wilcox

Colton Yousif

5-2 Updates ~ 02/01

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

Another short week this week...so not too many updates!!  Hope you are all managing to stay warm and enjoy this winter weather.  I'm curious to hear what the groundhog has to say tomorrow....personally, I'm hoping we're nearly done with this crazy winter!!

Important Dates

10th Inning Sledding ~ Monday, February 3rd ~ We will be taking the kiddos sledding as a reward for their excellent behavior on Monday!!  Without a doubt, this was the favorite activity from last year, so we're excited to do it again with this year's 5th graders :)  We sent home a permission slip on Thursday for this activity which MUST be signed and returned by Monday if your child would like to participate.  They should bring in flat, plastic sleds only on Monday morning - we will have a place to story them during the day.  It would be a good idea to label your sleds with permanent marker to ensure your sled is returned.  They will also be outside for 60-90 minutes in the middle of the day, so please be sure your child is prepared for the weather.  If you have any questions about this activity, or your child is missing their permission slip, please email me to discuss details.

Everybody Counts ~ Tuesday, February 4th ~ Everybody Counts is an organization dedicated to the empowerment and independence of people with disabilities.  Volunteers take the time to come into classrooms to help the students understand life with a disability in a powerful and engaging way.  THANK YOU to all the parents who volunteer in bringing this valuable program to our school  Our presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, 2/4 at 1:15.

Water Reclamation Treatment Facility ~ Friday, February 7th ~ In line with our science curriculum on Watery Earth, we have a Community Education Specialist  from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago coming in on 2/7 at 9:00 to teach students about how water is cleaned and pumped to homes and business in the area, as well as how wastewater is treated and cleaned after it leaves our homes.  This is a free in-school field trip, so you won't need to send in anything!

Math

Students took their Unit 6 assessment on Friday - please look for them to come home on Monday for a sign and return.  Exponents and negative numbers are next up in Unit 7!

Science

We continue to discuss and read various texts on the water cycle in science this week.  We didn't get as far as I hoped this week, so I was not able to assign the Water Cycle project for this weekend.  We will begin it in class on Tuesday, then I will send it home to be completed for Thursday.   We will also begin our discussion of our community's water and wastewater systems in science this week.

Reading

Literacy packets and spelling are due on Monday, and we will be testing on Unit 3 Week 5 on Monday.  This wraps up Unit 3, so they will have a review packet this week, with the Unit Assessment on Friday.  We will also work on analyzing poetry this week, as we look at the imagery in The Echoing Green by William Blake, and compare it to the imagery in The Fog by Carl Sandburg.  This is a fun unit that involves some artwork and creativity on the part of the students, while at the same time has them diving deeper into the meaning of the text.

Writing

We didn't get very far in our writing unit this week, but we did spend a couple of days reading more of The Liberation of Gabriel King.  Students are really enjoying this book - several have read ahead to the end!  It's an excellent reflection on the struggle our country had during the Civil Rights Movement, at the same time looking at individual struggles with fear, all wrapped up in a beautiful story of friendship.  It's prompting some excellent discussion!

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, 
and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them” 

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Stay Warm!