August 31st, 2018
Good Afternoon parents/guardians!
Let me start off by saying it has been a GREAT and successful first week of 5th grade! I have been so impressed with the scholars' behavior and participation. I can already tell it's going to be a wonderful year full of learning, growth, and fun memories.
Today your child will be bringing home some information from the school. Normally this information would be sent home in the red Friday Folder, but unfortunately, these have not arrived at the school yet. If your scholar has an agenda, the papers were placed inside the agenda. If your scholar does not have an agenda yet, they were placed inside an envelope to bring home. Next week I will begin checking agendas daily. Please make sure to check your scholar's agenda every night and initial/sign it. It is a great tool for communication and will let you know if your scholar received any warnings for the day or if they had to leave the classroom for reflection. I have attached a copy of the letter that was in the brown envelope that goes over RCE School Rules and other classroom expectations.
If you have not already, please visit the link below to fill out a short survey about your scholar! This information will only be used by Ms. McBride and me to help us lead your scholar through a successful school year. Also, thank you to those who have done so already!
https://goo.gl/forms/JVNG6JBIxuaTqsRF3
Important Dates:
September 3rd: Labor Day - NO SCHOOL
September 12th: Early Release at 12pm
September 17th: Raccoon Race Fundraiser Begins
September 19th: Teacher Workday - NO SCHOOL
September 20th: Curriculum Night 6:30-7:30pm
September 28th: Progress Reports
Here is a recap of what we participated in for the first week of school, as well as what we will be starting to learn next week!
Math:
This week we participated in “A Week of Inspirational Math”. The theme of the lessons was Growth Mindset. It is important for scholars to understand that you do not have to be born a math person or be a fast problem solver in order to succeed in math. We watched videos, completed activities, and worked on challenges that proved that we all solve problems differently and that there are multiple ways to arrive to a solution. We also took the Math beginning of year assessment. This is not a grade that will count against your scholar, but will serve as more of a starting point to help us measure growth as the year progresses.
Next week we will start our unit on Graphing on a Coordinate plane. Students will learn about the x and y-axis’, how to read a coordinate plane and understand that it is used to determine the location of a point. We will reinforce these skills through stations and homework.
Science:
This week we practiced what Science class is going to look like for the year. We practiced Science stations and used the scientific process to make predictions, conduct experiments, write down data and form a conclusion.
Next week we will begin learning about the Water Cycle. We will be using Gizmos, Discovery Education, stations, interactive handouts and more to become experts on the Water Cycle. We are planning to have an assessment on Friday.
Reading:
We have done a lot of work setting up our Reader’s Workshop; learning how to read “with agency”, putting the work into becoming a better reader, choosing “just right” books to give our brains just the right amount of challenge to grow, and how to log the books we read to look for reading patterns. Scholars also took a Beginning of Grade Reading assessment to demonstrate their Reading Comprehension and understanding of fifth grade passages. This will allow me to begin to tailor my instruction to the specific needs of each class and scholar. Our read aloud book, Ungifted by Gordon Korman, has prompted some great conversations among the scholars.
Next week, I will open up the classroom library for scholars to choose chapter books to read during Independent Reading. Scholars will be using sticky notes and readers’ notebooks to stop and jot as they read so they may use their thinking to make inferences, compare and contrast characters, and keep track of their thoughts and reactions to the story as it develops. We will use the class chapter book, Ungifted, to model and practice the strategies and skills scholars will be expected to use when reading the chapter books they chose during Reader’s Workshop.
Writing:
During Writer’s Workshop this week,we gathered seed ideas in our Writer’s Notebooks. Seed ideas get planted into our brains so that stories may grow. We identified important people and places that will provide us with stories to tell. We also discussed the difference between a “watermelon story”, which summarizes a topic or longer amount of time (e.g. My Best Friend, or Fun Times with My Dog), and a “seed story”, which zooms in on a specific topic and provides more details (e.g. The First Time I met my Best Friend or The Time my Dog and I Played Together in the Snow).
During Writer’s Workshop, we will use our seeds ideas to begin drafting (growing) stories in our Notebooks. Our focus this week will be on telling the small moments (seed stories), rather than summarizing (watermelon stories). Scholars will self-reflect on their writing, work on their writing stamina, and use published authors as mentors to provide ideas for improving their own stories.
Social Studies:
We have stayed on top of current events by watching, writing about, and discussing the stories covered on CNN10. Ask your scholar what they remember about the Texas Horned Lizard, the flooding that occured in Hawaii, John McCain, or the surf school (MIX Academy) in California. We also discussed the school and classroom rules, learning what it takes to be a good scholar and citizen at Reedy Creek Elementary School.
Scholars will be introduced to Studies Weekly, and online “newspaper” which can be accessed through Clever. We will read articles and have discussions related to the fifth grade curriculum. Scholars will then answer questions related to the articles and the score will be used as a Social Studies grade. This week’s topic is Geography, we will identify types of maps and map features, explore cartography (the art and science of map making), and identify the places on the world map.
Let me start off by saying it has been a GREAT and successful first week of 5th grade! I have been so impressed with the scholars' behavior and participation. I can already tell it's going to be a wonderful year full of learning, growth, and fun memories.
Today your child will be bringing home some information from the school. Normally this information would be sent home in the red Friday Folder, but unfortunately, these have not arrived at the school yet. If your scholar has an agenda, the papers were placed inside the agenda. If your scholar does not have an agenda yet, they were placed inside an envelope to bring home. Next week I will begin checking agendas daily. Please make sure to check your scholar's agenda every night and initial/sign it. It is a great tool for communication and will let you know if your scholar received any warnings for the day or if they had to leave the classroom for reflection. I have attached a copy of the letter that was in the brown envelope that goes over RCE School Rules and other classroom expectations.
If you have not already, please visit the link below to fill out a short survey about your scholar! This information will only be used by Ms. McBride and me to help us lead your scholar through a successful school year. Also, thank you to those who have done so already!
https://goo.gl/forms/JVNG6JBIxuaTqsRF3
Important Dates:
September 3rd: Labor Day - NO SCHOOL
September 12th: Early Release at 12pm
September 17th: Raccoon Race Fundraiser Begins
September 19th: Teacher Workday - NO SCHOOL
September 20th: Curriculum Night 6:30-7:30pm
September 28th: Progress Reports
Here is a recap of what we participated in for the first week of school, as well as what we will be starting to learn next week!
Math:
This week we participated in “A Week of Inspirational Math”. The theme of the lessons was Growth Mindset. It is important for scholars to understand that you do not have to be born a math person or be a fast problem solver in order to succeed in math. We watched videos, completed activities, and worked on challenges that proved that we all solve problems differently and that there are multiple ways to arrive to a solution. We also took the Math beginning of year assessment. This is not a grade that will count against your scholar, but will serve as more of a starting point to help us measure growth as the year progresses.
Next week we will start our unit on Graphing on a Coordinate plane. Students will learn about the x and y-axis’, how to read a coordinate plane and understand that it is used to determine the location of a point. We will reinforce these skills through stations and homework.
Science:
This week we practiced what Science class is going to look like for the year. We practiced Science stations and used the scientific process to make predictions, conduct experiments, write down data and form a conclusion.
Next week we will begin learning about the Water Cycle. We will be using Gizmos, Discovery Education, stations, interactive handouts and more to become experts on the Water Cycle. We are planning to have an assessment on Friday.
Reading:
We have done a lot of work setting up our Reader’s Workshop; learning how to read “with agency”, putting the work into becoming a better reader, choosing “just right” books to give our brains just the right amount of challenge to grow, and how to log the books we read to look for reading patterns. Scholars also took a Beginning of Grade Reading assessment to demonstrate their Reading Comprehension and understanding of fifth grade passages. This will allow me to begin to tailor my instruction to the specific needs of each class and scholar. Our read aloud book, Ungifted by Gordon Korman, has prompted some great conversations among the scholars.
Next week, I will open up the classroom library for scholars to choose chapter books to read during Independent Reading. Scholars will be using sticky notes and readers’ notebooks to stop and jot as they read so they may use their thinking to make inferences, compare and contrast characters, and keep track of their thoughts and reactions to the story as it develops. We will use the class chapter book, Ungifted, to model and practice the strategies and skills scholars will be expected to use when reading the chapter books they chose during Reader’s Workshop.
Writing:
During Writer’s Workshop this week,we gathered seed ideas in our Writer’s Notebooks. Seed ideas get planted into our brains so that stories may grow. We identified important people and places that will provide us with stories to tell. We also discussed the difference between a “watermelon story”, which summarizes a topic or longer amount of time (e.g. My Best Friend, or Fun Times with My Dog), and a “seed story”, which zooms in on a specific topic and provides more details (e.g. The First Time I met my Best Friend or The Time my Dog and I Played Together in the Snow).
During Writer’s Workshop, we will use our seeds ideas to begin drafting (growing) stories in our Notebooks. Our focus this week will be on telling the small moments (seed stories), rather than summarizing (watermelon stories). Scholars will self-reflect on their writing, work on their writing stamina, and use published authors as mentors to provide ideas for improving their own stories.
Social Studies:
We have stayed on top of current events by watching, writing about, and discussing the stories covered on CNN10. Ask your scholar what they remember about the Texas Horned Lizard, the flooding that occured in Hawaii, John McCain, or the surf school (MIX Academy) in California. We also discussed the school and classroom rules, learning what it takes to be a good scholar and citizen at Reedy Creek Elementary School.
Scholars will be introduced to Studies Weekly, and online “newspaper” which can be accessed through Clever. We will read articles and have discussions related to the fifth grade curriculum. Scholars will then answer questions related to the articles and the score will be used as a Social Studies grade. This week’s topic is Geography, we will identify types of maps and map features, explore cartography (the art and science of map making), and identify the places on the world map.