SAndrews

Wednesday–We will finish the work from Monday and do a lesson on Interpreting the remainder. Lesson 9.5. This is a lesson to help students see how remainders have an effect on their understnading of a story problem.

MATH

We are working on long division!! UGH!!  We do many examples in class. Practice at home would also  be helpful.

WORD STUDY

Students received notes on five new vocabulary words from the Latin/Greek roots “geo- and terr-” meaning earth.

geometry

geode

terrain

Mediterranean

terrace

I hope your family enjoyed the Christmas and New Year Holidays!  I had a wonderful break and enjoyed a very relaxing time with family. It is hard to believe that the year is half over (second quarter/semester grades will come out this week) and we are beginning third semester! 

MATH

We will take a little time the first part of the week to review/reteach multiplication of decimals (lessons 8.5 and 8.6) I will also introduce an alternative method of doing multiplication called “Lattice Math.” You can find an explanation in the Math book on page 183. Some students find this a helpful way to organize their work. We will then begin our work on long division–UGH!!  Keep practicing those multiplication facts. It is VERY difficult to do well with division if students do not have mastery of their multiplication facts.

Word Study

Again this week, we will focus on a basic word list and take a “bubble test” at the end of the week to give students practice with this type of test that is often used in MAP testing. Students will receive the word list on Monday and will have all week to work on the words. We will be creating a game using our handhelds to study the words in class as well.

MATH

We are finishing up our multiplication unit and will be testing over chapters 7-8 on Thursday. The semester ends on Friday.

WORD STUDY

We will have our next Word Origin test on Wednesday. It will cover words from the Latin/Greek roots “mal-”, “gen-”, or “ped-, pod-”.

FRIDAY morning we will be leaving early for our field trip. That afternoon the fifth grade semester assembly is at 1:20 followed by i-stores. Our homeroom will also have our auction that afternoon. With the very tight and busy schedule for the day, we are not scheduling a specific party time. Parents are sending in treats for us to enjoy some time in the afternoon (this gives a little more flexiblity) rather than coming in to set up the party at a specific time. We will schedule a specific party time in February so parents who wish to come may do so.

I hope your family has a Very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

MATH

This week we are continuing our unit on multiplication. As we work on one- and two-digit multiplication, students will be correcting their mistakes so they begin to learn where they are having the most difficulty. We will also be learning to multiply decimals (Chapter 8). Our Multiplication test will be next week. A good way to practice would be to write 3-4 problems (3-digit times 2-digit) and have students practice a few problems each night, correcting any errors they make.

Word Study

Students took notes on five high frequency words and will be doing dictation and a review to practice their skills with these common words. We are also learning words containing the Latin roots “mal” which means “bad” and “gen” which means birth. Students will have 10 new Vocab words this week. They will get five more words next week and then be tested over the 15 words before Christmas vacation.

i-TIME

We have been reading a book called “Robots” and practicing comprehension strategies as well as working on visualizing. We are about to finish our read-aloud book “The City of Ember.” As we have been reading, students have been asked to sketch what they are visualizing and make text-to-self connections. They are getting really good at these comprehension skills! We also tried a pre-reading strategy called “Probable Passge” where students are given a list of words or phrases from an article they will be reading and are asked to use these as clues about the reading. Students try to think about what they believe will be in the article from the clues. After reading, they are then asked to summarize. These activities, that help students to focus on understanding, are very helpful in improving their comprehension.

Amahl and the Night Visitors

We will be going to Hammons Hall on Dec. 19 to see this play. Students should have their permission note signed and returned before that day.

Christmas Party

Plans are under way for the Christmas Party. Parents are being contacted to send in a bag of chips or carton of dip. We are not scheduling a specific time for parents to come to school that day, due to the fact that we have a lot of things already scheduled. I suggested to our homeroom mom that if parents would send the above items, I could be more flexible with the schedule for the day and not be stuck to a particular party time. We will plan a specific time for the Feb. party so that parents can come, if they want.

Students in the 5th grade will be attending SIFE city on Monday morning at the Discovery Center in Springfield where they will experience various jobs within the SIFE community.

There is no school on Wednesday-Friday this week, due to Thanksgiving. Enjoy a wonderful holiday with your friends and family. When we return, we will tackle MULTIPLICATION!!!!!

 Our class collected over 100 cans of vegetables for the Thanksgiving Food Drive!!  The collection continues this week.

Cookie Dough Sales information for the PTO fundraiser went home with students on Friday, the 14th. Please return money and orders by November 24th.

In Math this week we are finishing up our unit on graphing (Chapters 5-6) with a special project and then students will take their graphing test on Friday. As the year progresses, the Math tests become a little more challanging. Students must work carefully! A low test grade, can really pull their grade average down for the quarter. The test grades will not be a part of the mid-quarter grade, but will be included in the 2nd quarter final grade.

In Word Study we will continue to work on high frequency words this week. Most students are making progress in recognizing the need to keep notes and use their class dictionary to proofread work!

i-TIME

Visualizing as you read is an important comprehension skill. As your child works to improve comprehension, encourage him/her to tell you about what they visualized as they were reading. As they improve in this skill, their comprehension improves!

Tuesday:  Veteran’s Day Assembly at 9:30

All Week: Collecting canned vegetables for the Thanksgiving Food Drive

We began DARE this week. Students need to have parents sign their DARE letter.

Next two Fridays:  SIFE

November24-Field Trip to SIFE City (must have signed permission note)

November15-Willard Christmas Parade

Bring an empty CD case for a Math project next week

Math Test (chapters 5-6 “Graphing”) next Friday, November 21

Monday: Math–Lesson on Text Structures (no assigment)

              Word Study–Take notes on core Words #111-115

Tuesday–Reteaching and review of scale and interval

                Word Study–Dictation

Wednesday–Lesson 6.3 Making and interpreting line graphs (assign: pg. 124 #8,9,10, & 11)

               Word Study–Vocab Test

Thursday–Problem Solving Strategy Lesson 6.4 (Assign 6.3 and 6.4 and finish page 124)

                Word Study –Review 83 (supply the missing words in the cloze passage)

Friday–Lesson 6.5 Creating Histograms

              Word Study –Create a Hungman file for handheld vocab practice

MATH

Monday–Analyze Graphs Lesson 5.5

Tuesday–Practice Page 110 (Set A,B,C,D)

Wednesday–Lesson 6.1 (Page 115 #1-22)

Thursday–Graphing Ordered Pairs Lesson 6.2  (Page 121 #6-17, 18-32)

Friday–Practice Worksheet for Lesson 6.2

Word Study

Monday–”manu” words (manufacture, manual, mandate, manipulate, manuscript

Tuesday–Dicatation (covering core words 400-410 and reviewing words 1-400)

Wednesday–Mission to mars/What on Earth (worksheet to review miss- and mitt- Word Origin words.

Thursday–Hand Done (worksheet to review “manu” words)

Friday–Hand in Hand (reviewing “manu” words)

Math Plans Changed due to the fall party and conferences this week.  We will continue working on our graphing from Chapter 5 and 6 next week.

Students worked on solving real-life problems involving plans for a Fall Party. After they finished work, they got into groups and each group planned a fall party choosing food, decorations, treats, and paper goods. It was a fun exercise in making choices with money to buy the things that might be needed.