Hello 5-2 Families ~
I hope you had a chance to relax and enjoy some family time weekend....watching the Cubs win the League Championship in one amazing shut out game! How awesome is it that your children get to see something that over 70 years of Chicagoland kids have not been able to see?! The Cubs in the World Series!! Woo-hoo! To celebrate their win, and to cheer them on in the World Series this week, staff will be wearing Cubs gear the entire week! We hope to see your kiddos showing their enthusiasm by wearing Cubs colors all week long as well :)
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 to show you around the classroom!
Halloween Party ~ Monday, October 31st at 1:10pm - The kiddos are getting excited for our Halloween celebration on Friday! Our Annual Halloween Parade begins at 1:30pm, with the party immediately following. We look forward to seeing you all along the route! Please refer to the Olive Blog for more information on rain plans, as well as Halloween costume expectations.
Math
My math class began to work on geometric concepts in unit 3 this week. They were introduced to a new online resource this week - LearnZillion. They should be working on Classifying and Comparing Quadrangles at home for extra review on polygons. They will also be working on Khan Academy this unit ~ Properties of Shapes. There is a great deal of vocabulary with this unit - encourage your child to review these resources often to master these new words!
Science
Your children were able to show off their limb models on Thursday night, hopefully demonstrating to you how muscles work in pairs to pull on bones to make them move. Their models should have not only included muscles and bones, but tendons, which hold the muscles to the bones, and ligaments, which hold the bones together. Next week we move on to the nervous system with some engaging experiments that text our reaction time and reflexes. They will review for the mid-unit assessment at the end of this week, and take their test on Monday, October 31st.
Reading
We wrapped up our Launching Unit in Reading this week with students doing reflections on themselves as readers. I continue to meet with the students individually to discuss their reading goals and to have them evaluate their reading notebook using a rubric. This will be one of the assessment grades for our Launching Unit, and the other will come from their Conversation Checklist. Please remember that the objective of this unit was to establish routines and procedures of a Reading Workshop, and the assessment reflects their effort in the two primary routines - their Reading Notebook and Reading Conversations.
Students took a Nonfiction Unit Pre-test on Friday, and I will use the information to determine the instruction that best suits your child. The information helps me to determine which concepts your children have already mastered, and which areas they need the greatest instruction. I will also use the information to determine which students will receive enrichment during this unit. We begin our Nonfiction Unit on Monday, and will focus on comprehension strategies when reading informational text. The grades in this unit will reflect their comprehension of nonfiction text.
Target Time
We also began rotating for Target Time this week. Target Time is a 30 minute block in our afternoon where we have the opportunity to focus on each student's greatest need, and provide additional instruction. It may be re-teaching or enrichment depending on their needs, but all students will enjoy rich instruction, as well as have the opportunity to experience different classrooms and instructors.
Writing
We returned to our WEX unit this week with a lesson on showing versus telling in our writing. We had one of our talented students debut her acting abilities in the room as she told us she was happy, then acted out the emotion of happy. What a difference! While we all enjoyed quite an entertaining performance, students learned the valuable difference in writing that tells our readers about emotions versus writing that shows readers emotion. This week, we will focus on showing characters and setting, as well as adding strong verbs to our writing.
As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Have a fantastic week ~
An educational system isn’t worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn’t teach them how to make a life.
~ Author Unknown
Cheers ~
Theresa Fowler
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