5-2 Updates ~ 11/13/16

Hello 5-2 Families ~

What a beatiful fall weekend! I hope you found it to be peaceful with all the chaos of the past few weeks :)

Important Dates

Progress Reports ~ Progress Reports will go home Friday, 11/18.  Please remind your child they can ask me for a midterm grade at any time.  The grades they receive on their progress reports should never be a surprise!  If your child plans on re-taking or re-doing any assignment, please help them remember it needs to be completed by Friday, 11/11 - that is the day my grade book will close.

Fall Conferences ~ Monday, 11/21 & Tuesday, 11/22 ~ If you have not signed up yet, please do so ASAP.  If you need to schedule a different time, please shoot me an email and we'll find a time that works for both of us.  I look forward to having the opportunity to chat with each of you about your child's progress!


What's Going on in the Classroom?

Math
We will be wrapping up our unit on division the week, and taking the Unit 4 Assessment on Friday, 11/18.  Please help your child prepare by practing division with decimals on Khan Academy, and studying the Self-Assessment and the Unit 4 Review.

Science
We wrapped up our science unit on the Human Body the week with an experiment recording our heart rate after doing different activities and exercises, then they spent the latter part of the week preparing for the final test.  They will be taking the Final Human Body Assessment on Monday, November 14th - this test WILL be included on the 1st term progress reports.  It will take place after my official grade book is closed, but since it is still before they are printed, I will include the score in their progress report.  Your child should have studied the unit review to prepare for this assessment this weekend.

Reading
We continue to focus on non-fiction text in the second Schoolwide Unit, this week focusing on author's purpose when writing nonfiction.  This skill is a little more challenging to master, so we spent some additional time practicing before we moved on.  To help your child practice at home, have your child read a non-fiction article, then discuss the author's purpose for writing the article.

As I have mentioned in earlier blog entries - in the absence of reading assessments during our launch unit, your child's progress report reading grades this term come from a couple of sources.  Their grade will primarily come from an assessment of the skills learned during the first unit, including the reading behaviors, setting goals, using tools to support reading, and reading conversations.  These scores come from the Reading Notebook Rubric and the Conversation Checklist.

Bio Bottles - your child should have written a summary of the biography they read this weekend to be turned in tomorrow.  Their final Bio Bottle projects are due on Friday, November 18th.

Writing
Students turned in their personal narratives on Friday after scoring and giving peer feedback on their stories on Thursday.  Look for these rubrics to come home for a sign and return on Monday.  They will write a timed personal narrative on Tuesday as a final unit assessment.

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

  — Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist 

Cheers ~
Theresa Fowler