Happy 11th Birthday, Lucca!!

Happy 11th birthday, Roman!!

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

Hello 5-2 Parents ~

I hope you found some time to rest and relax with your families over Spring Break!  It was great to have a chance to connect with most of you at Parent-Teacher Conferences last week, but I sure do miss your kiddos!  Having been out of the building for the week prior to break has left me two weeks without seeing them - I'm looking forward to greeting all their smiling faces tomorrow morning :)

As many of you are aware, we welcomed a new student from France into our classroom the week before break - Ines Doulet.  The students excitedly prepared for her arrival, and have worked hard to make her feel comfortable and part of the community :) Please join Olive-us in welcoming the Doulet family to the nest!

For the next two weeks, Miss Charlotte Bono, a former 5-2 student, will return to the nest as a student teacher to observe our classroom!! She will be helping with instruction, and will have a chance to interact with all of your children.  She's excited to be back in her old classroom, and I'm excited for some of your children to see a former student of mine work hard to achieve her dreams of being a teacher.  I know some of your kiddos aspire to be an educator when they grow up - I hope they find Miss Bono to be inspiring!!

Important Dates

Illinois State Science Assessment ~ Wednesday, April 5th ~ 10:15am
Illinois assesses students in 5th grade and 8th grade on the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  This is one 60-minute assessment, and it will take place on the computer.  Please be sure your child has a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast before school. 

Advanced Placement Testing (ALA) ~ April 10th ~ 1:20pm

If you received an email notifying you that your child qualified to test for the Advanced Language Arts class for the 2017-2018 school year, your child will be testing at this time.

Advanced Placement Testing (Math) ~ April 13th ~ 1:20pm
If you received an email notifying you that your child qualified to test for the Advanced Math class for the 2017-2018 school year, your child will be testing at this time.  If your child is currently in Advanced Math, they will be automatically placed in Advanced Math for the 2017-2018 school year.

No School ~ Friday, April 14th

Middle School Visits ~ Wednesday, April 19th ~ 9:10am
All students in 5-2 will visit their respective middle schools (South or Thomas) at this time.  A permission slip was sent home for these field trips before Spring Break.  Please be sure these are returned to me when we return from break.  Thank you!

Book Fair/Earth Day Fair ~ Wednesday, April 19th ~ 6:30-8:00pm
Please join us in the commons for our annual book fair! 

Thomas Middle School Transition Night ~ Thursday, April 20th ~ 7pm
This event is for all families who will be attending Thomas Middle School for the 2017-2018 school year.  For more information on this event, please contact TMS.

Just Move It Challenge ~ SMS ~ Saturday, April 22nd
See the Twig to sign-up for the district 5k!

Math

When we return from break, my math class will be pre-testing for Unit 9.  We will cover plotting points on coordinate graphs, area of quadrangles and triangles, and volume of rectangular prisms.  Your child can review these concepts on Khan throughout the unit to strengthen their skills.  Our unit 9 assessment is currently scheduled for Monday, April 23rd.

Social Studies
We will begin our Westward Expansion Unit on Monday as they find a huge map of the United States taped to our floor.  Students will be able to move in and settle the land as groups, but they will quickly discover there isn't enough land for all of them.  As they become more crowded, they will have to decide how to problem solve.  This activity mirrors the idea of Manifest Destiny - the common belief that we as Americans had the right to move west and take over land from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. 

We will begin chapter 16 in History Alive on Monday as well - this chapter focuses on how we acquired the different portions of land that now make up the United States. The chapter 16 test will be Wednesday, April 12th.

Students have been anxiously awaiting Hacker's Trail - a Westward Expansion game that simulates an Oregon pioneer wagon train moving west in the mid-1800s.  Students will have to work cooperatively to make trail decisions, and deal with the many different fates a real wagon train would have had to deal with this journey - from cholera to native America attacks.  Students will get sick, injured, and even die along this exciting, but dangerous journey.  On Friday, they will be able to choose their identities, and will be given the task of loading their wagons with supplies in preparation for their journey.  We will be leaving for Independence, Missouri next Monday!!  While the actual journeys took months, this game will take about 3 weeks to play.  Who will make it alive?

They will be given a novel Bound for Oregon to help them prepare for Hacker's Trail Simulation on Monday - the expectation is that they read a chapter each night.  

Reading

We will continue our poetry unit when we return.  Even our reluctant poetry readers have been engaged in the study of our carefully selected poems for this unit.  They are age appropriate, but deal with more mature themes that your children are finding quite thought-provoking.  I've been impressed with the level of analysis and discussion your children are bringing to this unit, as they discuss the mood and meaning behind these poems.  For the remainder of the unit, we will be analyzing figurative language, learning how structure creates meaning in poetry, and uncovering the theme found in poems.  Currently, the Poetry Assessment is scheduled for Friday, April 21st.

Writing

Before we begin our next writing unit, we will spend time this week learning Words Their Way.  This is a new district-wide word study program that will replace our currently used spelling and vocabulary programs.  Word study is a program where words are sorted in routines that require children to examine, discriminate, and make critical judgments about speech sounds, spelling patterns, and meanings.  Word study is seen as a way to enhance a child's reading ability by teaching them phonics, spelling, patterns, sight words, decoding strategies, and word meanings.  Word studies provide two critical purposes:  general knowledge of English spelling, and specific knowledge about individual words.  Words Their Way is differentiated based on students' abilities, so work with different sets of words.  Their homework will still look the same - as assignments on Spelling City, but they will engage in different activities in the classroom and they will be on different schedules for assessing the words.

Once we are comfortable with the new routine for Words Their Way, we will begin our next writing unit - Short Fiction.

“Children must be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think.” 

     ~ Margaret Mead

Cheers ~

Theresa Fowler