April 7th-11th

Upcoming Events-

Friday, April 11th ~ Science Enrichment Celebration from 3:30-4:30

Saturday, April 12th ~ St Paul's Auction 

Monday, April 14th - Thursday, April 17th ~ ERB Testing

Tuesday, April 15th ~ Growth and Development Talk at 12:45 (see note at end of post)

Friday, April 18th ~ Good Friday, No School

Monday, April 21st ~ WordMasters Challenge 3

Tuesday, April 22nd ~ Exchange City Field Trip from 9:00-3:00, Mid-Quarter

Wednesday, April 30th ~ Art Fair from 3:30-7:30

Friday, May 2 ~ Pillars of SPEDS Luncheon, Bring lunches from home**

**On May 2, we will be eating lunch in our classrooms due to the Pillars of SPEDS event held in the cafeteria. This means that every student will need to bring a lunch from home. There will be no lunch available through the school on this day.

Jon Willis came to speak to the entire 5th grade about the Federal Reserve and its impact on our economy. Each student received a "bag of cash" at the end.

Academics

In language arts, both classes finished the adjective creative writing project.We spent the week working together to revise/edit our drafts. We also continued learning our new words for the third Word Masters challenge. 

 In reading,  Miss Laird's class is on chapter 42 of Holes. We are continuing to make personal connections with daily writing prompts. We are also analyzing character development throughout the book.In Mrs. Nash’s reading class, students finished their Literature Circle books and started an in-class group project as a culmination to the unit. They will present these projects next week and we will prepare for our final reading unit of the year, which is a Book Contract. More details about this upcoming unit will be available next week.

This week in social studies, students reviewed for and took a quiz over the Constitution of the United States. We also began an in-class project. For this project, students can choose to work in groups or individually to focus on learning about a major event in American history from the late 1700s to around 1850. Some topics include the Louisiana Purchase, the War with Mexico, and the Industrial Revolution.

In science we started our unit on Health and Wellness. We are first looking at nutrition and the importance of good eating habits. We will spend next week looking at the importance of sleep and exercise. As mentioned last week, we will also have the puberty and development discussion next Tuesday, April 15th.*

*Near the end of the school year fifth graders participate in a personal hygiene and puberty discussion. Personal hygiene and puberty are both topics that are addressed in the fifth grade science curriculum here at St. Paul’s. Beginning next week we will have a short unit on health and wellness.  During this time we review healthy habits and focus on the topics of eating nutritiously and the importance of sleep.  We will wrap-up this unit with one lesson on growth and development for adolescents.  Because all students are in different places both physically and with their knowledge of puberty, this lesson is merely an introduction to changes they can expect during this time.  Mr. Nerstheimer will be meeting with the fifth grade boys and the girls will meet with Mrs. Nash, Miss Laird, and Mrs. Kuhls (our school nurse).  During this session, students will take a short personal hygiene quiz, watch a movie about personal hygiene and changes during puberty, and will have a question and answer session.  We will be meeting on Tuesday, April 15th.   If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

A Note About Standardized Testing 

Students in third through seventh grade will take standardized tests Monday, April 14th through Thursday, April 17th. We ask parents to help students get a good night's rest, a hearty and healthy breakfast, and to arrive at school on time each morning since testing will begin right after chapel. Students will take two subtests each morning with a short break in between. Students are encouraged to bring a healthy snack to eat in between subtests. This year students will be taking the CTP4 test. This standardized test was developed by ERB and was created for private schools. After realizing that the Standford Achievement Tests which we have used in years past had dated private school norms and no intention of updating them it was decided that we change tests. In addition to being a more challenging test, the CTP4 will also be timed and will offer two new subtests, Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning, that students have not taken before. Students will be taking a practice test the week of April 7th so they will have some familiarity with the process and format.