December 8th - December 12th

Upcoming Events 

Monday, December 15th ~ Plant Quiz in Science, Colonial Trade Fair in Social Studies

Thursday, December 18th ~ Presidents Lock- In*

Friday, December 19th ~ 3rd-5th Grade Ice Skating; Christmas Parties 2:30-3:20

Friday, December 19th- January 5th ~ Winter Break

Tuesday, January 6th ~ Classes Resume, Harry S. Truman presentation at 2:30

Friday, January 9th ~ End of 2nd Quarter

Monday, January 19th ~ No School, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

*Presidents lock-in- This is an all day event the fifth graders participate in as preparation for our thematic presidents unit that will begin right after winter break. Students will participate in a number of activities that will help get the students ready and excited to take on this project. 

We had a great time going to see A Christmas Carol at the KC Rep. Students represented St. Paul's well out in our community!

Academics

In language arts, we finished our business letters. We will look forward to seeing if some students get a response. We also took a pre-test for our next grammar unit over verbs, which we will begin next week. Students completed Wordly Wise #11 and took the spelling test on Friday. They may begin Wordly Wise #12, which is due Thursday, December 18th. Though we will have a very exciting day next Friday, we will still have a spelling test so students should be prepared.

In reading, Mrs. Nash’s class continued in a nonfiction narrative by Peg Kehret called Small Steps. At this time, we have read through Chapter 12 of the book. During this unit we are primarily focusing on the comprehension skills of summarizing and asking questions. Miss Laird’s class continued reading in Watson’s go to Birmingham. This week the students worked in small groups rotating through stations that focused on visualization, vocabulary, discussion and fluency. We are on chapter 9. Students in both classes also completed their Second Quarter book reports and we began presenting projects in class.

In social studies, students completed their Unit 3 projects. Each individual or group worked to promote a particular colonial region through a brochure, a PowerPoint presentation, or a commercial. We will share these projects in class on Monday and Tuesday of next week, and we will also begin the first parts of our unit about the American Revolution.  

In science, we continued our unit on plants. This week we discussed stems, roots, and flowers. The students have been working to identify the parts of a flower and their function. We will take a small quiz over these parts on Monday and we will actually dissect a flower on Tuesday. We will also wrap up our investigation of root growth today as we discuss tropism.