January 5th-9th

Upcoming Events 

Friday, January 9th ~ End of 2nd Quarter

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

Thursday, February 5th ~ Noon dismissal Professional Development, Word Master Challenge

Wednesday, February 11th ~ Presidents' Celebration at 2:00

Friday, February 13th ~ Abe vs. Harry Presentation Union Station Station, Valentine's Day Party 2:30

The fifth graders had a great time visiting with Harry S. Truman this week. He told us all about his life leading up to his Presidency and then spoke about his time in office. The kids also asked some great questions. 

Academics

In language arts, we jumped right in to the Presidents' research project. I hope all parents have had a chance to read through the packet that was sent home this week. This week we collected sources, learned how to properly cite our sources, and began collecting and organizing information using note cards. The students are expected to have at least 15 note cards, but we want to encourage the kids to go above and beyond that amount. The more information they have the easier it will be to write their papers. We will work on notes cards at school for the next few days. They will need to be completed by next Wednesday. Next week we will work on organizing the information they have gathered and create an outline. By the end of the week we hope to starting to develop thesis statements and begin drafting. 

We also started the second round of Word Masters. This means we will take a break from Wordly Wise as we prepare for this challenge. We will take the challenge on Word Master challenge on February 5th. 

In Reading, Miss Laird's class continued reading Watson's Go to Birmingham. We focused this week on identifying important events and point-of-view. Their point-of-view work also required them to look at character traits in order to accurately portray the story from the point-of-view of another character. Mrs. Nash’s class finished Small Steps and took a test over the book. Next week, we will begin a literature circles unit in which students will choose one of five novel options to read. For the upcoming unit, we will focus on using our comprehension strategies to prepare for daily groups discussions over the books. Students will select books on Monday. 

In social studies, we spent time working on the research portion of our Presidents unit. We also started the “History Question of the Week,” which is an optional activity for students for the second part of the school year. At the beginning of each week, a history trivia question will be posted in the classroom. Students can choose to go find the answer to the question and submit it sometime throughout the week. On Fridays, we will do a drawing to select a winner from each class. Participation in this activity is completely optional, but many students were enthusiastic about participating!

    

In Science, we are transitioning from our plant unit directly into the human body. We started this week by looking at plant and animal cells. We then moved into how cells, tissues, and organs work together. Next week we will begin looking at the human body systems. We will also start third quarter current events.