Happy Friday!
It’s hard to believe that we’ve been back in school for several weeks! Please read below to find out about all of the wonderful learning that is going on in 5th grade at Ivy Hall!
Today your child (if he/she attended Ivy Hall last year) should have brought home an envelope with his/her PARCC scores from fourth grade. Also, girls brought home a note about the 5th grade group for girls which will be starting next week. All 5th grade girls will be participating. The groups for boys will start in the winter.
Literacy
*Today we finished up our first shared reading book of the year—Night of the Spadefoot Toads by Bill Harley. As a culminating activity, we had a discussion board on schoolboy where students told what they liked about the book and responded to comments made by their peers. We’ve used this text as a springboard for many reading and writing learning targets thus far. This book has also connected nicely to our study of ecosystems in science. Be sure to ask your student about what he/she has learned about vernal pools and spade foot toads!
Reading Logs
*As you know, students began using home reading logs for the month of September. Each night after reading, your child should simply fill in the number of minutes read next to the corresponding date. Each Monday, we have a reading log check-in, where students are expected to have their weekly minutes updated and signed by a parent. I will not be giving weekly assignments to go along with the reading, as I feel this may hamper/detract from the pleasure that students derive from their independent reading. There will be, however, a book project due at the end of the month. Students will be creating a slide presentation on a book they have read throughout the month. They have been shared on a template and I have explained the procedure to them. This project is due on Monday, October 2. We will be sharing these projects in class with each other. My hope is that students will get some great ideas from their peers about good books to read!
Writing
*Students are in the process of finishing their first narrative stories of the year! After utilizing graphic organizers to plan, students developed their stories through the use of a detailed sequence of events and effective character development. Encouraging students to infuse dialogue into their writing was also an emphasis. We will be writing yet another narrative in order to apply what we’ve learned and produce an even higher quality sample.
Math
* Our students are continuing their work with writing and evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses as well as demonstrating their understanding of how find the volume of rectangular prisms. We also began our “Number Corner” routine which takes place each day for about 20 minutes outside of our regular math block. Here, students practice skills in such areas as computational fluency and problem solving (in addition to several others) on a daily basis.
Social Studies
* We plan on starting geography in the coming days. We will start with locating states and countries based on relative location. We began our current events presentations this week. All presenters did a great job! We took our first current events quiz today!
Science
* We are continuing our focus on understanding the characteristics of various ecosystems around the world. Our first science investigation involved “traveling” to virtual ecosystems and studying the interactions between living and nonliving organisms.
Upcoming Events
Sept. 12- PTO Special Lunch
Sept. 15- Ivy Hall Fun Run
Sept. 21 & 22-No School/District Holiday
Friendly Reminders
** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack. Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!
** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.
Have a great weekend!
Julie Holzhauer
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