Holiday Party 2010

The students enjoyed their holiday party, even with the early out the day before and the late start that morning. Snow can't stop our excitement! We enjoyed karaoke, food, and fun together. Hope everyone is now enjoying their winter break!! See you in 2011!!!

Ornaments!

The lunch supervisors made winter ornaments for everyone! We were really excited for the thoughtful gifts.

Thank you--Joni, Ruth, Renee, and Barb!!

Unit 4 Test

I returned the unit 4 test to my math students today. I encourage you and your student to go over the test together. I told the students that we'll continue to work on division since it is a gold standard that they'll need to master this year. The steps that we follow are: divide, multiply, subtract, check, bring down, and then start over again. (The acronym they know is "Does McDonalds sell cheese burgers.") Ask your student why we use this acronym . . . then watch them go through the steps. It does work quite well! Thanks for your help in your student's learning.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to take this time to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! The students have been working very hard this year and I hope they are able to relax and enjoy this time with their family. Be safe if you travel. See you, students, again Monday!

Unit 3 Math Test

We are finishing up another chapter in our math curriculum. For the past few weeks, you've noticed that your student has been working on geometry lessons. Our Unit 3 Test will cover many different skills. My math students will be given a study guide to work through in class and at home on Tuesday (11/9). Some of the skills that will need to be mastered for the test include: measuring angles with or without a protractor, identifying triangles, polygons, and adjacent angles, and using a graph or table to find specific data. I appreciate any help with these skills that you can offer at home and encourage students to come to school with questions if they had difficulty working through the problems at home. 

Our School Rocks--Drug Free

October 23-31st was National Red Ribbon Week. It is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in the United States. The students received gift bags from Freeborn County Partners in Prevention with different items promoting this campaign. In the past month, during our health class we've talked about making healthy choices and being tobacco free. We've discussed healthy ways to reduce our stress and be good friends. In the pictures above students are wearing the "I Rock--Drug Free" paper glasses they received in their gift bags.

Fall Party 2010

We had a great time!

There were some great costumes displayed in our parade around the school.

We played a Halloween bingo game.

We had a yummy snack.

It's fun to take a break from our busy school day to celebrate Halloween!

Math Unit 2

These past few weeks the students have been hard at work learning about estimation and computation in math class. This unit is a review for most students, but also covers quite a few of our districts gold standards. At this point, students should be able to add, subtract, and multiply multi-digit whole numbers and decimals. Please contact me if you feel your child is struggling with this expectation at home. I do a variety of groupings during class and notice that most of the students are able to meet this expectation in the classroom. We will be having an end of the unit test early next week. This test will also cover estimation, chance events, and converting lengths using a map scale.

We have also been continuing with our basic facts tests. In fifth grade, students need to answer 50 problems in 2 1/2 minutes. We require students to pass two addition, two subtraction, two multiplication, and two division facts tests before the end of the school year. I emphasized in class today that the quicker the students master their facts the easier the daily math work and assignments will be. Please help your student with his/her basic facts by quizzing him/her in the car, at the kitchen table with flashcards, or by using a game found on the Internet.

Thank you! Have a great week!!

Fall Picnic

The fall picnic is tonight at 5:30. I hope to see you there!

Welcome!

Wow . . . I cannot believe that it is almost the end of September already! So much as taken place in the first few weeks of school. The students are doing an amazing job getting to know each other again and learning to work cooperatively with each other. I am so proud of how they come together during our morning meeting everyday to greet, play, share, listen and learn more about each other. This part of our morning follows the philosophy of Responsive Classroom, which promotes community building within the classroom and school.

We've been hard at work with our Everyday Math curriculum. Students have been studying Number Theories and discussing factors, divisibility rules, prime vs. composite numbers, prime factorization, square numbers and square roots. In each of my lessons, I try to teach problem solving and promote good thinking.

Reading class has been full of reading new stories, learning new spelling words, using proper sentence structure, finding new ways to expand our vocabulary, and informative discussions about what we have been reading. We will be using many strategies this year to improve our reading comprehension, such as visualization, questioning, prediction, main idea, inferring, and summarizing. It is very helpful for you to ask your student about their reading. As they finish their independent reading each night or in the car on the way to an activity try to take the time to ask them questions about the book they are reading. Some questions to use are: Who are the characters in your book? What problems are the characters facing? What are some of the solutions to the characters problems? Is there a lesson the author is trying to teach you? When students are given the opportunity to talk about what they are reading greater comprehension takes place!


I feel fortunate to be your child's teacher. I appreciate your support and concern for your child's learning. I notice each morning when you have signed your child's planner. Please feel free to leave any notes for me with any concerns or questions. I also ask you to subscribe to this blog or add it to your "favorites" list. My hope is to update this often to keep you informed of what is happening in your child's classroom.