5th Grade News
September 2016
5th Grade at Claxton Elementary
We appreciate your patience as we complete the first 2 weeks of school and get settled into a routine. This week our students began a reading and math diagnostic test through a new and wonderful program called iReady. iReady is replacing MAP (NWEA) for Asheville City Schools and provides online tutorials that students complete at school but can also do online at home. This is another tool to better meet the needs of every individual student.
-The 5th Grade Teacher Team
Back to School Dance
Help out at the back to school dance on Thursday from 3:30- 4:30
Homework for 5th grade
Homework: With 4 different subjects (and teachers), we all wanted discuss homework before we sent home assignments. Here is what to expect for the remainder of the year, in terms of homework for each subject.
Math homework- Math homework will most usually consist of solving various word problems. Students should expect 1-3 problems over the course of a week. We use these problems as a jumping off point for lessons; whereas students discuss how they made sense of the problem and strategies used for solving them. A larger focused is placed making sense of the problem and showing your work. Students should expect at least one of the homework problems to be collected and graded each week.
Social Studies/Writing - We do all work in our class. Your daughter/son would have work outside of class if 1) She/he was not focusing on the task(s) 2) Wanted to put more detail into the work or needed additional time 3) She/he needed to do a little research for a long term project. In general, students will not have homework in the traditional sense.
Science homework-The 5th grade Science curriculum has complex concepts with many new and advanced vocabulary terms. Studying is an essential skill that students need to be successful in their education and in science students will be required daily to "take 5 to synthesis" (summarize their learning for the day). Each student should study their notes and vocabulary atleast 3 nights a week and will be required to do one assignment from a choice board once a week.
Reading Homework - As soon as the i-Ready data is analyzed, each student will be taking home a "choice board" of assignments, with the expectation that one should be completed each night M-R. The packet as a whole will be due each Friday.
Date to Remember
Early Release @ 12:00: September 16th
Teacher Work Day (No School for Students): September 19th
Open House and Ice Cream Social: September 20th from 5:00-7:00
Back to School Dance: September 22nd from 3:30-4:30
After School Arts Begins: Week of the 26th
Science Test: September 28th
Midterms: September 28th
Claxton Health Fair: September 28th
International Potluck: September 29 5:30-7 in the Cafeteria
Fun Run: October 14 at Memorial Stadium
Tea and Talk with Superintendent Dr. Baldwin: Monday November 07
Additional Info
Eating lunch with your child: Please feel welcomed to eat lunch with your child or bringing in treats for his/her birthday. We eat from 12:20 - 12:50 give or take 5 minutes for the different classes. The tricky part with bringing a birthday treat is that we eat all together and we will not always eat with our homeroom friends. Please anticipate 22 students if you bring a treat.
Snack: Since we are departmentalized, students will be responsible for bringing in their own snack for themselves each day, if they so desire. As a 5th grade team, we have decided there will no longer be a "whole class" snack. Again, this is to help prepare students for 6th grade where they will no longer be given snack.
Contacting Us: Please email us all at clx5thgrade@acsgmail.net with any concerns
Parent teacher conferences: Your child's homeroom teacher will send home information about beginning of the year parent teacher conference. For the beginning of the year you will meet with your student's homeroom teacher. The homeroom teacher will go over iReady data along with other information.
Fun Friday/Missing Work - Students may earn 20 additional recess minutes on Friday if homework for ALL classes is complete. If any assignment is missing or incomplete, your daughter/son will be working on that assignment instead of participating in extra recess. This incentive is based solely on completion of homework.
After School Arts - A packet with information on the After School Arts program was sent home last week. Lots of incredible programs are offered. Please complete and return these to your child's homeroom teacher this week.
Week of September 12-16
Math - Students have working on building an understanding of the patterns within the number system. We have used that knowledge to multiply and divide any number by 10, 100, and 1000. This week we will focus on order of operations and discuss various multiplication strategies.
Social Studies/Writing - Constitution and government of the United States We will be learning and rewriting the Preamble to the Constitution. Each phrase will be analyzed and students will write the Preamble in her/his own words. We will use the School House Rock song to help us learn the words.
Science - These past 2 weeks we have covered: what is science, science safety, classroom expectations, science experiements, and the scientific method. We have completed a couple of interesting labs and even made PB&J sandwiches. We will finish up a project earlier in the week working with partners to create a scientific methods book and gummy bear experiment. Later in the week we begin Energy conservation and transfer. I anticipate the unit test to be on Wednesday, Sept. 28. We will get new vocabulary words this week to begin studying at home when we start the new unit on Wednesday. At this point I will go over homework expectations with the students. I will also send home instructions for parents so be on the lookout in the middle of the week.
Have a great week, Ms. Briggs
Reading - In the past two weeks we have worked on getting to know each other, learning classroom procedures and building our reading stamina/endurance. Each block has been able to read for 50 plus minutes!! I am so proud of all their hard work and determination. This week we have taken a few days to complete the reading i-Ready assessment and each student is in the process of reading a book in its entirety (they had a choice between two fiction and two non-fiction texts) and answering questions as they proceed through the book. This assessment was created by Jennifer Serravallo (please see the link below for more information) and has replaced the mCLASS TRC assessment for 5th grade. All of this data will assist in guiding my instruction and forming my strategy groups, so I can meet each students individual needs to the best of my ability.