Ms. Harris' Weekly Update
October 14th-18th
What's Going On This Week:
- Ms. Harris' Social Studies: This week students are finishing their advertisements for their Westward Expansion technology. I am very impressed with how creative the students have been making these ads for items like sod houses and windmills. Students will take a short quiz Tuesday 22nd/Wednesday 23rd on the first two standards in this unit. That will everything in their notebook so far for Westward Expansion. This includes reasons for moving west, hardships of living out west, technologies that were invented, and the Transcontinental Railroad. Part of Science and Social Studies time this week will be dedicated to finishing out Junior Achievement BizTown lessons. Students will learn how to use a debit card, open a checking account, and apply for a job. This is all to prepare them for our field trip to BizTown in November.
- Ms. Harris' GT Math/ELA: In ELA this week we will finish our unit on poetry, prose, and drama. We will finally present our recorded dramas, which we are very excited to see. Students will also begin their first novel of the year. They will meet in weekly book clubs to discuss the book they are assigned. Students should be reading their novels nightly as part of their 20 minutes of nightly reading. All students will also take their spelling test on Friday. They will have to spell ten of their words and sort them in their correct categories. All spelling assignments are also due on Friday. Finally in ELA, we will begin our big GT writing project which is to publish our own novels this year. Students will spend the rest of October brainstorming and planning their stories. In November they will be drafting 45 minutes every day in class. This is a big project, but I'm very excited to see the writing that comes out of it. In math we will begin our next unit on multiplication. Students will be practicing multi-digit multiplication up to 4 digit by 2 digit problems. We will also start back with multiplication timed tests after the teacher workday, so more about that to come in the next weekly update.
Parent Teacher Conferences Start Today
If you are unable to make your scheduled conference time, please let me know and we can find a better day and time.
Once you sign in in the front office, please just head down to my room. I look forward to meeting with each of you about your child's progress so far this year.
Book Character Day is October 31st
On October 31st, students are encouraged to wear a costume of a book character they like. Costumes must be school appropriate and connect SOMEHOW to a book character. :)
Thursday October 17th is Mix it Up at Lunch Day.
During students’ lunch time on that day, students will be sitting next to someone they either do not know or someone they would typically not sit with. This lunch is a great way to meet new friends and make sure everyone is included and accepted. We are asking parents to not come to lunch on Thursday unless it is your child's birthday.
Other Information:
- There is no school Monday. It is a teacher workday.
- All BizTown permission slips and money are due this Thursday, October 17th.
- Fifth grade does not do a "Halloween party" but if anyone wants to send in a treat on Thursday 31st for the students, we can eat that at lunch. Just let me know if you are interested in sending in a snack.
- World Math Day is Tuesday October 15th!
- Two resources that your students have access to at home are ixl.com and reflex! They have used both in class and should know how to log in. These are great websites to use as review and to practice for upcoming assessments.