5th Grade
Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Keefe
Upcoming Events
February 22nd- Six Flags Reading Sheet due
March 7th- Milwaukee Symphony
March 13th- Bag Lunch to School
March 13th- D.A.R.E. Graduation at PHS Auditorium at 6:00 pm
March 15th- Math MAP Testing begins
March 31- Yearbook Order Forms due
April 6th: Weather Day Field Trip to Miller Park (if your child has an allergy please consider joining us)
April 7th: March Madness Basketball Game
April 21st: PTO Hoops Night 5:00 pm -9:30 pm
Valentine's Day
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. As a class, we will be celebrating the holiday on February 14 at the end of the day. Students are not required or expected to bring in a treat. However, if your child would like to celebrate by bringing in valentines, please be sure that there is one for every child (Mrs. Ward has 25 students; Mrs. Keefe has 26 students). There is a class roster attached to be sure you don’t miss anyone. We would like to discourage any additional gifts being given or exchanged in order to avoid hurt feelings and exclusivity.
Spring Conferences
Spring Conferences will be taking place March 20th & 21st. These conferences are OPTIONAL. IF you would like a conference, please choose a time using Family Access (the same way you signed up for Fall Conferences). If you have trouble with this process, please send your homeroom teacher an e-mail.
Also, remember that these conferences are optional and that information on 6th grade placement or math placement for next year will not be available for these conferences, as we need data from later in the year to make this determination.
March Madness Dance
As part of the March Madness festivities, the fifth grade students will be performing a dance routine. If your child would like to participate, they need to have parent permission. Students that showed interest received a permission slip. To prepare for this event, your child will need to attend practice after school. Since we don't have much time to practice, please try to have your child there every week. We would appreciate it if your child could get picked up promptly at 4:30. Check the flyer for practice dates.
Language Arts
Text Structures and Text Features have been our focus. We are identifying the six structures (chronological, compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution, sequence and definition and description) to see how the non-fiction reading text is built. We will then be the authors of our historical, non-fiction books! Excitement is in the air - not only watching your student become researchers, but seeing them analyzing their topics to see if they can really develop a strong, teaching text.
"Praises were sung" by some of our administration team members while your children were creating their book trailers. You can be extremely proud of the time, energy and effort that your students put into this project. Make sure you ask them to share it with you!
Math
To prepare for conferences, students took time in class to reflect on Unit 3 and update their goals and growth mindset. In addition, they used their Unit 4 Pre-test to identify goals they could work on in our current unit.
Science
This week we studied Earth's four systems - hydrosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere. Students created posters that identified situations where these systems would interact. Take look at a few of these student samples below.
We also began our study of the distribution of water. One task had students modeling groundwater. Students learned the process that takes place for surface water or precipitation to become groundwater.