Room 26 Weekly News
May 7-11, 2018
Announcements
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! I am SO grateful for the lovely gifts, cards, notes, delicious treats, and kind words you showered me with last week! I felt very appreciated, and hope you know how much your kind gestures and generosity meant to me! I am so very grateful for the gifts of boxes and money towards a storage facility for my classroom materials this summer. With all of our children home from college over summer, I do not have any square footage available to store boxes of books and files, so this was an extremely useful and meaningful gift for me. Thank you so much, and a special thank you to Jen Townsend for organizing this!
It's Family Life week in 5th grade this week. Our Family Life curriculum will be taught Monday through Friday by me in the classroom. On Tuesday, boys and girls will be separated to watch a video about changes they can expect during puberty. The boys from my class will be taught by Mr. Klimas that day. The girls will stay with me. Your students will be working through a booklet over the course of the week that goes through such topics as decision making (active vs. passive), body image, changes during puberty (physical and emotional), the reproductive system, and HIV/AIDS. I will be handling everything in class very clinically, using scientifically correct vocabulary. There is an opportunity every day for students to write anonymous questions. I will be answering those questions aloud to the class, but if the questions pertain to something outside the 5th grade curriculum, I will not answer them. As I tell the students, if they write a question and I do not answer it, it is because the question falls outside the scope of 5th grade. I encourage students to bring those questions home to you because it is something they are wondering about it. I also encourage your students to ask whatever questions they might possibly have in class. I am not their parent, yet I am a trusted adult for them, so this may be one of the few times when they are in a safe environment and feel comfortable to ask the questions they are actually wondering about, and I will give them factual, scientific information, as opposed to the often incorrect/slang information they may receive from peers outside of school. I know that this week can feel a little awkward for you and for your child, so I am making it a homework assignment that they must bring their Family Life booklet home to you for a signature each evening. This is to encourage you to talk about what he/she has learned that day and to be there to answer any questions your child might have. My hope is that this will open up a dialogue where you and your child both feel comfortable enough to talk about these issues as your child gets older, and you can reinforce your family's values or perspectives about certain topics. Again, as a parent of 5 (3 in college and 2 more teenagers), I have been in your shoes. I realize this can be awkward, but it also provides an "easy out" for both you and your child that "the teacher" is "making" you talk about these things as homework, because otherwise these topics can be difficult to bring up out of the blue. :-)
We go through some ground rules on day one and revisit those expectations each day of the week (the ground rules are the same in all 5th grade classrooms), and my experience is that almost all fifth graders handle this unit maturely. The basic expectation is that this will be a safe place where everyone feels safe to ask questions and learn, and students will all maintain self-control throughout our lessons. It is ABSOLUTELY not acceptable for 5th graders to be discussing the information they learn about in Family Life with other students or to be showing other students their Family Life booklets. We have 5th grade families who have made the decision not to have their students participate in this curriculum, and the material is not appropriate for younger students, so we must respect that by keeping these conversations between us in the classroom and with parents at home. If there is a student that, for some reason, cannot abide by these ground rules or cannot maintain self-control in the classroom, he/she will be asked to leave so everyone else can learn.
Academic Updates
Math
Language Arts
Social Studies
Science
Specials
Monday: P.E. and Art
Tuesday: none
Wednesday: P.E.
Thursday: Music and Library
Friday: Muffins with Mom (before school)