Barry 5th Grade Team Orange
August 29, 2019
Important Dates
- August 30th: NO SCHOOL-District In-service
- September 2nd: NO SCHOOL-Labor Day
- September 11th: Early Release-PLC Day
Mrs. Seevers' Leave
As many of you know, I plan on taking maternity leave starting in September. My last day with students will be August 29. I will be gone from September 3 - November 1.
While I am on maternity leave, Mrs. Cassie Helming will be my replacement teacher. I have been working closely with Mrs. Helming the past few days to make the transition after I leave go smoothly.
If you have any questions or concerns while I am gone, please email one of the contacts below.
Mrs. Hayes (Science & Social Studies) - hayesa@platteco.k12.mo.us
Mrs. Shoup (ELA) - shoups@platteco.k12.mo.us
Mrs. Helming (Math) - helmingc@platteco.k12.mo.us
What's Happening in 5th Grade?
Reminders
- Check your child's planner and trapper every night for important information
- Please go through your child's trapper WITH them as there are important papers that need to return to school. Make sure you don't throw anything away without checking with your student first.
- Students should be reading for 30 minutes every night
Math
Use exponents to write powers of 10 and find products
Read, compare, and round whole numbers and decimals
Write whole numbers and decimals using standard form, expanded form, and number names
Represent decimals to thousandths as fractions and fractions with denominators of 1,000 as decimals
ELA
In ELA, the students will begin their year setting up expectations in reading. They will talk about selecting books that are appropriate for their levels and building reading stamina. They will stretch their reading tastes and try different genres. Our goal is to be able to read for 30 minutes continuously without distractions.
In reading, our first topic of study will be making inferences using fiction texts. We will focus on supporting our thinking using background knowledge and text evidence. We will practice creating SMART answers using a formula that I call RACE (restate, answer, cite, explain). This skill will be used throughout the entire year.
For writing, they will be practicing creating strong paragraphs using topic sentence and many supporting details. Paragraph structure is very important to perfect to be able to advance in our larger writing pieces. The entire first quarter is focused on free writing and sharing.
For homework, the kids will have a nightly requirement of reading for 30 minutes. Your child will have an AR goal set by middle September. To meet that goal, your child will have to read consistently and as expected. Please help them to be responsible and take the time needed to complete this homework expectation.
Science and Social Studies
We began our unit this past week on the Engineering Design Process and have been learning how engineers use this process to solve a problem for a purpose. We have been participating in several STEM projects that allow us to use the Engineering Design Process to work toward completing a challenge or solving a problem. We have learned the importance of defining the problem, taking time to imagine possible solutions, making a plan, creating a design or prototype, and making any adjustments or improvements on the design to allow it to work. We have put this process to use through activities where we built our own structures out of spaghetti noodles in order to balance a marshmallow, figuring out how to move marbles from one cup to another cup without touching the marbles or cup, and constructing a tower using only a set of notecards. It was really amazing to see all the great ideas that the children on our team put into practice to accomplish some of the challenges in the STEM activities. We will practice the process a few more times next week before preparing to test over this unit at the end of the week next week.
Social Studies:
We have been working on our first Social Studies unit with Map Skills during class this past week. We have learned that a compass rose can help tell direction on a map and that relative direction allows us to compare locations of 2 places using the cardinal and intermediate directions from the compass rose. We finished the week this week discussing how the equator and Prime Meridian divide the globe into northern, southern, eastern, and western hemispheres and also learned that lines of latitude and longitude work together to give an exact location of a place on a map as we discussed the idea of absolute location. We will begin to talk about the parts of a map, map key, and also different types of maps next week. We will be taking our first Social Studies quiz on Wednesday, September 4 over compass rose, hemispheres, relative, and absolute location. A study guide was given to the children yesterday and they were told to keep this in their trappers to study both at school and at home over the next couple of days.
Contact Us
Melissa Seevers
5th Grade Math - Team Orange
816-436-9623 Ex. 3142
Ms. Sarah Shoup
5th-Grade ELA - Team Orange
sarah.shoup@platteco.k12.mo.us
(816) 436 - 9623 ext. 3153
Mrs. Anne Hayes
5th-Grade Science and Social Studies - Team Orange
(816) 436 - 9623 ext. 3145