5th Grade
Keefe, Kingsley & Ward
Upcoming Events
January, 19th: First Stage's production of Holes - Bring a cold lunch
January 20th: Reading MAP Test
February 22nd: Yearbook forms are due
February 24th: Six Flags Reading Logs are due
March 23rd: D.A.R.E. Graduation
D.A.R.E.
Again we were able to welcome Officer Jeff Lenius into our classrooms for another D.A.R.E. sessions. We would like to thank him for all of the extra time and effort that he gives this excellent program. His passion, commitment and energy make the time with your child a very positive experience.
Please mark your calendars for our very special D.A.R.E. Graduation Ceremony on Thursday, March 23rd at 6:00 pm. We would like ALL students to attend, so please inform your sport coaches, music teachers, and other activity leaders that this day is very important and that you child needs to attends their D.A.R.E. graduation. Thank you for honoring this request and making the necessary arrangements ahead of time. It is greatly appreciated.
Six Flags
Horizon is participating in an exciting program that encourages our students to read for fun. Read to succeed is a free program sponsored by Six Flags Theme Parks. Every student who completes six hours of recreational reading before the school's deadline (February 24th) is eligible for a free admission ticket valid at one participating Six Flags Theme Park.
Here is a link for more information and reading log sheet.
Holes Field Trip
We head to First Stage in two weeks for Holes. If your child has not yet returned their permission slip and money, please have them do so next week.
We will be leaving for the play at 9:00 am and return to school around 12:00 pm. Students will be having lunch in the classroom when we return, so please have your child brings in a cold lunch. Since we will be eating after our normal lunch period, students will not be able to purchase milk or a la carte.
Reading
We launched our next unit of study: Tackling Complexity - Moving Up Levels of Nonfiction and are focusing on the main idea of the text, vocabulary development and text complexity. Their final project will be writing and producing a nonfiction piece; you could feel the excitement and hear the enthusiasm!
Writing
Students celebrated their success and completion of their informational essay this week. They worked extremely hard in this unit by researching, note taking, citing sources, and organizing subtopics. I will be conferencing with students one last time over the next two weeks using the rubric to guide the conversation and to supply immediate feedback.
Coming up next... Persuasive essays! We will begin the unit front-loading with debates, observing different structures, and recognizing point of view and audience.
Math
As part of this unit students will be designing their own home. Using scaled drawings, they will begin to understand how ratios work. In addition, students will be finding the area of their house, rooms, furniture, etc. In order for this activity to authentic, it would be beneficial to talk with your child about the realistic measurements of homes. Would it make sense for their home to be 10 feet by 10 feet? This would make for great dinner time discussions!
Science
Next week we will see if the mass of a liquid will change depending on the shape of it's container. Then we will be move into the second property of matter, volume. We will
use displacement to find the volume of irregular shaped objects.