Parent News 11/30-12/4

NEWS FROM FIFTH GRADE

November 30-December 4

Merry Christmas!  May the beginning of Christmas be full of hope, joy, peace, and light in our lives!

READING

Students are reading a novel of their own choosing for silent reading.

Homework:  READING 20 minutes per night.  Students should still have a goal of reading 20 minutes or more even if they are tracking books read.  New reading logs should be in their binders on Tuesday. Please tally the November calendar and return by Tuesday 12/1.

We will finish Poppy this week and start owl pellets. (If you have leftover aluminum pie plates in your recycling, we’ll put them to good use.) We’ll read some non-fiction animal articles in a hunt for details and write a small paper on the other animals in Poppy.  Poppy test (open book) Friday.

Next up: we are reading an excellent biography of Benjamin Franklin and learning how to read a bio whilst taking notes.

BIBLE:  

Our Advent Study is a neat devotional called “Sing a Song of Christmas.”  Each day we will read and discuss 2 Bible passages that prepare our hearts and minds to truly worship and celebrate Christmas.  We then sing a verse (or two!) of a Christmas carol that reflects that passage.

Verse this week: 1 John 4:9

LANGUAGE ARTS

Spelling: Lesson and  review test 12 this week.  No 100 word practice list required! Students had their first round of three class spelling bees today. This is one of the best group of spellers I’ve had in teaching fifth grade classes.  Wow!  I will be praying for wisdom.  Students are chosen mostly on bee elimination, but I also look at work habits and desire to work/practice  along with spelling grades in class.  Two class representatives will be chosen along with one alternate.

Our next writing assignment ties in with the animals of Poppy.  We are also learning about idioms tomorrow and creating an origami mouse to showcase mice idioms.

SCIENCE  Owl pellets

US HISTORY and SOCIAL STUDIES

Week 4- The Age of Discovery in the New World - We are starting to learn about explorers.  The curriculum we have is pretty neutral  and matter of fact about Christianity and what it meant as a motive for exploration.  We did talk about the view of the Great Commission being “go and make DISCIPLES of all men “ not “go and MAKE all men be my disciples”.  We also will look at the very good things that came out of faith based exploration and motives.   I know where they’re headed in high school, so I am working hard to give them a good foundation as believers in a discipline that sometimes can be harsh towards faith. My older two children both are AP history kids: one who did well through three AP classes in this area and one who is on her 1st class and doing well.

THIS WEEK’S STATES AND CAPITALS TO LEARN: Spell them correctly and locate them on a map:   #1-11 on the list in binders.  WA OR ID MT CA HI AK NV UT CO WY

Test on Thursday.

GENERAL INFORMATION

PE Friday only this week.  Music rehearsal for Christmas Program is in full swing!

Our next class service project will be a warm sock drive.  Both of my older kids volunteer with homeless ministries in the Olympia area, and clean warm socks are a frequent need that they see going unmet. This is a small gift that will make a big impact.  I’d like to take the socks to Union Gospel Mission on December 17 as a class. Please consider donating or driving that morning.

Christmas party will take place on the 18th throughout the second part of the day!  Here’s how we do gift exchange fifth grade style:

Each child brings 11 count of the same item and an empty gift bag.    Here’s how the Secret Santa small gift extravaganza works--He or she has eleven classmates.  Each child puts their empty gift bag on a table along with everyone else’s empty bag.  Then the child takes their small gifts and places one into each of their classmates bags, skipping themselves.  Then the next child does the same. At the end, each child will receive  eleven different gifts from their classmates. I ask the kids to keep it at about a dollar or less per classmate.  Candy, secondhand books from Goodwill, homemade cookies, fancy mechanical pencils, silly dollar store socks...all have been hits in the past!

PIZZA FRIDAYS! $2 per slice. ORDER by Wednesdays.

Christmas Program is December 11, 2014 at 6:30 pm.

Auction is coming! I have a couple of fantastic ideas but need some help getting them into play.   Care to help?  

There’s a procurement meeting soon (12/7  at 2:00) in the Mt. Hood room at BLBC to get ideas and strategies for gathering goodness.  It’s worth the time to attend, particularly if this is a new effort for you.

God bless and have a great week!

Mrs. Steele

Week of November 23-27

NEWS FROM FIFTH GRADE   

WEEK OF NOV. 23-27

So thankful for your kiddos!  They are all a joy and delight to be around.  I hope your Thanksgiving is lovely!

READING

Students are reading a novel of their own choosing for silent reading.

Homework:  READING 20 minutes per night.  Students should still have a goal of reading 20 minutes or more even if they are tracking books read or pages. Reading calendars are due ONE week from today on December 1. Students might need a reminder to tuck those into their binder and get your signature…

Poppy will get finished next week early on and then we will spend the rest of that week doing non-fiction reading about the animals involved.  We will then write a short paper with facts about each animal.   

December will find us deep into a biography of Ben Franklin.  There will be a very good book coming home for Christmas reading.  I’d encourage you to read it aloud with your student.  It’s a  compelling and dramatic true story of what heroism is--and what true leadership can do with God’s help.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Spelling: Test 11 this week.

IXL E skills

SCIENCE

Final prototypes on flying contraptions-- photos will be taken and posted on school facebook page.

Owl pellets start next week.  

US HISTORY and SOCIAL STUDIES

States and capitals 1-10 from list in binder.

Most students did a FANTASTIC job on the first few.  We’ll be adding a few each week, then reviewing.

Week 3 finished today in Social Studies.  We took our first test using the computers; I’d say it was a good first start but definitely a new concept.  Students were allowed to re-access reading if they wanted to to find details.   Retakes were allowed for those who had technical difficulties or who weren’t successful with 70% the first time.  Most conquered it nicely on the second time around. We’ll do week 4 next week- the age of exploration!

Bible Verse:

Psalm 90:2

GENERAL INFORMATION

MUSIC- Fifth graders have a great part to play in this year’s Christmas program.  Bring scripts to school and work on them at home per Miss Mazzuca’s request.

PE is M, T, F- please  help students remember athletic shoes and good clothes for running and jumping. Showering nightly is a great idea at this age and deodorant is a critical school supply.  Water bottles are also helpful.

Art will begin this quarter, our first class will be November 24.

FIRST HOME BASKETBALL GAME IS TODAY AT 3:30.

Our next class service project will be a warm sock drive.  Both of my older kids volunteer with homeless ministries in the Olympia area, and clean warm socks are a frequent need that they see going unmet. This is a small gift that will make a big impact.  I’d like to take the socks to Union Gospel Mission on December 17 as a class. Please consider donating or driving that morning.

Our class Christmas party will be Friday morning, December 18, at 9:30.  We do small gifties-- one per classmate. Everyone brings a bag and we take turns sneaking about and filling the bags of our classmates. (Everyone else is watching a movie.)  Examples of past gifties include: candy bars, homemade cookies, markers, funny bookmarks, whistles, ornaments, etc.  Your child will need an even dozen.    

PIZZA FRIDAYS! $2 per slice. ORDER by Wednesdays.

Christmas Program is December 11, 2014 at 6:30 pm.

See you there!

Auction is coming! I have a couple of fantastic ideas but need some help getting them into play.   Care to help?  Do you quilt or know someone who does?

Additionally, the general auction would be greatly enhanced if each family would commit to procuring 8-10 items.  I know it sounds like a big commitment, but it really comes together with a little prayer and lots of hands.  

News From Fifth Grade

NEWS FROM FIFTH GRADE   

WEEK OF NOV.17-21

LOOKING FORWARD TO CONFERENCES! Dismissal for the rest of the week is at noon. Please send a good snack for your student. Let the office know if your child will be staying for aftercare so they can plan for enough workers. $3.50 per hour per child is the suggested donation which will help our 7th/8th class members go to DC.

READING

Students are reading a novel of their own choosing for silent reading. Next month we will document titles read and respond to each in lieu of a calendar. Let me know if you feel your student still needs that accountability.

Homework:  READING 20 minutes per night.  Students should still have a goal of reading 20 minutes or more even if they are tracking books read or pages. Reading calendars are due two weeks from tomorrow on December 1.

We are about 1/2 way through Poppy with all its luscious vocabulary. It's definitely a language broadener and full of fun and suspense.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Spelling:  Lesson 10 due Friday, test Friday.  Lesson 11 will come home this weekend and we will have its test on the 25th. Next week  we will start to do a little research project with non-fiction text. We will have our class spelling bee after Thanksgiving.

We're moving from topic discussion at lunch to topic writing. Today's writing assignment was a paragraph about what you'd do in case of a natural disaster. I'll have students share their writing at lunch. This serves two purposes- accountability and learning to have thoughtful meal time discussions and listening. (Some of us are really growing in listening, others in sharing comfortably.)

IXL is where we're working on our grammar practice. One thing we also do this year is learn a lot of task-specific jargon-- from filling out proxy applications to reading many types of charts and graphs. Look for these from time to time as students may need specific information from you!

SCIENCE

Engineering end of unit postponed due to multiple students being out with illness- get those lungs and tummies healed! Owl pellets get ordered this week.

US HISTORY and SOCIAL STUDIES

Every student is now signed up with Studies Weekly and can extend their learning or review by logging in.  We’re on week three, so your student can test themselves on the material, earn credits, and decorate their pet rat’s space-- all online.  Encourage them to do the games. We will work on the articles together and then do the test online Friday. Students have access to articles during the test time, but it is within a time frame.

THIS WEEK’S STATES AND CAPITALS TO LEARN: Spell them correctly and locate them on a map: WA OR ID AK HI CA MT WY NV Quiz Thursday.

BIBLE

Isaiah 55:8-9 Test Wednesday, no chapel this week.

GENERAL INFORMATION

MUSIC- Fifth graders have a great part to play in this year’s Christmas program.

 Art will begin this quarter, our first class will be November 24.

PE Monday this week

Music T/Th

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD SHOEBOXES DUE THIS WEEK

PASSPORT ON THURSDAY

BOYS BASKETBALL STARTS next WEEK...gO eAgLeS!

PIZZA FRIDAYS! $2 per slice. ORDER by Wednesdays. No pizza this Friday due to early release.

Christmas Program is December 11, 2015 at 6:30 pm.

Auction is coming! Let me know how you'd like to help.

Lots of small and big jobs, one of them is bound to fit your time and talents.

Parent Update November 9, 2015

                                How can it possibly be nearly the end of the first quarter?

NEWS FROM FIFTH GRADE   

WEEK OF NOV. 9-13

We are thankful for the many veterans in our families who have served our country in the armed forces. I’m looking forward to talking with you as parents next week to discuss your child’s progress. It truly is one of my favorite times.  Your kids are amazing works in progress and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for them.

Monday is all day with school beginning and ending on normal schedule.

Tuesday - Friday are HALF DAYS until 12:00 pm.  Please call the school office to let them know if you will need childcare those days.  BLBC before and after care does not start until 3:00.   7th/8th Grades will be helping their parents supervise Cornerstone kids in the gym for suggested donations of $3.50 per hour to support their DC trip in March.

Send a snack if your child will be picked up at noon; send a lunch and snack if they will be there all day. I've highlighted things to study or work on after school.

READING

Students are reading a novel of their own choosing for silent reading.

Poppy will be finished next week with an open book test just before Thanksgiving depending on when we read the final chapter and it goes over a bit.

Homework:  READING 20 minutes per night.  Students should still have a goal of reading 20 minutes or more even if they are tracking books read or pages.  Your student may be aiming for 4 books.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

We just finished our Scar Stories this week.  They’ll be up in the class for a couple of weeks before coming home. Your students liked this assignment!  Next is Story Trees, or “Treemendous Stories.”  It’s our book report for the quarter.  We mostly do it inhouse.  Some of the students might bring theirs home for special touches.  

SPELLING LESSON 9 Due Friday.  Next week we have a lesson, too; it is the infamous ei/ie lesson that might need a little more attention than usual.

SCIENCE

We’ll finish our flight unit just before Thanksgiving and hopefully faster. I don't want to rush the process.  Students are learning a great deal about engineering design.  This has been a fun new unit.  We will switch to an animal study and do owl pellets just after that.

US HISTORY and SOCIAL STUDIES

We will be picking our states at the end of the month and  we’re starting to memorize states and capitals as well.  I’d recommend the app Stack the States as well as Drive Through USA  to help with practice at home if your student needs a little extra time on this.  States this week are WA, OR, ID, HI, AK, CA.  Students must locate and spell correctly.

We recently got our social studies main text, which actually looks a lot like a newspaper.  It’s much cheaper than a textbook and gets updated every year.  It also has an online component that allows students to interact with primary source materials in the form of recordings, art, and artifacts via photos.  There are quizzes and the articles are audio recordings.

Every student will be signed up with Studies Weekly and can extend their learning or review by logging in. Occasionally they can retake quizzes if they had a bumpy event.  I will send you their login as soon as it’s set up.

Bible Verse: 1 Chronicles 17:20

We continue to study God’s relationship with us and how we can be good stewards of that relationship, His world, His gifts, and our families and communities.   This week we’re studying what it means to worship a God we can’t see and how He reveals Himself to us.

GENERAL INFORMATION

CONFERENCES  next week  See you there!

NO SCHOOL  this WEDNESDAY!

NOON DISMISSAL T, W, TH, F next week.  Send a hefty snack!

PE is Monday, Tuesday, and Friday-- please help your fifth grade student remember athletic shoes and good clothes for running and jumping. Showering nightly is a great idea at this age and deodorant is a critical school supply.  Water bottles are a good thing to have as well.  

ART starts  week after next!  

No chapel this week.

PIZZA FRIDAYS! $2 per slice. ORDER by Wednesdays.

Parent Update- First week of November, 2015

NEWS FROM FIFTH GRADE   

WEEK OF NOV.4 -6

Thanks to our students for fantastic attitudes in a transitional week. We had a student transfer and another student enroll within two days during a week when we were helping another friend grieve.  Your kids handled it with grace and aplomb, demonstrating grace and kindness. We welcome Anneke Collins.

READING

Students are reading a novel of their own choosing for silent reading.  

POPPY is our current class book.  It has such incredibly chewy vocabulary, it really brings interesting discussion around word choice.   We will also be studying three real-life creatures as we read about their fictional counterparts Students will be learning about taking notes, and writing a report about them over the next few weeks.  We will be dissecting owl pellets either just before or after Thanksgiving.  (I order from a biological supply company and the specimens are sterilized. We use gloves and masks.)  “Treemendous” book reports are going to be underway this week as well; these are classroom projects that take a structured look at a book your child has recently read.

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Homework:  Check with your child to see what the new format for their reading log looks like.  Some chose to track by time and others are tracking titles read this month. BOOK IT pizza slips came home today, a free personal pizza for your strong reader!

LANGUAGE ARTS

Spelling: Lesson 8 came home today. Students should complete the packet and write the words for practice on a separate sheet of paper, stapled to the packet.  TEST is Friday morning and lesson is due upon arrival in class.

IXL   We just finished the skills on run ons, fragments and complete sentences.  This was good practice!  It’s easier to identify than to avoid using them in writing sometimes. We’re still learning.

US HISTORY and SOCIAL STUDIES

We will be picking our states at the end of the month and starting to memorize states and capitals this week.  We will start with Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.  I’d recommend the app Stack the States as well as Drive Through USA  to help with practice if needed.  It’s very fun! They finished coloring and labeling their initial maps.  I’ll check and correct these, then send them home soon.  

We are sending our Ft. Vancouver packets in for a Junior Ranger badge.  Students did either five or six activities depending on age.  This was pretty independent, they did well!

BIBLE VERSE:   James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

SCIENCE-

We are entering our final engineering challenge for the aeronautics unit.  Your students

will be working in teams of two to three to create a drop copter that can hold weight and drop slowly to beat a challenge parameter.  They’ve worked with several styles to investigate what works. You should have seen two types come home today.  Our animal units that go with Poppy will be our next science topics.

GENERAL and UPCOMING INFORMATION

NO SCHOOL next Wednesday due to Veteran’s Day.

CONFERENCES  week after next- November 16-20 ( I love telling you how amazing your kids are!)

NOON DISMISSAL at conference week (Tuesday-Friday only.)

CHAPEL is every Wednesday.  Please encourage your fifth grade student to wear chapel clothes and bring their worship voices! Part of their spiritual growth we look for includes the ability to listen, worship, and participate in the body of Christ.  They are leading the way for their younger (and sometimes older!) peers.

PE M, T, F

Music W, TH

PIZZA FRIDAYS! $2 per slice. ORDER by Wednesdays.

SHOEBOX COLLECTION starts next week, November 9-13.