Rather than waste a lot of newspaper, I'm posting my monthly newsletter here on Google sites this year.  Each month, I'll make the monthly newsletter appear here on the main page. 

In reading this month, we'll be taking the STAR test, ORF test, and Gates McGinite test to get some benchmark reading information.  This is to prepare for reading groups, which will tentatively start the first week of October.  Every day in class, we'll be reading from AR novels and focusing on summarization, prediction, analysis and other reading skills.  I'll also be doing a read-aloud book with the kids.  My goal is to read out loud from a variety of genres this year to get kids excited about genres of books they may not have had experience with.  Students will take notes as I read aloud to get better at taking notes while someone is speaking.  These notes can be used when we have pop quizzes on the read aloud book.  My hope is that students will be able to pass the AR quiz on any book I've read aloud. 

 The focus this year is on narrative and expository writing, so my goal is to integrate writing and science by having the kids do an expository report every month.  In writing this month for instance we'll be going to the computer lab on the week of September 8-12 and taking notes about animals for a research report.  Monday and Tuesday of that week we'll take notes in the computer lab.  Wednesday of that week students will work on a rough draft.  Thursday of that week students will peer edit each other's rough drafts.  Friday of that week  students will bring in their completed final draft and peer edited rough draft and share about the animal they researched.  Since the writing process is so important, both drafts are due on that Friday, not just the final draft.  There will also be some writing assignments integrating social studies and science labs, so stay tuned!

September is all about number sense and getting the kids fluent in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  We'll cover most of the lessons in chapter one in the green Scott Foresman Addison Wesley math book and get partway through chapter 2, which is also about number sense.  Students will have regular nightly homework assignments in math.  Additionally, we do a "math journal" assignment daily as an entry activity in the morning.  This "math journal" assignment was highly effective last year at getting my students ready for the end of the year district math tests so I've decided to use it again.  Its basically a "mini version" of the end of the year math tests that we take every day.  We'll also be integrating math with science as often as possible.  We'll be researching gravity, architecture, and buoyancy in the computer lab, watching Bill Nye videos about these topics and performing weekly labs that have associated in-class writing assignments.

This year we've been given a new social studies curriculum.  This is great but its going to be a learning opportunity both for me and for the students.  Students will have regular homework assignments from their social studies books.  These assignments will primarily be review questions, though occasionally they will have a chapter review or unit review to help them prepare for unit tests.  Although students do not have a social studies WASL in 5th grade, having regular assignments in a variety of subjects is excellent preparation for middle school, high school and college.

- Mr. Smalley