Week of 9/18 - 9/22

Important Dates:

Sept. 19 - PTO Fundraiser at Panera *See image for details*

Sept. 20 - Will's Birthday

Sept. 25 - Kate's Birthday

Sept. 25-29 - Free Dress $1 a Day for 8th Grade Fundraiser

Oct. 11 -P/T/S Conferences 2:30-7:00p.m.

Oct. 12 -P/T/S Conferences 11:30-3:00p.m.

Oct. 13-17 - Fall Break

Oct. 21 - Trivia Night

Oct. 27- Trunk or Treat

Map Testing

Language Usage- Week of 9/18 - 9/22

Items Needed:

The students created jobs that they will be completing each week. Based on the job description, they will earn points on Class Dojo. Each Friday, the students will have the opportunity to turn in their points to purchase a variety of items. If you are able, please send in an item or two listed below.

WHAT WE ARE LEARNING

Language Arts- Mrs. Phelps

Great job to all the students on completing the Math and Reading MAP tests. They have one more left, Language Usage, and it will be taken during our class time on Tuesday and Wednesday (Thursday is available for anyone who needs to finish up).  

This week in Language Arts we have a lot going on! We are beginning the gradual progression into our full Language Arts schedule and we will begin small groups on the days that time allows. The small groups will be focused on spelling rules, following the Orton Gillingham curriculum. Everyone has been assessed and the data has been used to group students, as they all have different depths of knowledge when it comes to spelling. I know this will be a great use of our time, as encoding and decoding are essential to literacy success. 

Our comprehension skill of the week is summarizing a text and determining theme based on details from the text. We are working hard on knowing the difference between a retelling and a summary, which is much shorter and to the point. This is an important skill for fiction and non-fiction texts, which we will get to in the coming weeks.

HOMEWORK: I have decided to discontinue reading logs as homework for the time being. This does not mean there will never be reading homework, this just means the weekly reading log will not be expected. While I still encourage and hope students are reading at least 20 minutes outside of school hours, I do not foresee an effective way to keep track of this. If students have homework from me, they will know and it will be written in their agendas on Monday.

**NO VOCABULARY QUIZ**


Math: Mrs. Bennett

This week in Math class students are focusing on writing fractions in simplest form. Students will take the numerator and denominator and list all the factor pairs for both numbers. Students will identify the greatest common factor, and divide the original fraction by the GCF. We will learn how to identify if our fraction is truly simplified all the way. 

We will have a mini- test this Friday 9/22. The test will cover rewriting fraction pairs with common denominators and writing fractions in simplest form. These are two essential skills as we continue to progress through our Module on Adding and Subtracting Fractions with Unlike Denominators. There is a practice test on HMH Dashboard to help students prepare. 

Homework:

9/18 SS #17

9/19 SS #18

9/20 SS #19

9/21- SS #20

9/22- No SS Quiz - Mini Test 

Social Studies: Mrs. Crush

We will be continuing our unit on European Exploration and Its Effects. Students will investigate explorers from different European countries and map the areas of the Western Hemisphere where they explored. They have been paired with a classmate and assigned an explorer to research and present to their classmates. Research will take place the next couple of weeks. 

Religion: Mrs. Crush

We will continue reading A Long Walk to Water.  We will focus on the difficulties people face in Africa with water and how we, 5th graders, could help with this social justice issue.  Students will be answering questions on Google Classroom, as well as, we will discuss in class. 

1st Trimester Service Hours+ Reflection due Wednesday, November 1.