February 9: Field Trip to Ida Price (AM)

February 16-20: Mid-Winter Break (No School)

March 16, 17, and 19: Mid-year conferences (for select students)

March 20: Staff Development Day (No School)

April 13-17: Spring Break (No School)

Click here for the yearlong school calendar

On Monday, Feburary 9, fifth graders will tour Price Middle School. Field trip forms were in last week's Thursday envelope. We will walk over with Ms. Rodrigues and Ms. Wickemeyer's classes. At Price, we will participate in a rally, and then students will be broken into groups to tour the school. I'm certain the tour will get students excited for middle school!

On Friday, students will have an opportunity to exchange valentines and have a grade level party. Students are not required to participate in the valentine exchange, but it is highly encouraged. If your child does pass out valentines, please make sure they pass them out to everyone in the class.  Here are the names of students in our class. 

Last week, we continued our physical science unit with investigation 4, which focused on chemical reactions involving baking soda, calcium chloride, and citric acid. Students learned that chemical reactions occur when substances change, resulting in one or more new substances that have properties different than those of the starting substances. If you would like to extend science learning at home, try this FOSS home/school connection activity involving ingredients in your kitchen! 

This week we will review our physical sciences unit and take the summative assessment for this unit. The results of the assessment will be in sent home after the Feburary break. 

As you may or may not know, the yearbook traditionally has a section for fifth grade baby photos, and this year is no different! Please email me a photo of your fifth grader for the yearbook. It should be an individual photo and one that your fifth grader will be happy to see!

As you saw from Mr. Kretsch's email, fifth graders will participate in a 5 session Puberty Talk the week of March 9.  The talks will cover personal hygiene, physical and sexual development, conception and pregnancy, and more. Please refer to this resource from the Health Connected website for more details about the curriculum, including the curriculum's table of contents pages. I have been trained in the curriculum and will be delivering the content to our students.

If you would like to view the curriculum binder in person, please contact the Bagby front office. A family information session will be held on 2/23 at 5:30 pm via Zoom. Please see Mr. Kretsch's email (dated 2/1/2026) for the link. State law allows you to remove your student from the sexual education course. If you do not want your child to participate, please email me by March 6.

Let’s get wild about reading! Our 6th annual CEF Read-a-thon, a district-wide reading competition and fundraiser, runs from February 2nd through March 4th. Students can earn reading rewards individually, as a class, and as a school. This is a great way to motivate your kids to read! Learn more here. 

We are currently in a personal narrative writing unit. Students began this unit by brainstorming initial topics in class. We thought through moments that made us feel happy, confident, scared, nervous, or sad. Students then chose one topic to begin writing a story. As students write drafts over the next few weeks, they will learn about how to write an interesting beginning, how to stretch out the heart of the story, how to "show not tell," how to use narrative transitions, how to incorporate more description and figurative language, and how to write a meaningful ending. Be sure to ask your child what he or she is writing about!

We are currently in two new novel studies. Most of the class is reading a historical fiction novel titled The Watsons Go to Birmingham. It is a humorous and moving journey of a Black family traveling from Flint, Michigan, to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The story highlights family bonds, racial tensions, and coming-of-age amidst the Civil Rights Movement. A smaller student group is reading the National Geographic biography about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both of these novel studies are likely to trigger deep thoughts in your child about the injustice experienced by African Americans in our nation's history, so be sure to make time to hear your child's thoughts.

We are currently in a social studies unit focused on American colonies. In this unit, students will learn about the people, communities, and economies that made up the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies. Their learning will culminate in a half day in school field trip in the spring called Colonial Days in which they experience "a day in the life" of the colonists. Students will participate in (virtual) cow milking, candle dipping, colonial school yard games, butter churning and more. The stations will be led by parents who will be trained by the organization hosting this event. More details on this will be shared during the school field trip as we get closer to the date.

We have PE weekly on Tuesday mornings from 8:20 - 9:05 am with Miss Kelly (our new PE teacher).  On Tuesdays, please make sure your child is wearing shoes in which they can run. I also recommend a hat and an extra water bottle for hot days. 

We have Music on Friday afternoons from 1:10-1:55 pm. We have Art every other week on Tuesday mornings from 9:30 - 10:20 am beginning the week of August 18. 

Our weekly visit to the school library will be Thursdays from 8:40 to 9:00 am. 

This year, we will be managing some assignments and hand outs (such as study guides) on Google Classroom. Students will learn how to access Google Classroom this week. Please take some time to have your child login also from a home device and then please bookmark that page so that you will be to access it quickly when needed!

If you are looking for books for your family's library, please consider ordering from Scholastic Books. You can have books shipped directly to your home or to school. Every order earns points for our class, and points help us grow our classroom library. When using the Scholastic website, our class activation code is GKMNT. Place an order of $25 or more and you can pick a FREE $5 book (use code READS at checkout). Here is an online flyer.