5th Grade Weekly Update

Mrs. Livesay

November 13-November 17

Happy November, Parents!

I apologize that I neglected to send out a newsletter last weekend. I came down with the crud two weeks ago and, along with a crazy weekend of parenting responsibilities, I was trying to get on top of feeling yucky.  I do like to keep you all up-to-date with the latest, so please forgive my brief lapse in communication!

I truly wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!  I know one of the top things I am thankful for this year are my 18 incredible 5th graders who make me smile each and every day.  I feel so blessed to have such an amazing group this year and can say with complete honesty, I absolutely LOVE getting up and going to work every day!  I'll miss the kids next week and look forward to starting the holiday season with them when we get back!  Have fun with family, stay healthy and be safe!

With love,

Mrs. Livesay ♥️

Reminders & Classroom News

November 20th-24th: Thanksgiving Break 🦃

November 28th, December 5th, December 12th: Spelling Bee Practice in Mrs. Peter's room (7:55 a.m.)

December 13th: Choir Concert (6-7 p.m.) in gym.

December 21st: Winter Party (starting at 8:45 a.m.)

December 22nd-January 8th: Winter Break ❄️


Spelling Bee 

Congratulations to the fifth graders who have qualified to participate in our annual Spelling Bee!  Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Urbana will be holding practice times on 11/28, 12/5 and 12/12 at 7:55 a.m. to help prepare our spellers.  Please grab your chromebooks from your homeroom classrooms and go to Mrs. Peters room for practice. The Spelling Bee will take place January 12th from 8:50-10:00 a.m. in the gym.


Heritage Gift Cards on sale!

Get a head start on your holiday shopping and buy your gift cards from Heritage!

Use the gift card order form being sent home TODAY to make shopping easier this holiday season and a percentage of the sale goes back to Heritage Elementary!


You can also use this as an opportunity to show your appreciation for the wonderful staff members at Heritage.


Heritage PTO will arrange a Giving Tree as an optional opportunity to thank ALL staff members that make it a great school.  This way, we can include staff members who are not classroom teachers, in our holliday celebrations.


If you’d like to purchase gift cards for the tree, please add these to your order form and upon picking up your gift card order, leave the ones for the giving tree with a staff member in the front office.


(If you buy your own gift cards from another source, please drop them off in the office by December 8th, and include your family’s name on the gift card. No amount is too small, in fact $5 increments are ideal.)


Orders are due Friday, December 1st along with a check payable to Heritage PTO.


Gift card orders will be available for pick up in the office the week of Dec. 11.

Bus Cancellation

Just a reminder regarding the rolling cancellation of our general education bus. Per the district’s transportation department, there will be no bus for our general education students Monday, November 27th through Friday, December 1st. 


The special education bus is NOT affected by the rolling cancellation.


This cancellation is likely to impact the traffic around the school and in our car loop, so please be patient as we work together to ensure our students’ safety during drop off and pick up. We encourage families to consider alternatives for getting their students to and from school; those who live close may wish to walk, scooter, or ride their bike. If you choose to drive, you might consider carpooling with a neighbor or friend to help reduce car traffic around the school.


Regular bus service will resume Monday, December 4th.

Changes to EngageEd Parent Portal

Difficulty logging into the EngagEd parent portal?


Just a quick reminder that in October the district implemented a new layer of security which requires the use of the following extension after your username to log into the EngagEd parent portal : @p.dcsdk12.org


So for example, if your current username is joesmom, you will change this to: joesmom@p.dcsdk12.org


For more information, please review the email originally sent to families on October 6th at 3:15 pm.


Keep this in mind when Elementary Progress Reports are released to the EngagEd parent portal at the end of the semester!

WHat we are Learning

In our Harry Potter unit, we have read through the first 11 chapters of the book so far!  This week, we took time to complete a fun biography poem project on one of the main characters.  The students also completed a guided drawing to learn how to draw their character.  Look for finished projects when you come to the Winter Party next month! 

These last couple weeks, the students have been working on a Fall Narrative piece.  We have been focused on the 5 elements of a story (characters, setting, problem, attempts to solve the problem, and solution) as well as learning how to appropriately use dialogue in narrative text.  We are looking forward to sharing our creative writing at our Publishing Party Friday!

Our unit on multi-digit division has ended, but we are not done with division yet!  We will be using the skills we learned in Topic 5 and apply them in Topic 6 when dividing with decimals.  Here's a helpful video to refresh your memory!

We have been working our way through our unit on Watery Planet.  The students have explored how much of the earth is freshwater, how to figure out how much salt is in the ocean (we made tiny oceans!), the water cycle and how groundwater helps us get the water we need.  We are scheduled to take the end of unit test on Wednesday, December 6th.  We will have a review day on Tuesday, the 5th.