Calendar and Newsletters
Fifth Grade News
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Open House Tuesday, September 22 No School Wednesday, September 23 We are excited about our Open House! BTW’s annual Open House will be next Tuesday, September 22 from 6:30-7:30. We would like to show off our school and work your child has done in school this year. Please try to attend. STEM and Social Science Weekly… It’s Black Tuesday! On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. We are now stuck in the 1930s and will be working to report on the CRASH and the effect it has had on our country. Students will work in STEM and writing class to create newspaper articles and live reports from banks, food pantries, and the side of the road. Ask your student about patterns in shadows and the length of the day. Next week your student will find out what system s/he will be designing in Mission 5. Just a reminder… When kids bring candy and gum to school, we often end up with a sticky mess in our classrooms! Please have your child choose a non-candy dessert and save the gum for home. Also, drinks and snacks (like hot Cheetos) with bright red dye often cause stains on shirts, skin, carpets, and other places. Please avoid sending drinks or snacks that are artificially colored red. Thursday, September 10, 2015 Grandparents’ Day 2015 is Monday, September 14. Please encourage your child’s grandparents to stop by and visit. They will be able to spend time in your child’s classroom and lunchroom for the day. Our lunch is at 12:15. Band and Strings at BTW! Please be advised that if your child has signed up for either band or strings during the school day, they are responsible for all work assigned during the time they miss. It is our desire to have students participate in these activities, and our first concern is that students keep up with the regular classroom assignments. Students that play instruments are required to write assignments in their planners and make sure they have all the necessary materials to complete assignments at home. Please make sure you’re reading your child’s planner each night for assignments. This is our way of communicating daily work and completion for assignments. Strings class meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:45-9:25 in the 3rd grade piazza. Students need to come to their homerooms first and then go to strings. Please make sure strings students arrive at school no later than 8:40 so they have time to take care of attendance and lunch count and then go to strings by 8:45. Strings students should plan to make up the writing and ELA assignments they miss as homework. Band class is from 11:35 - 12:05 on Mondays and Wednesdays in the music room. Instruments will be stored on the stage in the gym, so please remind your band student to drop off their instrument before coming to the STEM lab in the mornings. Band students should make up for missed classroom time by reading for an additional 30 minutes at home on Mondays and Wednesdays, for a total of 1 hour on those days. STEM and Social Science Weekly… Please ask your child about the different lessons they are learning about in school daily. We are excited that our students are able to move from class to class during STEM to learn different aspects of our history and science daily. This is our first way of introducing middle school procedures to our students. They are responsible for getting to class on time with the materials needed for the class and taking notes. Students are excited about the move! Ask them about the lesson they learned each day to help keep you informed of what we are doing here at BTW in the 5th grade pre-middle school activities. Please check and sign your student’s planner daily so you and your student are both aware of assignments and important due dates. Thursday, September 3, 2015 No school on Monday, September 7 for Labor Day. Hot Days… Cool Classrooms! These hot days lead to thirsty kids! Please have your child bring in a water bottle that s/he can keep in class. We like to go outside for lessons when we can. Please make sure your child is wearing comfortable uniform clothing for the weather. On the flip side, our classrooms can get extremely chilly (or stay warm!). Layers are best. Please have your child bring a uniform sweatshirt - plain navy or white with no writing, logos, designs, patterns, or pictures. Ask Your Fifth Grader About… Mission 5! The Roaring Twenties! Being a water molecule! About Those Progress Reports If your student has missing work, please have him/her check the extra copies bin in his/her classroom. If no copies are available, s/he should write the teacher a note, email, or text requesting a copy. Please check and sign your student’s planner daily so you and your student are both aware of assignments and important due dates. Band and Strings Mr. Brown and Mrs. McDonald have received the band and strings forms turned in by last Thursday. Mrs. McDonald has already met with prospective strings students; strings information was sent home Monday. Mr. Brown will see students Thursday and Friday to try out instruments. He will send home information soon. Regular band and strings instruction will start soon. Thursday, August 27, 2015 No school on Friday, August 28 for School Improvement Planning (SIP meetings) STEM Update We finished our bridge building exercise by going through the rest of the Booker T. Washington engineering cycle. Additional pictures will be posted in the newsletters section of the fifth grade website (btw5th.weebly.com) by Friday. In fifth grade, students rotate through both science and social science instruction at the same time, so that each student receives instruction in both the science and social science unit every week. Our next two units are Mission 5 and the Great Depression. In Mission 5, students are challenged to design a spaceship that allows them to survive for 20 years and explore a distant solar system. We have introduced Mission 5 to students; please ask your student about it! Our study of the Great Depression includes a wide variety of primary sources, video documentary clips, readings, and simulations. Due to the nature of this topic, some of the content is intense; students will read and hear about people whose lives have been impacted by the events of this time. To help expand students’ background knowledge, we are reading aloud Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. This book, which is part of the 5th grade curriculum resources district-wide, realistically depicts life in Dust Bowl-era Texas. It also includes a scene in which the main character’s life is devastated by a fire. Our focus is on everyday heroism: how do ordinary people face and overcome difficult circumstances? Weekly Progress Reports Your student’s first weekly progress report has been copied on the back side of this newsletter for students in Ms. Mayer and Ms. Skibo’s homerooms. Please examine it and discuss it with your child, then sign and return the bottom portion. Mrs. Comer’s husband had to go to the hospital Wednesday night and so she is out of school for the rest of this week. Mr. Comer will be fine, and Mrs. Comer will send out weekly progress reports when she returns next week. Thursday, September 17, 2015 Open House Tuesday, September 22 No School Wednesday, September 23 We are excited about our Open House! BTW’s annual Open House will be next Tuesday, September 22 from 6:30-7:30. We would like to show off our school and work your child has done in school this year. Please try to attend. STEM and Social Science Weekly… It’s Black Tuesday! On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. We are now stuck in the 1930s and will be working to report on the CRASH and the effect it has had on our country. Students will work in STEM and writing class to create newspaper articles and live reports from banks, food pantries, and the side of the road. Ask your student about patterns in shadows and the length of the day. Next week your student will find out what system s/he will be designing in Mission 5. Just a reminder… Lunch When kids bring candy and gum to school, we often end up with a sticky mess in our classrooms! Please have your child choose a non-candy dessert and save the gum for home. Also, drinks and snacks (like hot Cheetos) with bright red dye often cause stains on shirts, skin, carpets, and other places. Please avoid sending drinks or snacks that are artificially colored red. Thursday, August 20, 2015
Welcome! Yesterday was a fun first day! Ask your child about building bridges in STEM class to practice the BTW Engineering process. Next week, you will also receive your student’s first weekly progress report. ABC Book By now you’ve probably had a chance to read through the ABCs of Fifth Grade with your fifth grader. Please keep this book for future reference; the ABC Book is also available on this website. All three of our personal cell phone numbers are listed under C for communication. Please feel free to text, call, or email us before 8 PM. Lunch When kids bring candy and gum to school, we often end up with a sticky mess in our classrooms! Please have your child choose a non-candy dessert and save the gum for home. Also, drinks and snacks (like hot Cheetos) with bright red dye often cause stains on shirts, skin, carpets, and other places. Please avoid sending drinks or snacks that are artificially colored red. MAP Testing We will begin MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing next week. Students will take the math test on Tuesday and begin reading testing on Wednesday. This will allow us to get to know your child academically right away. |
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Bridge Building Team Engineering Exercise The task: Work with a small group to build a bridge that spans 10 inches and can support the most weight. Your only supplies? Your team, 20 straws, and a pair of scissors! The bridges built by these six teams passed the challenge. Each of them was able to support not only the weight of our testing bucket, but also a number of pennies. The strongest bridge only collapsed under the weight of the plastic bucket and 123 pennies!
MAP Testing Update! Our testing window has been moved back slightly; students will take math on Wednesday and reading on Thursday. |