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Hello Families,
We know this is a unique and challenging time for all of us. We would like to take this opportunity to fill you in on things we know so far today. 1. Please notify me as soon as possible if you do NOT have Internet access. All fifth graders will be given a school-issued Chromebook next week to assist with distance learning after March 27th. More information will be given about how to receive the Chromebook. 2. Students do not need to complete any e-learning lessons or activities from now through March 27. We will be planning as teachers during this time, in the event that we need to implement distance learning. March 30th would be the first day your child would need to log on to complete daily work if school is not in session. We will send you further information about distance learning when we have finished our planning. Our goal is to continue to provide quality instruction during this time. 3. Students will be picking up all of their belongings from school tomorrow at their assigned time, including: all textbooks, workbooks, notebooks, etc. which will be needed during distance learning. They should bring their backpacks, as well as several bags if they have snow gear or other personal items. Their locker should be completely cleared out. Supplies from the classroom have already been placed inside their lockers, and report cards and other papers will also be found in the lockers. 4. Students are able to keep their library books if they would like them. If they have finished library books, they should return them to school. I will allow students to check library books out from my classroom library. Mr. Feldewerd and Ms. Eibensteiner will also have their classroom libraries available. As you know, information is constantly changing. As we become aware of new information, we will be in contact with you. Please check your email regularly and watch for updates. Please reach out with any specific questions you may have. Thank you for your continued support of your child during this time. As February comes to an end I would like to give you some updates for the remainder of the year. As you are all aware, with an expected due date of March 26, I will not be returning this school year. Kathy Jacobs, a former 5th grade teacher, will be my long-term substitute. Ironically, Kathy was my fifth grade teacher when I attended Albany Elementary :) She has many years of experience and is familiar with Albany Elementary as she is still an active substitute teacher in our district. Please help Mrs. Jacobs with her transition into my classroom. Kathy will be using my email and school phone number. I will have access to my email as well; however, responses will be sent from Kathy during her time in the classroom. Though she is an experienced teacher, Kathy will modify things to fit her teaching style which is expected of her. This can be a struggle for any student, please help your child understand that. Spelling Words: Our weeks were laid out a little funky for spelling words the last couple of weeks. I gave NEW spelling words today and we will test on them Wednesday, March 4. There will be no new words until the beginning of the next week to get back on a Monday-Friday schedule. Your child has Google Spelling Vocabulary to complete as an independent practice assignment, due the morning of March 4th Upcoming Items/Events Trimester 2 ends on March 6th. I will have all grades posted by March 12th and report cards will be sent home sometime that week. Reminder that your child's nightly assignment is to READ. They are to complete 10 chapter books of their choice by the end of each trimester. We began Unit 4 Week 3 in our Reading Wonders Curriculum. Our focus is Author's Point of View, Prefixes/Suffixes, and Biographies. We will be focusing on historical figures throughout the course of the next seven days. After wrapping up Unit 4 Week 3 we will have to more units in our reading curriculum Unit 4 Week 4 and Unit 5 week 3. Then, our reading block will turn into literature circles where students are choosing from a variety of book titles with their peers. This will take up the majority of April as we will throw in MCA testing, no school days, and other events added to our calendar. Our Poetry Unit will wrap up next week ending with a Poem called 100% Me. All poems will be typed, printed and binded together hopefully by the week of March 9. Once we are done with our Poetry Unit we will dive right into our final writing assignment which will be a biography that goes along with the Wax Museum that happens in May. I am reconstructing my calendar on my weebly page where I will have all upcoming dates available. However, watch for reminders and date changes from Mrs. Jacobs as these events get closer. https://spohnsuperiors.weebly.com/ Also, refer to our 5th grade website http://albanyfifthgrade.weebly.com/ for updates and due dates as well. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns as I am more than happy to answer them. There was a bit of a mix up in spelling words this week and I wanted to touch base with you so you know what to expect next week. After reviewing spelling words with the class yesterday I realized that we were not quite ready to take the test as the words were homographs and many students were not catching on to the two meanings for each word. So, we will be taking the test on either Monday or Tuesday of next week. With that being said, I have attached a new clean copy of the twenty spelling words with the definitions we discussed in class. Mind you, I only focused on one of the two meanings of the word. They do not have to use this meaning if they already had an idea in mind for a sentence. For example, minute means 60 seconds, but can also mean small. Please find time for them to study their words so that they are confident in next week's spelling words. They will not get spelling words next week.
Also, please help them memorize their poems for ELA class so they are ready to present. I had mentioned that we would spend the majority of the day presenting on March 6th, but unfortunately we will not be switching for ELA on March 5th or March 6th so that means EVERYONE will be presenting by March 4th. I have had several students say they would be ready to present next week. That's awesome! We will definitely allow for class time to present, they also will be allotted the two extra credit points that I promised them! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, I would be happy to answer! Updates for 5th Grade!
A field trip form for next week's trip to the play Akeelah and the Spelling Bee was sent home today. PLEASE return by Thursday of this week. Reading: We are into Unit 4 Week 1 which will focus on tall tales, point of view, synonyms and antonyms. Our comprehension test will be next Tuesday. In the meantime we will explore the tall tale: Davy Crockett Saves the World Language Arts: Thank you for helping your child finish their alphabet alliteration poem over break. I have a few students who need to finish those so that they can get them typed. There will be no Google Spelling Word Work or Vocabulary this week for homework. We will be completing them together in class. The test will be this Friday. Reminder as well that your child is working on memorizing a poem. Please help them with this task. We will be reciting them starting the first week in March. I will have a sign-up sheet for them to choose a day. Math- We started work with fractions, decimals and percents. Today we focused on prime factorization which will help tomorrow with reviewing LCM-Least Common Multiples. Social Studies- There next test is scheduled for February 25th. The studying for this should have started with looking over nightly notes, making note cards and other strategies to remember the information. Science-They were introduced to their Biomes project today. Ask about it! As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Hello!
Welcome to February, I cannot believe that we are through the month of January. February is I Love to Read Month. One of my biggest goals this year and in upcoming years is to instill a love for reading text of choice in all of my readers. For I Love to Read month I challenge you to take some time and read text you love as well. This makes it easier on your child to read by example. I will be doing the same in class as they are reading text of their choice. In math we are focusing on Geometry. Identifying 3D Shapes, Sides, vertices, and edges of polyhedrons, perimeter, area, surface area of a net, and volume. We will take our next math test early next week on Language Arts: We are currently finishing up our prepositional houses that will be on display in the hallway as you come in for conferences. Our focus skill for spelling this week is prefixed words. Two sentences will need to use a prepositional phrase correctly. A prepositional phrase is adding on information about the location, time or movement of something. Example: We had to rewrap our grandma's birthday present after we found it chewed apart by the dog. After we found it is a time preposition. We will be moving into poetry tomorrow and focusing on different versions of poems to create our own poetry packets. Reading: Our expository text (nonfiction) is Winter's Tale which is the nonfiction story of the movie A Dolphin's Tale. We are focusing on main idea and key detail as we read and decipher the story together or with partners. We will be testing this coming Friday on two comprehensive stories. Their focus will be Main Idea/Detail and Latin Root Words. Reminder that conferences start this week, I copied the link below so that you can look at your date and time, if you are not signed up let me know if any available times work for you, I am flexible before and after school though so I can definitely accommodate to your needs. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040e4fada929a5f85-spring3 Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will head over to the B.E.A.T to watch the middle school play. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns Hello!
Thank you all for your participation in my data collection. I have had a great time introducing my students to blogging and allowing for them to communicate what goes on in the classroom home to you! With that said, here is how communication will look for the rest of the year. With my maternity leave approaching quick and trying to make it as easy as possible for my substitute teacher, I will be in charge of communication information home to you. I will start blogging on my weebly site again, click the link here: Spohn Superiors to get to my site. Your child's blog will be used more like a portfolio of work completed in class. This will be done randomly throughout the rest of the year, I will inform your child that it is their responsibility to let you know when their blog is updated. This way, when I do leave on maternity leave, my substitute will be able to use my blog/email to communicate happenings home to you. So here is my first, official blog back to you! Reading: We are working on realistic fiction, theme and context clues. We will be taking this week's comprehension test together on Thursday instead of independently. Spelling: Test on Friday. Google Spelling is Due by 8:30 Friday morning. Reminder that if your child does not have a way to get it done at home, they are more than welcome to stay in from either morning recess or reteach to complete their assignment. Winter Benchmark: On Wednesday of this week we will be taking the FAST Reading test. On Thursday will be the FAST Math test. These tests are designed to look at a student's individual growth. For my students going to Science Fest on Thursday, they will be completing their FAST Math on Friday when they return. Math: Today we were introduced to complementary and supplementary angles Complementary angles are two angles that when added together their sum equals a 90 degree angle. Supplementary are two angles that when added together equals a 180 degree angle. There was no math homework tonight as they finished it all in class. Science-- Test Tuesday of next week. Social- Test Wednesday (I will confirm that with Mr. Feldewerd) Yearbooks ordered by February 10th. Early Release: Jan. 17 No School: Jan 20 Absent Students: Thank you for letting me know your vacation dates and planned absences prior to your vacation! This makes planning so much easier for myself and the student. My goal is to assign the majority of the work they will be missing ahead of time. However, assignments that I know are going to be challenging or need more guidance from me, I will hang onto until after they return from vacation. This is for reading and math! I will get an idea of what Science and Social Studies expectations are. As always, questions or concerns send them my way! Hello! I know it is odd to see a Sunday blog being it's the weekend. However, I wanted to update you all on your child's blog. Thank you for taking the time to check your child's blog. They have been working really hard on getting them ready to go. By now most students have updated their pictures, if not, you will see a picture of them this week that we will take in the classroom. From here on out, your child will be blogging daily. The first couple weeks I wanted to make sure that we were getting through Typing Quest before focusing all of our time and efforts on blogging. Reminder that you an comment back to them on their blog with questions for me or them as we will respond the next day in class. You may also want to watch the photo section of your child's website as there will be more examples of student work visible on their site. It amazes me how tech savvy kids are! I haven't had to do much troubleshooting unless there has been some sort of internal issue with Weebly. Some of my students were concerned because they know the either added a picture or posted a blog and then they get home and it is no there. It is an easy fix, if that happens you or your child can email me and I'll jump on their accounts quick to update their blog. I think our issue is that the platform we are using is designed for Apple products and not Chromebooks.
As always, please let me know or you child know if you have any questions or concerns as I am still open to ALL communication! |
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April 2020
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