It is so hard to believe we only have this week and half of next until Thanksgiving Break! Please remember students will be dismissed on Wednesday, November 27 at 11:55 a.m. for the long holiday weekend. School will resume Tuesday, December 3.

If you have not yet logged in to Veracross to see your student’s report card and comments, please do so. Your child now receives letter grades for all core subjects. It is important that students understand how their daily homework, classwork, and assessment grades affect their overall letter grade this year rather than next year in middle school. You should have received an email from Mrs. Estes on Friday with directions for accessing the report card. If you need help logging in to your Parent Portal, please let us know. 

Along the lines of grades and report cards, please help us support your child by signing their agenda each night after looking to see that they have completed their homework. The homework we assign is not lengthy or difficult. Many times, when we sign off on students’ agendas in the morning, we find agendas are signed even though homework is not complete.  As we discussed with the class during our morning meeting today, it is not necessary for you to check for accuracy, but we would like homework to be completed before they ask you to sign their agenda. Thank you so much for holding our students accountable with this.

Here’s what we have planned in our classes between now and Thanksgiving Break:

Reading: This week, we’re recapping last week’s eight chapters of Holes in a slightly different way than before; your students will be acting the chapters out for each other, giving their own personal spin on the main events we read about. Much of today was spent on the limitations, angles, and opportunities each group has with their material, as well as rehearsal time. We aim to have each of the groups present for their homerooms tomorrow, allowing us then to smoothly move onto the selected chapters for this week.

Additionally, in the same groups, the students will be collaborating on a project that allows them to research various peach-themed recipes and come up with their own new spin. In Holes, one of the characters was “small-town famous” for her spiced peaches. This research/creative project will not only allow each group to add a new layer to the story, but it also may result in some tasty treats before we head off for Thanksgiving.

Lastly, we’ll be introducing the concept of irony (and its variants) and applying it to the major events and locales of the story. Holes is simply teeming with irony, and while many of the students have picked up on some of its various absurdities and misnomers, I’d like to focus on extracting these moments so that we can work through their implications before we finish the book next week.

Math: This week we are continuing to work on solving word problems. We are building on this skill by writing expressions and equations that represent these word problems. Students are beginning to grasp the concept of using variables in place of unknown values. When given the value of a variable, students are learning they can substitute that value in for the variable in order to evaluate the expression. Many students have enjoyed seeing the trajectory of math ahead of them as we have solved a few tougher equations. We have also reviewed the commutative and associative properties (of addition and multiplication), as well as the distributive property. These mathematical properties will serve as basic tools in students’ toolboxes not only in mental math, but also as variables become more prevalent in students’ future math work. As a former middle school math teacher, it is exciting to see students constructing an understanding of basic algebraic foundations.

Science: We are wrapping up our scientific method unit this week with a quiz on Friday. Students will be given a list of terms they must be able to define, identify, and use in context in order to help them study. Please know, one of the questions will be to place the six steps of the scientific method in order. All concepts should be found within the science section of their binders. Next week we will do a few fun activities to discuss safety as well as learn some of the names for common tools used in science.

S.T.E.A.M.

This past Friday the class was given a challenge to work in groups to create a marble run that could reach the length of their tables using only paper towel cardboard rolls. It was so fun to see the kids attempting this team building S.T.E.A.M. exercise! Although no team officially conquered the challenge, it was a good way for them to see firsthand the importance of listening to each other and working together. We are looking forward to challenging them again soon, and we are especially excited to see their teamwork grow throughout the year!

Have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Kimberly & Tim

Trimester 2 started this week. Please look for an email from Mrs. Estes Friday afternoon regarding how to access to your child’s report card. In fifth grade, report cards include letter grades and are posted on Veracross. They can be printed or saved as a PDF for your records.

Wow! This year is really flying by; I wish it would slow down! Surely I am not the only one thinking this! Right?

Please read below to hear what has been going on in our classes this week.

Reading: In addition to reading up to Chapter 40 in Holes (we’re in the final stretch!), we’ve been focusing on some of our writing and grammar work this week. Specifically, the students have been reviewing compound sentences, as well as learning to identify coordinating and subordinate conjunctions. Though some of this will feel rather familiar to your students, being able to rely on acronyms like FANBOYS (for coordinating) and WASABI U (for subordinate) will make conjunctions far easier to remember and use in their own writing. We’ll wrap up our work with these concepts this week and use what we’ve practiced in a way that connects back to our reading in Holes.

The other big note to be aware of is that your students will be showing you their second Holes Reading Quiz from last week. This quiz had a lot more parts involved than the first (such as key vocabulary, themes, and symbolism), but by and large, the students did remarkably well with each of the new components. You should expect your student to show you the quiz and ask for your signature (along with their agendas and reading logs, of course). We’ll have one more Reading Quiz with the final chapters of Holes, but based on what I’ve seen with these, then they’ll be more than ready to dig up the answers.

Math: This week in math we have been moving from evaluating order of operation problems to writing them. Earlier in the year several students were questioning whether or not math is a language. This week we are proving that it is by translating words into numerical and algebraic expressions. This requires thinking through what is actually being asked, and in what order the symbols and numbers need to be placed. We are discovering the importance of parentheses, and learning that subtraction and division are not commutative. The properties we are discussing this week (commutative, associative, distributive) play a big role in algebra. When we are only dealing with numbers properties like the commutative property of addition basically just make expressions easier to evaluate. However, in algebra, properties allow us to simplify expressions and solve equations. Our class discussions have even led us to think about negative numbers, as well as the point of math or history beyond memorizing dates or procedures.

Science: As we continue our unit on the scientific method, we have been focusing on the two different types of data (qualitative vs. quantitative), as well as the difference between observations, inferences, and opinions. We will close out the week identifying independent and dependent variables within an experiment, and using them to write a clear hypothesis. We will most likely have our first science quiz of the year on Tuesday, so please keep an eye on your child’s agenda for confirmation.

Have a great rest of the week and stay warm!

Kimberly & Tim

Halloween was a little wild and fun as usual. It is always so great to see the whole school come together to embrace the craziness and strut their stuff during the parade. We are excited to have a fairly “normal” week this week.

Please remember there is no school on Monday, November 11. The second trimester will begin Tuesday, November 12, and information regarding access to student report cards should be coming out from all Lower School teachers toward the end of next week. If you have not yet accessed your Veracross parent portal, you might want to search your email for information from Terri Kuckuck, our network administrator, with directions and your login information.

Here’s what we have in store this week in our academic classes:

Reading: This week, we’ve been working with a smaller chunk of Holes (albeit one with quite a cliffhanger) in order to prep the students for their last quiz of the trimester. For this quiz, they’ll need to be familiar with the main events from chapters 16-32; a vocabulary list compiled by the students themselves; and be able to recognize and explain relevant literary terms (such as setting, themes, and symbolism) from these chapters. As the students prepare themselves, they may ask you to help with flashcards or other effective studying techniques–we definitely invite and encourage the help!

Lastly, a number of students are opting to memorize a poem to recite in class over the next two weeks. This is a purely optional task, but we’re so glad to see that a majority of our students are taking the initiative to give this a try. As they practice and commit the lines, rhymes, and imagery to memory over the next several days, we’re sure they’d love to have you and your family as preliminary audiences.

Math: While a few students are still wrapping up their work with long division, we are charging ahead this week as we conquer the order of operations. I challenged the students today to ask the adults in their lives what comes to mind when they hear “order of operations”. My suspicion is the first thing that will pop into everyone’s head (if you have grown up in the United States) would be “P.E.M.D.A.S.” or “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”.

That mnemonic device was ingrained in my head for so many years. I doubt I am alone! We had a good time talking about several problems that have gone around on social media over the past few years. This problem caused a discussion with myself and a handful of other adults that occupied us during a stressful time for well over an hour. What answer do you get? Check with your children to hear what all the confusion is about!

I must also point out that I have noticed many students struggle with organizing their work neatly, with labeled problem numbers, in a very orderly fashion on a sheet of notebook paper. While the mathematics lesson is important, the ability to successfully master this organizational skill is crucial. It will serve them well in sixth grade math and beyond as they have to prove and show steps in algebra and beyond.

Science: This week in science we are continuing our unit on the scientific method. We started a lab on Friday which we completed today. The rest of this week we will focus on understanding the difference between scientific observations, inferences, and opinions. A key component of understanding scientific observations will be differentiating between qualitative and quantitative observations.

Have a wonderful rest of this week!

Kimberly & Tim