Grandparent's Day Photos

Cans, cans, cans!

We continue to accept cans and bottles all year long.  These help to fund all of our trips and fun things that we do.  On Wednesday of this week we walked to the car wash to collect cans.  It was a beautiful day and Ms. McAtee and I believe it is important for the students to do their part and contribute to all the activities we do. 

Gray Wolf Presentation

On Monday of this week, we enjoyed a presentation by Laverne Logan on gray wolves.  Laverne came from Western Illinois University and is a graduate of Mid-Prairie.  He has spent some time in Ely, Minnesota at the International Wolf Center tracking wolves and helping to raise wolf pups.  The kids were VERY interested and really enjoyed this presentation.  He told them to check out the link from the Wolf Center:  http://www.wolf.org/

Literacy

In writing, we are working to put the finishing touches on our informational reports.  Many students are finding graphics that support the text and creating a basic reference section.  Others are working on revising and editing with peers.  We hope to share these with grandparents on Grandparent's Day.

In reading this week our focus has been on fluency, specifically pausing when we come across a comma, semicolon, colon, etc.  We have put this skill to use when practicing our Reader's Theater, Tornado!, which we will aslo share on Grandparent's Day.  We also learned about idioms and discussed several examples. 

Please encourage your kiddos to keep reading at home!  Goals aren't due until January, but time seems to go quickly as we approach the holidays.  Happy reading!

Math

Our new unit is Fractions, Decimals, and Percents.  We actually will be spending the next several weeks on this topic as it is a huge part of the Iowa Common Core for Mathematics in 5th grade.  Simple activities like measuring and baking are a great way to practice these skills at home!  Double or halve a recipe for a batch of cookies. . .this would be a delicious way to practice using fractions!  Have the students help measure for a home improvement project.  Have your child help figure the tip the next time your family goes out for dinner.  Also, there are a few games on Everyday Math online that your child can practice at home.  Those games include Fraction Percent Concentration, Fract-Tac-Toe, Fraction Top-It, and Fraction Of.  Your child knows their necessary log in information to access the site. 

Mixtures and Solutions

This week we started our Mixtures and Solutions science unit.  We learned that a mixture is when two things are combined.  A solution is a special type of mixture in which a solute is dissolved in a solvent.  The three solid materials we worked with were gravel, powder, and salt.  We learned we could use a wire screen to separate the gravel and a filter to separate the powder, but we could not seem to separate the salt from the water so we will be taking a look at that next week.  The kids have loved the hands-on activities thus far!

FREE Thanksgiving Meal

Please Join us for a
    Free Community

 Thanksgiving Dinner

     Thursday, November 24th
          11 am – 1 pm

Hosted by:

     Holy Trinity Parish

         571 Howard Street

             Richmond, IA
 
Deliveries available in the Kalona area

For reservations, phone: Joyce Mattes
656-3276
by: Tues. 11/22

Dinner is Free. . .Donations will be given to local organizations helping local families.

Iowa Wildlife History

Pam Holz, Washington County Naturalist, was at school today to present the program Iowa Wildlife History.  Students learned about animals that were and are part of Iowa's history.

Reading

I did touch base with all students on their 2nd quarter reading goals today.  The genre goal for this quarter is fantasy OR historical fiction.  In large group reading we focused on the realistic fiction genre by identifying the characteristics of the genre and reading short and long examples of the genre.  In small group reading we finished up our informational books and the strategy focus of main idea and details.  Next week, we will move onto our fluency week and will work on pausing, specifically short pauses, while preparing our reader's theater, Tornado, for Grandparent's Day.

Veteran's Day

We have spent some time learning about military families and about veterans this week.  I read aloud the book H is for Honor, which is an alphabet book that describes different facets of the military.  We also created Veteran's Day cards, which Ms. Meier delivered to local nursing homes as well as the VA hospital in Iowa City.  Lastly, we had a Veteran's Day assembly on Thursday and were fortunate enough to have local veterans talk to our students. 



                                                       

Math

We tested on two division standards today--division with whole numbers and division with decimal numbers.  Units 5 and 6 will focus on fractions.  Along with division, fractions are a large part of 5th grade math.  The two standards we will be focusing on are:  I can add and subtract fractions AND I can solve fraction word problems.  Both of these will include like and unlike denominators. 

Raking Leaves

We had a beautiful morning to rake leaves!  All of the kids did a GREAT job--they were focused and worked the whole time.  Thank you to the City of Wellman for donating the leaf bags and for picking up full leaf bags from the homes where we raked.  Again, this fit perfectly with the pillars of character that we are discussing in health.

Informational Reports

Now that we have finished our research for informational reports, most students are in the drafting stage of writing.  A few students have wrapped up their draft and have moved on to editing and revising.  The last mini-lesson this week focused on including graphics.  More importantly, graphics that directly support the text that is written.  I hope to have these wrapped up by Grandparent's Day so the students can share them. 

Reading Goals

Just a reminder about reading goals. . .these sheets should have come home on the 27th of October.  I am still missing a few so please return these as soon as possible.  Goals are due on January 11th.  The genre goal for this quarter is fantasy OR historical fiction.  If you have any questions, please let me know!

Science/Health

The end of the quarter ended our first science unit, Sun, Moon, and Planets.  We are currently reading and learning about emotional and mental health in our health books.  We will continue this health unit until mid-November when our new science kit, Mixtures and Solutions, arrives.  The Mixtures and Solutions Module has five investigations that introduce students to fundamental ideas about matter and its interactions.  Last Friday I was in Cedar Rapids at Grant Wood learning about and exploring this science kit--the kids are going to love this one!

Division continues. . .

Division, including division with decimals, is an important standard in 5th grade math.  This week most of our time was spent on problems with two digit divisors and division with decimals.  Homework has started up again and this repeated practice will help students solidify this skill. 

Halloween Party

Our Halloween party committee did a super job of planning snacks and games--we had a lot of fun!  The kiddos enjoyed bobbing for apples, a Minute to Win It game, and lots of yummy food!  They even used our circuit set to set up a disco ball and did some dancing. There was also a dance off between Batman and Superman!

Writing--Informational Reports

We have concluded our research for our informational reports.  This week we tried to group our facts into categories which will naturally help us develop paragraphs as we begin to write.  Several of our mini-lessons focused on author's craft this week.  Some of these included:  using conversational language, using advanced nouns, and using questions to vary sentence structure and drive the text.