This Week in 5S

Here is what we will be doing this week in 5S:

• Last week's spelling test will be given in class on Monday. I gave the class some extra time to work on their A to Z books on Friday instead of taking the test.
• Everyone should be finished with their final copy of the A to Z book through the letter U by the time class begins on Monday.
• Open House is on Tuesday night from 6:30-8:30.  I hope to see you all.
• On Monday in class the kids are going to be writing a proposal for a new book report.  Their idea needs to include some sort of writing about the book and a visual.  I've decided to let the kids come up with their idea because everyone had such great ideas when we met as a class to come up with a group idea.  I will review and approve and/or modify all of the ideas on Monday before the kids come home from school. This individual or group project is going to be presented in class on 2-22. 
• In science we will continue to learn about the digestive system.  I have a few fun experiments planned to show the class how important smells are when tasting, we will learn about what different types of foods do for our bodies, and we will learn about how the tongue and teeth work together when we chew.  Ask your son or daughter about the lesson we learned on Friday about the importance of lips!
• Our time in reading and writing will be spent in the computer lab this week researching an event that changed the course of history.  Once each child finds an event that is of interest in the area of history, science, sports, entertainment, or even war, we will begin a very interesting project.  The class is going to make two time lines.  The first showing how history really evolved with all of the major events before and after the event selected, but then a parallel timeline will be created showing how the world might have been different if your son or daughter could go back in time to change the event.  Imagine if JFK would have lived because you stopped Oswald...what would the next few decades have been like?  Would the US have gone to war in Vietnam?  Would RFK have run for president and been killed like his brother?  The final project is going to include the two time lines showing what the world was like and how it would be different,  a written plan explaining how your son or daughter would actually succeed in stopping the event chosen, and a Prezi that shares all of the information.  If any of the parents out there are reading Steven King's new book 11-22-63 you'll understand the genesis of the idea.
• My math class will continue to learn about exponential notation, expanded notation, ISAT style math extended response writing, and we will be exploring line graphs and learning how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers.
• The kids will be reading a TFK this week and writing an extended response about honey bees and the mystery of colony collapse in the bee populations.
• I hope everyone has a great week!

Homework for the week of 1-30

Monday: 5S Math will need to go online to review some of the ISAT  math sample questions we reviewed in class today.  Share your book report proposal with your parents tonight.


Tuesday: Open House is tonight from 6:30-8:30 and 5S Math will have Study Link 7.6.


Wednesday: Tonight everyone has a few science questions to answer and 5S Math will bring home Study Link 7.7.


Thursday: The spelling test is tomorrow and 5S Math will bring home Study Link 7.8.


Friday: Keep reading your book for the book report which is due on 2-22-12.

Spelling for the Week of 1-30

Prefixes pre and pro


precede, ceramic
predict, opponent
prefer, resources
pretend, acquaintance
pretest, prearrange
prevent, prefix
preview, preparation
previous, preserve
proceed, presume
process, process
proclaim, profound
professional, productive
program, prohibitive
progress, aquarium
project, proportional
promise
pronunciation
property
propose
protect

Social Studies Extra Credit

This week on Monday and Thursday nights there are Republican debates in Florida between the 4 remaining candidates for President.  On Tuesday night President Obama will give the State of the Union Address.  Any student who watches one of these events and writes a page reflection that explains what they learned about our country and our political system will earn extra credit in social studies.  Yes...you can watch one of the debates and the State of the Union address and get double extra credit...but not all three.

Homework for the Week of 1-23

Monday: 4S Math will bring home the Family Letter for unit 7 and have Study Link 7.1.  The whole class will need to review for tomorrow's science quiz on electricity.  We will make the study guide in class for this essay quiz.

Tuesday: 5S Math has Study Link 7.2 tonight and everyone should be reading and logging their minutes.  Begin thinking about the new book report that will be due on 2-10.

Wednesday: 5S Math will bring home Study Link 7.3 tonight and some of you may want to work on the final copy of your A to Z book which is due on 1-31.

Thursday: Keep reading and logging your minutes and get ready for tomorrow's spelling test. 5S Math will bring home Study Link 7.4 tonight and everyone will have an 11 question TFK quiz as well. 

Friday: Enjoy the weekend and make sure you will have your A to Z books completed by Tuesday.

Spelling for the Week of 1-23

engineer, historian
dentist, performer
librarian, volunteer
director, disaster
customer, spectator
pioneer, electrician
counselor, custodian
tourist, aviator
scientist, chemist
visitor, philosopher
investigator, pharmacist
senator, comedian
astronomer, orator
character, veneer
refrigerator, genealogist
guardian
commander
physician
politician
leader

Spelling for the Week of 1-17

VCCV Words
pretty, determined
service, autobiography
thunder, disease
blanket, eternal
effort, composition
fellow, percussion
subject, malignant
perhaps, elastic
attack, silkworm
entire, signal
chimney, suburban
tunnel, warranty
effect, yielding
suspended, perfection
challenge, language
pretzel
survive
pillow
hunger
college

This Week in 5S

I hope that everyone is out enjoying the snow today!  Here is what we will be working on next week in 5S:

• There will be no school on Monday for the Dr. King Holiday.
• The permission form for the Robert Crown filed trip will come home on Tuesday.  Please send it back to school by the end of the week.  The trip is scheduled for February 10th.
• 5S Math will be finishing up unit 6 this week.  The class has been learning about adding and subtracting fractions along with data collection.  This week on Monday and Tuesday we will be reviewing fraction and data skills and using the clock to help with understanding fractions.  A study guide will come home on Thursday night for Friday's test.  The entire class period on Thursday will be spent reviewing everything we have learned.  The test will be taken on Friday.
• The Invention Open House will be on Friday morning.  All of the fifth graders will be browsing the creations and voting on one as their favorite.  The teachers will tally the votes and we will announce the winner of the Target gift card.  The kids will have some time in class to finish their work, but some students may need to put the finishing touches on at home.
• Our writing time this week will be spent completing the draft of our "All About me from A to Z" books.  I will be teaching mini-lessons on peer conferencing and sentence fluency. Everyone will need to finish their drafts over the weekend.
• Our grammar focus this week will be learning about pronouns and prepositions.
• Time in reading will be spent looking at a non-fiction story about the great forest fires at Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988.  The class will be working on writing thoughtful ISAT style extended responses.  On the ISAT these written answers make up 10% of the total reading score. The format of these answers will include answering the question with a blanket statement, finding all of the evidence in the text to support the answer and interpreting the evidence with a sentence that explains what it means, and a conclusion sentence that restates the answers using a synonym to avoid repetition.  We will be writing the answer as a class, but everyone will need to develop their own answer using a TFK on Thursday evening for homework.
• My flex group will be working on a project this week using the novels that we began last week.  The triads are going to be selecting the three characters from the books that would be most likely to get along.  The evidence for their choices will be pulled from the novels and turned into a collaborative essay that is due on Friday. There will be lots of great discussions this week!
• In science we will continue to learn about electricity, this week kids will be creating circuits and learning about insulators.

Homework for the Week of 1-16-12

Monday: No School.

Tuesday: The permission form for our field trip to the Robert Crown Center will come home tonight.  Please send it back to school by the end of the week. 5S Math will have Study Link 6.9 tonight and everyone needs to continue to read for a minimum of 20 minutes each night and log your times online.

Wednesday: 5S Math will bring home Study Link 6.10 tonight.  Keep reading as well!

Thursday: Tonight everyone needs to read the TFK on the top images of 2011 and write a thoughtful extended response answer to this question, "What was the picture you remember most from 2011 and why?" Remember the format that we have been learning at school and be sure to write between 10-12 sentences in your answer.  5S Math will bring home the study guide for the unit 6 test we will take tomorrow. The spelling test is tomorrow as well kids.

Friday: The draft of your "All About me from A to Z" book needs to be completed for Monday.

Lincoln and Kennedy Connections

I shared this information with the class on Thursday and they all wanted me to pass it on.  This is pretty spooky!

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.

John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.


Abraham Lincolnwas elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their Husbands while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln 's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln .

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Ford'.
Kennedy was shot in a car called ' Lincoln ' made by 'Ford.'
Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

Hill Course Selections

I wanted to let everyone know that the course selections for Hill are due on January 31st.  The kids will be bringing home the packets tonight, and there is a parent meeting on Wednesday evening @ Hill, 7:00 in the commons to share more information.

Welcome Back!

I hope that everyone had a great two weeks off and is ready to get back to work this week as we begin 2012. Here is what we will be working on:

• Administrators from Hill Middle School will be speaking to the fifth graders on Monday afternoon to explain the different options for schedules next year.  The kids will bring home information that needs to be reviewed at home and sent back to school by the end of the week.  A parent meeting is scheduled for 7:00 on Wednesday evening in the Hill commons to explain everything.
• Thanks to all the gift cards for local merchants that you shared with me we have a bunch of new books for the classroom.  I will share these with the class tomorrow!
• In science this week we will begin learning about static electricity with a variety of hands-on experiments.  Next week we will begin building circuits.
• The fifth graders will all be reading about the best new inventions of 2011 as selected by Time For Kids this week.  After reading and some discussion, kids will be creating their own inventions in class.  The inventions will be reviewed by classmates, anonymously, and voted on to reveal what the favorite invention for the grade level was.  The winning invention will earn a gift card for Target.
• During our writing time this week, the kids will begin a book titled All About Me from A to Z which will be completed by Open House at the end of the month. We will learn more about paragraphing, word choice, using the thesaurus, and mixing up sentence starters as this book is developed. Time will also be spent reviewing parts of speech which will lead into more complex grammar in the coming weeks.
• My flex group will begin new student-selected novels this week.  The kids will be put into triads to compare plots, author's style, and how suspense is created.
• This week we will also begin our school-wide bullying lessons.  Time will be spent learning about empathy and disrespectful behaviors.
• My math group will begin the week reviewing skills that were focused on before the break and then we will move into adding and subtracting fractions.  We will also learn more about data collection and methods of sharing data.
• There is NO SCHOOL this Friday and NO SCHOOL on Monday of next week.  Please check out the calendar on the side of the blog as I updated it to include all of the third quarter of school.
• Have a great week everyone,

Homework for the Week of 1-9-12

Monday: Tonight everyone will come home with a TFK on Mars and a two-sided activity to complete based on the reading.  5S Math will have a two-sided fraction review.

Tuesday: Many of you will have to complete the questions on static electricity we began today and 5S Math will bring home Study Link 6.6.

Wednesday: 5S Math will bring home a two-sided addition and subtraction of fractions practice activity.  The spelling test is tomorrow as well.

Thursday: 5S Math will bring home a two-sided addition and subtraction of fractions practice activity.

Friday: No School

Spelling for the Week of 1-9

This is the same spelling list from the week before break, but we ran out of time and the class did not take the test.  The spelling test will be given on Thursday this week.

capable, decorations

careless, reciting

desirable, memorized

admirable, tongue

restless, precious

available, agreeable

debatable, hopelessness

tasteless, changeable

helpless, approachable

senseless, acceptable

priceless, adorable

useless, profitable

reliable, valuable

undeniable, thoughtless

excitable, fruitless

believable

bottomless

comfortable

dampness

understandable

Happy Birthday Garrett!

Only one of my students this year had his birthday over our winter break, and that day was today. Happy Birthday Garrett!  If today were a school day I would have said it in person and not posted it on the blog, but since we are still on break, I had to say something! I hope you had a great day and that your basketball team did well in the tournament this weekend at my old high school, Glenbard West. From one Capricorn to another, happy 11th!

Young Authors

This information will come home tomorrow via backpack mail with the necessary forms.  Mr. Schumann

Young Authors Program - 2012

May Watts Elementary School

December 19, 2011

Dear Students and Parents,

May Watts will once again be participating in the YOUNG AUTHORS PROGRAM co-sponsored by the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Language and Literacy Council. It was designed as a celebration to honor exceptional writing by Illinois students in kindergarten through eighth grade. All children are encouraged to participate in the program by submitting an original story, essay or a collection of poems.

1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Place will be awarded at each grade level.  The overall school winner will be eligible to attend the Young Authors Conference at Illinois State University. The student will have the opportunity to work in small groups, sharing ideas with other young authors, educators, and noted children’s authors.  All District #204 Young Authors will receive participation ribbons to recognize their efforts. We will celebrate all of our Young Author participants at May Watts with a breakfast reception.

Dec. 19th             Information letters sent out, and posted on the May Watts’ website

Fri., Jan. 20th       Letter of intent to participate returned to LMC

Thurs. March 1^st      Final manuscripts must be submitted to the LMC

Fri., Mar. 17th       May Watts’ Young Author Conference participant is announced

April (date TBD)      In-school May Watts’ Young Author’s Celebration

Sat., May 19^th        The school winner attends the Illinois Young Author Conference at Illinois State University, Bloomington, IL

To be eligible for judging the entry must include:

§  A substantial cover with pages securely attached and a title page.

§  A rough draft

§  A detachable title page including the child's name, grade, and title of the book.  (This page will be removed for anonymous judging.)

Please follow these guidelines:

§  The final manuscript should reflect the student’s writing ability and developmental stage. (For example, an excellent kindergarten submission may use very basic language and may have grammatical errors.)

§  Dictated books may be typed or handwritten by an adult, but the language and voice should be the child’s own.

§  Illustrations are optional.

§  Only one entry per student will be accepted.

§  Two students may collaborate on a piece.

If your child plans to participate, please return the permission slip on page 3 to the LMC by Friday, January 20th.  Keep this page and the attached evaluation rubric for reference. If you have any questions, please email or phone me.

Sincerely,

Laurie May

May Watts LMC Director

laurie_may@ipsd.org

630-428-6707