September 24th Newsletter

5^th Grade Newsletter
Mrs. Sandusky’s Class

Important Dates:

·         9/19- Grades went home

·         9/27- Memorial Library Visit

·         9/27-Kindergarten Fall Fling (5^th grade selling concession items for DARE)

·         9/28- No school/ PD Day

·         10/3- DARE starts

10/12- 1st quarter ends

Monday	music 2
Tuesday	Computers
Wednesday	PE 2
Thursday	music 1
Friday	art

ELA (Sandusky)- Reading groups are going great! Students are doing a fabulous job about managing their time and activities that go along with their books. Each group has chosen a historical fiction, so ask your child about the time frame that their book takes place in. Each group will be getting a presentation shortly from a retired history teacher, or our cadet teacher about the historical context of their book. We are beginning Unit 2 this week, and it will continue for the next 6-7 weeks. Our essential question is ‘How does creativity change the word?’. Later in this unit students will be choosing an inventor, doing research on this inventor, and create a paper and presentation on him/her.
This week we will be focusing on verb tense, our read aloud; The Phantom Tollbooth, and our critical thinking questions in our reading groups. Spelling words will stay the same, because last week I forgot to give the kids their list on Wednesday! An extra week of practice!
Spelling Words:
List 4
earthquakes
eat
use
user
heat
seat
take
shake
quake
skate
reuse
earth
eater
heater
reseat
retake
skater
shaker

ELA(Shultz)- This week is a 4 day week for students--don't forget! We are wrapping up our Diagnostic Reading Assessments (DRAs) and beginning a new ELA unit. This unit is called Renaissance Thinking and asks the essential question "How does creativity change the world?" We will be reading about some of the Renaissance thinkers and studying historical fiction. New word study letters are coming home in the red folders. We are still looking at the re and er. As we wrap up the week, we will be completing the grading of our opinion paragraphs and sending those home in next week's red folders to officially wrap up Unit 1. Students should be at 65% of their AR goal by the end of this week. 

 SCIENCE: This week we will begin our Nature Unleashed unit. We will be outside almost everyday for the next few weeks, weather permitting, so make sure your child is dressed for the weather each day. Students should be bringing home their results from the Body Systems Test in the Red Folders today.

Math: We are only here for FOUR days this week- we are going to be busy, busy in math! We are going to continue working with Order of Operations!