October 8th Newsletter

5^th Grade Newsletter
Mrs. Sandusky’s Class

Important Dates:

·         10/10- DARE starts

·         10/13- Old Iron Works Day (go learn some local history!)

·         10/15-10/18- Parent Teacher Conferences

·         10/19- NO SCHOOL

·         10/23-24; 5^th Grade Field Trip

Monday	Art
Tuesday	PE 1
Wednesday	Music 2
Thursday	Computers
Friday	PE 2

ELA (Sandusky)-
If you meet with me for Parent Teacher Conferences your confirmation notes with your scheduled time have been sent out! If you need another one, just shoot me an email (bsandusky@stjschools.org) or write me a note. I tried to give everyone their ‘first place’ choice, but it was on a first come, first serve basis for the popular times. J Book Orders are due tomorrow, they were sent home Friday with students. For every book purchased, we earn points that help us build our classroom library!

This week we will be working on Subject/Verb agreement, writing a story from a wordless picture book (how images play important roles in literature), and we will also be choosing a famous inventor to later be writing a research paper on. You can let your child get online at home and check out some sites to help them make their decision!
Spelling Words:
List 6
quarterbacks
set
seat
rest
back
bake
baker
truck
track
trace
skate
skater
tracer
backer
tracker
trucker
quarter
setback
backrest
backseat
***October 12^th is the last day for students to take AR tests and reach their goal.

ELA(Shultz)- We have a full week ahead of us! Students will not bring home new spelling words this week, because we will be working with the past 4 lists and with adding the prefix "re" and the suffixes "er" and "est." On Thursday, we will have a quiz to test our understanding of these prefixes and suffixes. STAR testing will continue for our ELA students as we look to see growth in students over the first quarter. 5th grade students will begin a research project on inventors during this unit, so our class will be looking at inventors throughout history and considering one to focus on for a research project (each student will choose his own). First quarter AR ends on Friday, so please help me to encourage your student to bring home reading--if she isn't already. Our new focus for grammar is verb tense, and we will continue with this focus throughout the next few weeks. There are so many things to cover! Have a great week, and as always, contact me with any questions or concerns at kshultz@stjschools.org.

 SCIENCE: Today we went to the park to compare pond ecosystems.  We will be researching schoolyard birds and making bird feeders from recycled goods, so students may bring in materials to use on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Friday we will take a quiz over Lesson 2, pages 4-9. The quiz will be the last grade for the quarter.
EXTRA CREDIT:  Students can design a poster to illustrate their home or neighborhood ecosystem.  Due by Friday.

Math: In math this week we will be starting Unit 2 which will begin with multiplication patterns and multiplying sets of numbers ending in zeros.  We will also be focusing small group instruction to meet the needs of the areas that each student missed on his/her post assessment from Friday. This will include missed items from numerical expressions (i.e. 6 less than 10 = 10 - 6), Order of Operations, and writing sequences for a given rule (i.e. rule add 3 =  0, 3, 6, 9, 12).

Students took a post-assessment on Friday, but you might notice that tests are not in your child's red folder.  We are keeping the tests for a short time so that we can use them as instructional items to help your child work through the missed problems