August 13, 2012

5^th Grade Newsletter
Mrs. Sandusky’s Class

Important Dates:

·         8/13- School Library Visit

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

ELA (Sandusky)-
This week we will be starting Unit 1 in ELA (English Language Arts). Our first project is a biopoem, students will be choosing a famous scientist and creating poem from a format provided for them. If you’d like to see it, go to www.stjschools.org, click on elementary, fifth grade, and then my name/picture, if you’d like a more direct route you can also type in www.mrssandusky.weebly.com. Once you’ve gotten to my site, click on Curriculum Resources and you can see a variety of resources we will be using for this unit. Students will also be starting spelling, daily language, and non-fiction reading this week. Daily Language and spelling are a large part of their Language grade. Monday-Wednesday we do DL (daily language) together, and Thursday-Friday they do it independently for a grade. Their nonfiction reading will differ from week to week, it is due on Friday and will be part of their Reading Grade. Spelling is a little different this year. On Mondays students will be given a strip of letters. From the strip of letters they then create different words. They will have a special spot in their notebook to do this. On Tuesdays (at the end of the day) I will provide students a list of all the words that can be created and I will then put that on my website also. Students can come and get a list from my room, but I won’t be seeking any students out to assure that they have the list. We will also be setting AR goals and levels this week.

Spelling Letters for the week: a, e, e, o, l ,m n ,r s, t, w

ELA(Shultz)- Welcome to our first full week of school! I hope that your student has told you all about the "getting to know you" activities we completed last week and that he or she is excited about English/Language Arts (ELA) this year. The first week of school is the perfect time to dive in to a short research project, writer's notebooks, independent reading time, and a PRE-test on poetic devices! Our research project will begin with each student (or pair of students as needed) choosing a famous scientist or inventor from a group of books in our room. We will use these books, coupled with an internet resource to complete a biopoem about the chosen person. You can see the biopoem on my class website under Week 1.    www.mrsshultzsclasswebsite.weebly.com  Each student will receive his reader's and writer's notebook this week and we will discuss effective ways of journaling, taking class notes, writing down ideas, and other methods of writing throughout the year. Our first library visit is Monday, so we will move into our reading goals immediately. Finally, we will begin looking at figurative language next week, so I will give students a pre-test on poetic devices at the end of the week to determine what we need to review and learn new.

Our class will not begin our spelling program until the week of the 20th and I am really excited to get the kids sorting words and learning about word formation in a whole new way! No more cramming for Friday spelling tests on Thursday night! Please feel free to email me or contact me with concerns or even what your educational goals are for your student this year. Our classroom is all about differentiating instruction for individual students! Have a great week~

SCIENCE:  This week we will be working with the Scientific Method.  We are planning to do an EGG DROP activity on Friday and need students to bring materials from home to protect their egg, so please send any material your child wants to use before Friday.  Please do not buy any supplies for the egg drop.  Simply look for household items that could protect the egg.

Math: Students will be working with division, multiplication, and area over the next two weeks while with Mrs. Meurer. Students will be learning through centers and small group instruction. Both math classes will be piloting an online Math Program called "Khan Academy". This program allows students to work at his/her own pace and teachers can monitor progress and set individual goals along the way. We are launching into this program this week! Over the next two weeks while with Mr. Siders, students will be working on multiples, factors, perimeter, standard form and word form of decimals, and adding and subtracting decimals.