Week #3

Happy Labor Day everyone!

We will be having a short week for the first week of September, but we will still be VERY busy!

We will have MAP testing starting the end of this week and continuing throughout the month of September.

Last week the students had their hearing checked. All were sent home with a paper saying how this screening went.

I wanted to take a moment to explain homework in my classroom because I sent home homework for the first time last week and was met with mixed reactions. I want to emphasize that in this classroom I do NOT take homework for a grade except in very special circumstances. In my opinion, it is unfair for the students when it is taken for a grade because I do not know how much help, if any, the students get from other members of the family. If they do receive help that is fine - I would like them to ask for help if they do not understand. On the other hand, if one student does it all by themselves and does not do well, I do not think it is fair that another student who received a lot of help from a family member would be graded on the same scale. So in the future if your child does not understand a question and does not finish it, I will not freak out about it count it against them because I want them to ask questions if they did not understand. If nobody asks questions and they get all of the answers correct, I will assume they understood the material and move on rather than taking one more day to go over materials many students obviously did not understand. Of course if they keep coming to school with their homework not finished I might question it.... Thank you for your patience and understanding as we figure this all out together!

ELA

Reading - Last week we began reading The Westing Game, one of my favorite mystery novels. We discussed genre, characters, and vocabulary, and even though we are only a few chapters in the students are already trying to guess who the murderer is going to be! We will continue reading this story out loud and begin focusing on character analysis, including physical and personality traits of each character, major vs. minor characters, protagonists and antagonists, and comparing and contrasting characters with graphic organizers. Students will also begin writing in a "Reading Journal" everyday except Fridays when I will collect them.

Writing - On Friday I will be going over the format I would like the students to follow for our Weekly Essay that will begin next week.  We will do one together, and then I will give them a topic to write about for the following week. I have told them in class this will not be homework as long as they use their time wisely in the classroom.

Language - Last week we focused on forming complete sentences and the types of sentences (declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory). This week we will keep the focus on sentences by learning about subject and predicate.


Social Studies

Geography is still the focus for this first chapter. Last week we looked at states, regions, countries, and continents. This week we will be looking at latitude and longitude, landforms, and bodies of water in the United States.

Science

We are still looking at Earth and Space (one of my favorites!). Last week we performed some activities looking at the rotation of Earth and how it causes night and day, as well as the effect it has on the time zones around the world. This week we will be looking at more changes the rotation causes including the length of shadows throughout the day, and then go into phases of the moon. There will be a quiz on everything we have learned so far either late this week or early next week!

 
As a final note, I was appalled to hear about bullying that was occurring with a student in a lower grade by numerous students throughout the school. While I do not believe any of the students in our classroom were involved I would like to emphasize to the students that it is never acceptable to treat another human being in this way. I have zero tolerance in my classroom for any of this kind of behavior, so I will be going over this with the students once more this week. We want to be Bucket Fillers in our classroom, not Bucket Dippers!

Thank you so much and have a wonderful week!

Mrs. Perkins
Fifth Grade Teacher
Seneca East Elementary