What A Wonderful Wednesday

Congratulations to our Students of the Month! Each Language Arts teacher chose two students to win this award! Keep trying if you didn't get it this month, I know you can do it!

Way to go Jacob, Tyler, Chris, Elizabeth and Madi!
I'm proud of you!

LA: We had a great morning! We learned two new roots in Vocabulary Vine! It's been exciting to see the words we learned last year in 4th grade circle around and become part of our roots of words we are learning this year. It's certainly keeping us on our toes! We also had a great visit with our reading buddies this morning. To wrap up our morning, we enjoyed the video to go along with our read aloud.

HW: None

Math: We explored tessellations today! It was a lot of fun to see just what polygons can tessellate, and which ones can't.

HW: Math box 3.8 and tessellation pictures are due tomorrow

Social Studies: We enjoyed another visit from Officer Redman today. We learned about the dangers of smoking and using tobacco.

HW: Unit 1 test tomorrow. Journal entries are also due tomorrow.

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• Market Day order forms
• Newsletter from Mrs. Stephan
  

It's Good To Be Back!

I missed everyone yesterday! It's good to be back today!

LA: We spent some time adding two new roots into our Vocabulary Vine boxes this morning. We also took our Unit 1 reading test, which filled up the rest of our minutes together.

HW: There is no weekly homework this week! Hooray!

Math: Polygons! We spent some time learning about polygons this morning and then found different ways to sort them out. It was exciting and fun to hear about the different ways everyone chose to sort their polygons...one person even coming up with concave vs. convex! Awesome!

HW: Page 83, math box and study link 3.7 are all due tomorrow.

Social Studies: We played a Jeopardy review game today using the questions that everyone wrote in class and for homework last night. A journal entry was also assigned.

HW: Unit 1 test will be given on Thursday-the journal entry on page 7 in the Interactive Student Notebook is also due Thursday.

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• Afternoon Adventures information and sign up sheet
• October lunch menu
• Culvers Give Back Night Information
• A special 5th grader magazine
• Skate Night information
  

Think-A-Lot Thursday

We sure used our brains today!

LA: We had to rearrange a few things today due to tomorrow being "No Child Left Inside Day!" We completed three of our usual assessments and got them out of the way so we can enjoy our fun in the sun in the morning!

HW: Weekly homework is due tomorrow! Don't forget the parent's signature stating that your child has read the story out loud sometime during the week. Also-we still have quite a few people who haven't brought in their candy box yet. We need these next week for a writing project!

Math: We took another time out today to recap what we've been learning about and time to review the important skills we've covered.

HW: None

Social Studies: We had a great review of geography land forms today. We also added what we know into our Independent Student Notebooks. In addition to that, we read about the physical features of the United States and started to fill out the map in our notebooks about those topics as well.

HW: None-Chapter 1 test is next Thursday! It's never to early to start reviewing!

Don't forget that tomorrow is "No Child Left Inside Day!" Dress accordingly and wear tennis shoes!

Wise Choices Wednesday!

Another fantastic day rolled through Northpoint today! Be sure to check out how great your child looks in their school pictures!

LA: So much to do on a long Wednesday! We squeezed in time for everything...and having time for Centers helped our cause! We were able to work with our spelling word sorts, how to properly read a chart, go over some RIT word examples and we're continuing to tackle run on sentences and sentence fragments! We were busy! We also enjoyed time reading with our first grade buddies and using our leveled readers today!

HW: Please bring in a candy box for Friday. Also-don't forget that weekly homework will be due on Friday morning!

Math: Protractors + Compasses=Tons of Fun! Today we worked with line segments and how to copy them using only a compass. It was a lot of fun getting reacquainted with these mathematical tools!

HW: Math box and study link 3.5, in addition to an extra practice page on measuring angles are all due tomorrow.

Social Studies-We took a time out for our second DARE session today! It was great to hear how important making wise choices are from Officer Redman, not only in everyday events but most especially when it comes to Drugs and Alcohol.

Don't forget:

• Friday is No Child Left Inside Day-dress accordingly!
  

A Trustworthy Tuesday!

Our Words of Wisdom on WSTAR each morning have been great reminders about how important it is to be trustworthy!

LA: We took some time to review our vocabulary words that go with our story today. We also added two new roots to our Vocabulary Vine boxes, in addition to working quite a bit with cause and effect! It was a great morning!

HW: Don't forget weekly homework is due on Friday...we also need candy boxes sent in by Friday! (Enjoy the candy at home!)

Math: Protractor fun today! Measuring angles proved to be a bit of a challenge for some of us, but we will have plenty of practice! We brainstormed everything we knew about angles and ran from there. We will be continuing to draw, label and measure angles throughout this unit.

HW: Journal page 72, math box and study link 3.4 and the extra angle worksheet are all due tomorrow.

Social Studies: Lots of Landforms! We talked about all sorts of different landforms today! We also reviewed latitude and longitude lines from our discussion yesterday.

HW: Land form picture dictionaries are due on Thursday...(DARE tomorrow!)

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• An important paper regarding some flu precautions for the upcoming flu season

Please don't forget:

• The 1st annual donation drive is currently happening at Northpoint. Please consider sending in a donation to our wonderful PTO for their many sponsored activities.
• We are still collecting Box Tops and Campbell's soup labels!
  

Another Monday Rolls Around!

Welcome back to another week!

LA:
We are reading a fantasy story this week that takes place in Mexico. It is called "Pipiolo and the Roof Dogs." Our vocabulary words for this story are: transformed, celebration, moistened, fragrance, cooperation, canceled, and theory. Our vocabulary skill is using a thesaurus and our comprehension skill is cause and effect. Our grammar skill is fixing run-on sentences.
Here are this week's RIT words:

• FABLE -A short, animal tale, most often told or written with a moral tagged on in the form of a proverb.

• EXAGGERATION -To represent something as greater than it actually is.

• ANALOGY - A comparison of certain similarities between things that are otherwise unlike.

• GENERALIZATION - A one sentence summary of a story that includes only the most important details.

• OVERSTATEMENT- The act of making something seem more important than it really is

Currently we are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We hope to be finished with it by this weekend. Once we are done reading this novel, we will be doing a writing project. We need your help. We are looking for any movie theater sized candy box that we can use and cover with paper. Wal-mart also sells this size candy box. We hope to have all the candy boxes in by Friday. Please do not send in the candy!

HW: Weekly homework is due on Friday.

Math: We had a great time learning about angle measurements using pattern blocks today! It's fun to experiment different ideas and see which one works out the best.

HW: Page 68, MB and SL 3.3

Social Studies: We had a great review this afternoon of absolute and relative location. We also learned about the continents and oceans that make up the world. Students worked in pairs to label some important things in their interactive student notebooks, as well as learning about lines of latitude and longitude.

HW: None

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• No Child Left Inside is Friday! Please see the note explaining this fun day from Mrs. Stephan!
  

It's Friday! Hooray!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Get out and play while you still can!

LA: We had all of our normal assessments today, along with DEAR and Read Aloud. We also visited the IMC! Now is a good time to make sure your child has picked out a book for their reading project if they haven't already started the process. Don't forget, reading projects are due October 14th. Also-at least one AR test has to be taken by that same date, about a book at his or her lexile level!

HW: Enjoy your weekend!

Math: We had a pop quiz today! The unit 2 test was also passed back, with great scores! Make sure you ask your child to share their good news with you!

HW: None

Social Studies: Welcome Ms. Grannan's class! We had a great time learning about relative and absolute location, and what the difference is between the two of them. We also shared our vocabulary words for chapter 1 today!

HW: Check out the parent letter that better explains our new Social Studies curriculum! The kids seem to love it.

Have a fantastic weekend! Go Irish!

Happy Constitution Day!

It's Constitution Day!

LA: We're continuing to expand our knowledge of Greek and Latin roots, be sure to ask your child what roots we added today! We also worked with some rhyme schemes and rhythms found in poetry! We're still working on mastering compound and complex sentences that use conjunctions as well.

HW: Don't forget that weekly homework (with a parent's signature) is due tomorrow!

Math: Today was the unit 2 test! Looking good so far!

HW: None

Social Studies: Today was my home room classes' last day in Social Studies. We enjoyed a video explaining how the constitution came about!

HW: None

Don't forget:

• Tonight is the welcome back picnic
• We are still collecting box tops and Campbells soup labels!
  

What A Wednesday!

We had a great day today!

LA: Today was our long morning, which provided us lots of time to get caught up on those things we haven't gotten to yet this week! We spent quite a bit more time with the conjunctions we are learning about and how to incorporate them into compound and complex sentences. We also revisited our RIT words and came up with examples to go with all of them. Reading buddies was a lot of fun, as we enjoyed the sunshine and breeze out in the courtyard with our first grade friends. We also had a visit from Mrs. Slater, who started to talk to us about conflict resolution, and how important it is to respect other people's perspective and also how quick we tend to be when we make judgements against people.

HW: Weekly homework is due Friday, with parent's signatures on top. Also-the 15 sentences using conjunctions is due tomorrow if it was not completed today.

Math: Today we spent our entire session working through and going over a practice test for tomorrow's unit 2 test.

HW: Study for the unit 2 test.

Social Studies: We welcomed Officer Redman in today for our first session D.A.R.E. We spent our time together getting to know him and learning about what he will be teaching us in the next 9 weeks!

HW: Tomorrow is the last day of Social Studies for this nine weeks! My class starts Health with Ms. Grannan on Friday afternoon!

Don't Forget:

• We are still collecting box tops...make sure you clip em' off and send em' in!
• We hope to see everyone at the Welcome Back Picnic tomorrow evening!
  

Go Out And Play On This Beautiful Day!

Who can believe this beautiful weather for the middle of September??? We better enjoy it while we can!

LA: We had a busy morning today! We started our 5th grade Greek and Latin roots in Vocabulary Vine, as well as working through spelling sorts and talking about how the main ideas of a story help us to come up with accurate summaries. We even squeezed in some time for our read aloud.

HW: Weekly homework is due on Friday! We got a great head start this morning coming up with information for our summaries.

Math: More estimation today! We had a fun time experimenting and finding out how many times we were able to tap a pencil on the table in 10 seconds, which helped us to figure out how many times we might be able to do it in an hour, year and so on!

HW: Unit 2 test will be given on Thursday! Math box 2.9 & 2.10, journal page 56 and study link 2.10 are all due tomorrow. Also-multiplication packets were given back today...if you want to correct any of the problems that were marked wrong, for a higher score, they must be rewritten on clean paper, stapled to the original packet and turned in by Thursday.

Social Studies: We finished up our 3-D land form projects this afternoon! They look great in the Library windows!

HW: DARE starts tomorrow!

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• A reminder about PTO's collection of box tops
• PTO Welcome Back Picnic RSVP form
  

Back To A Normal Week!

It's good to be back in our normal routine on such a beautiful day!

LA: Mondays are so busy as we introduce the skills for the week!
Spelling - We took our pretest this morning over words with the /ar/ sound in them. Students should know what list they are to study for Friday's test.
Grammar - We continue our study of sentences. Today we began looking a complex sentences using conjunctions. Today we introduced new conjunctions to go with those we learned about last week. They are: and, but, or, after, although, as, because, before, if, since, so that, until, when, whether and while.
Vocabulary - Our words are mission, disasters, environment, zone, gravity, maze, adjusted, and function. We continue to work with context clues to help us figure out meanings of unfamiliar words.
Comprehension - Our story this week is a non-fiction story about Space Camp. We will be working on the skill of finding main ideas and summarizing.
Our RIT words for the week include the following:

• Consonance - Is the repetition of a consonant sound in sentence. (dark deep dread crept in)

• Tone - Is the attitude the writer has toward the subject and audience he is writing for. For example the tone of this week's story is informative. The tone of the tall tale we read 2 weeks ago was humorous.

• Colloquialism - Is a common spoken expression. It is informal language. An example might be "What's up?" Often a colloquialism is regional. Do you call that fizzy beverage a coke (no matter the brand), a soda, or pop?

• Pun - Is a play on words for humorous effect. For example, a boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

• Climax - Is the turning point of a story and is often the part that is most intense. In the Davy Crockett story, the climax would be when the comet dives into the Atlantic Ocean to try and drown Davy.

HW: Don't forget weekly homework packet is due Friday. Also-if you have not turned in your 15, Maybe 16 Things To Worry About poem, it is due tomorrow.

Math: We took a time out today to review some multiplication skills. We are working on multiplying double and triple digit numbers. This is not coming easy to many of us. If you know you are struggling with basic multiplication facts, it's time to master them!

HW: Multiplication packets are due tomorrow if they weren't turned in today.

Social Studies: We had a great time working on our 3-D land form projects again with Mrs. Suddarth's class. Today we painted our landforms and prepared to assemble them, which we will be doing tomorrow.

HW: None

Don't forget:

• PTO Meeting on Wednesday at 10:00. There will be an Art Smart meeting immediately following.
• Northpoint is in the midst of their donation drive. Our PTO has chosen to do this instead of the normal fundraiser. Please consider making a donation to help support the many amazing PTO sponsored events.
• We are collecting Box Tops! Please send them in!

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• PTO newsletter
  

It's Been A Wonderful Wednesday!

Happy Birthday Darius!

LA: Good thing we have long Wednesdays with no specials...we needed it this week after missing Monday! We started out by continuing to review our Greek and Latin roots during Vocabulary Vine adn Triumph time. As a class, we worked on sorting out spelling words with the /u/ sound spelled a variety of ways. This was tricky for some of us! We also learned about Venn diagrams today, using our information from the story about coniferous and deciduous forests. We met with our reading buddies and enjoyed listening to them read to us from their "Just Right Book Bag" along with having a visit from Mrs. Slater to teach us more about bullying and what to do to prevent it from happening. Last but not least, we even squeezed in some time for read aloud.

HW: Don't forget that weekly homework is due Friday. There are not RIT words this week and only four questions on the comprehension section. It's been asked if the summary could be shorter due to the length of the story, but as we discussed in class, there are plenty of facts to keep us writing for 7-10 sentences!

Math: Heads or Tails? We had fun completing an experiment with pennies today, which will help lead us into a further probability discussion tomorrow! We started to touch on the subject today and can't wait to get back to it in more detail tomorrow!

HW: Journal page 45, math box & study link 2.6 and the extra sheet are all due tomorrow.

Social Studies: Today was review day! We spent some time reviewing chapter 2, completing a fun vocabulary word chart and writing summaries that will help us prepare for tomorrow's test.

HW: Chapter 2 test will be given tomorrow.

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• Welcome Back Picnic papers
• New Family Brunch (only if you're new to NP!)
  

It's Already Tuesday!

Wow! It was kinda nice being able to sleep in yesterday! I hope everyone had a great three day weekend!

Happy Birthday Baker!

LA: Even though today was our short day, we jam packed it full of our normal Monday stuff! Yikes! We were crazy busy this morning! Our story this week is Forests of the World, which introduces us to nonfiction articles for the year! It is a great informational piece of writing that we learned a lot from. We also took our spelling pre-test, please make sure your child is studying the appropriate list! This week in grammar, we will be learning how to combine simple sentences together to make compound sentences using conjunctions.

Story Vocabulary this week: quest, settings, reduce, buffet & major.

Rit Words for the week: Due to the short week, we have no RIT words!

HW: Weekly homework is due Friday. Please note-there are only 4 questions for the comprehension section this week! We had a long discussion this morning on the quality of our answers in the comprehension section as well. If answers are not written in complete thoughts, no credit will be given! Students know the expectations!

Math: Today was a fun, experimental kind of day! We are learning about landmarks in a set of data. Today we learned about maximum, minimum, range, mean, median, & mode. After we took some notes on these important things, we completed a reaction time experiment with partners. It was fun to calculate our reaction times and which hand has a faster reaction.

HW: Journal page 41, math box and study link 2.5

Social Studies-We took just a few minutes to review chapter 2 that we've been working on for about a week now. Unfortunately, President Obama's speech that had been pre-recorded for us froze half way through, so we weren't able to enjoy it all.

HW: Test over chapter 2 will be given on Thursday.

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• An informational sheet (yellow paper) about this year's fundraising campaign! This is a lot different than year's past, so please read carefully!
  

Thursday, Thursday!

We had a fantastic day today!

LA: Today was another one of our short days due to double specials. We worked through grammar-learning about commas in a series-and also a skills page, talking about plot and setting. We squeezed in time for examples of our RIT words, too!

HW: Don't forget weekly homework is due tomorrow--parent signature is required! We will have normal assessments tomorrow as well! Don't forget those book orders!

Math: We talked about number stories using addition and subtraction today. Partners worked well together plowing through a couple of journal pages! We seem to have a good grasp on this concept!

HW: Math box and study link 2.4

Social Studies-Lights, Camera, Action! We become actors for a short bit today and put ourselves inside the text of the social studies books! It was great fun to act out a scene in the book and treat it as though we were there.

HW: Finish summary on page 12 in the Interactive Student Notebook if not completed yet. Chapter 2 test has been moved to Thursday of next week!

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• Letter from Mrs. Stephan regarding a speech from President Obama.
  

What A Wednesday!

Whew! We have so much going on these days, it's hard to keep up!

LA: Today is our long morning, so it's always nice to play "catch up" for those things that we have had to put on hold from earlier in the week! We worked through grammar today, learning more about subjects and predicates, and adding in information about compound subjects and predicates this time. We also spent some more time with our spelling words and working with synonyms for those words.

We enjoyed time with our reading buddies from Mrs. McGann's class as well as a visit from Mrs. Slater, who will be joining us for the next 6 Wednesdays to talk about bullying and self confidence. In addition to all of those fun things, we even found time to partner share our story for this week!

HW: Weekly homework is due Friday. Normal assessments will be given on Friday as well. Don't forget that book orders are due in 2 days!

Math: Students got their unit 1 tests back today! We had a time for questions and answers about things that were incorrect on those tests! We then jumped right into unit 2, reviewing how to add and subtract decimals! We were shocked to see how many of us forgot to line up those decimals!

HW: Journal pages 32 & 34, math boxes 2.2 & 2.3, study links 2.2 & 2.3, and an extra sheet were assigned. Students were given lots of class time to work on these tasks! Unit 1 tests that received an N need to be signed and returned tomorrow.

Social Studies: Whew! We worked really hard today and made it through three lessons! It was great learning about the first Americans and how they made their migration routes over from Siberia! We also learned about some of the Hopi Indian origin stories.

HW: Students need to complete their 5-7 sentence summary about section 2.4 on page 11 in their Student Interactive Notebook if it wasn't completed in class. We are anticipating our next test, over unit 2, on Wednesday.

Things to watch for in blue folders tonight:

• Market Day order forms
  

Say Cheese!

Everyone looked nice and spiffy for pictures today! I can't wait for them to come back so we can enjoy those smiles!

LA: We had a super short morning, not only due to double specials, but also pictures as well! We were able to work on our RIT vocabulary words and definitions, along with a spelling page.

HW: Weekly homework is due on Friday. Book orders are also due Friday.

Math: Today was the unit 1 test! There weren't many questions prior to the start of the test, so we're crossing our fingers for great scores!

HW: None

Social Studies: We jumped into chapter 2 today. We discussed how it feels to move to a new place, join a new club or change our environment. We even left our classroom for a minute so we could come in fresh with a new perspective. We had an interesting time learning about how people would change our space to make it more comfortable. This all kicked us off on the topic of the early Americans coming over from Asia. Chapter 1 tests were passed back today.

HW: If your child received a N on their Chapter 1 test, it needs to be signed and returned tomorrow.