Week of August 26-30

Parent Orientation
Please attend if you can so you can learn all about homework policies, curriculum, grades, and special 5th grade events. Confidentiality Training begins at 6:30pm in the gym tomorrow night for anyone interested in volunteering in our classroom and orientation will be held in my classroom at 7:00pm. I've only gotten 5 responses on my blog poll, so please take the poll to let me know how many to expect tomorrow evening.

Agendas
Please encourage your child to record their nightly reading and pages read each day when you sign his/her agenda. Some kids have been forgetting to record what they read. It is important that they select appropriate reading material and stick with a book until they finish.

Early Release
This Wednesday will be our first Early Release Day. Students will be dismissed at 12:20pm. Please send in a note Wednesday morning if your child's transportation will change due to early dismissal.


Here's what's coming up this week!

Math: We will explore square numbers, square roots, and prime factorization. Knowing basic math facts is so crucial! I highly encourage you to have your child practice math facts for at least 10 minutes each night if he/she does not already know them. I'll be sending home the baseline mad minute I gave last week in this week's Wednesday folder, so please check to see how your child did. If your child got less than 1/2 of the facts correct on the mad minute, please work with him/her at home.

Social Studies: We will continue our study of geography this week as we explore geographic forms of land and water, physical features of the U.S., as well as climate and time zones.

Word Study: We will review the words added to our word wall in various ways from playing games to drawing pictures!

Writing: Students will be given a daily invitation to continue collecting ideas in their writer's notebooks as they build their writing stamina.

Reading: We will build reading stamina as we set goals, learn to discuss what we read, and read and respond to silent reading in class.

Week of August 19-23

We are already off to a great start this week!

 Personal Electronic Devices
This weekend I sent home a personal devices form. If your child will be using a personal electronic device for educational purposes here at school (research, reading, etc), please complete and return the form at your earliest convenience.

 Parent Orientation
Don't forget to attend Parent Orientation next Tuesday at 7pm! Please try to attend. I will also have a volunteer sign up sheet available that evening.

 Edmodo
Please let me know if your child does not have access to a computer at home. I will be introducing a very cool homework tool called Edmodo this week. Edmodo is a website for teacher and student use where kids can log on to have group discussions, complete homework assignments, gather research, and complete quizzes all from home!

 Basic Math Facts
Starting now, please encourage your child to practice his/her basic math facts at home. It is very important to know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts in 5th grade as much of our computational work is multi-step!

 Agendas
Please sign your child's agenda each night including Fridays. I love the agenda because it is a fantastic communication tool so you can be aware of your child's homework each night, and so that we can write notes back and forth as needed. Keep an eye out for notes from me in your child's agenda. I'm very big on positive agenda notes!

Here is what we'll be learning about this week!

 In math, we are kicking off a unit on number theory beginning with factors and products and moving into divisibility rules and prime and composite numbers. Please ask your child about the divisibility rules. These are incredibly helpful when solving division problems and identifying factors! You will also be able to find the divisibility rules below!

In social studies, we are beginning to explore geography. We started yesterday by identifying the continents and oceans and singing songs to help us remember them. We will continues learning about the continents and oceans as well as latitude, longitude, and more specific geographic terms.

For word study this week, I will be introducing our word wall. The kids are invited to suggest words for the word wall as well. On this bulletin board, we will display new or unfamiliar words as well as content words related to our learning.

Our first read aloud of the year is actually a book my 5th grade teacher read to me, called Hatchet. It's a very exciting story about a brave boy who has to survive on his own in the wilderness after his plane crashes in the for Canadian wilderness.

For writing this week, we will begin collecting in our writer's notebooks and learning how to persevere even when there are distractions.

Finally, this week's reading lessons will be about building stamina as a reader, selecting books, and we will have library orientation on Friday so the kids can begin checking out books!

2	If the last digit is even, the number is divisible by 2.
3	If the sum of the digits is divisible by 3, the number is also.
4	If the last two digits form a number divisible by 4, the number is also.
5	If the last digit is a 5 or a 0, the number is divisible by 5.
6	If the number is divisible by both 3 and 2, it is also divisible by 6.
9	If the sum of the digits is divisible by 9, the number is also.
10	If the number ends in 0, it is divisible by 10.

1st Day 2013-2014

Thank you, 5th graders, for a fantastic 1st day!  Everyone was here on time, ready to learn, and the energy in the classroom was wonderful!  Parents, please remember to return your student questionnaire as soon as possible, so I can get your e-mail address and gain a little more information about your child.  I plan to set up an e-mail distribution list and begin weekly e-mails this coming Monday.  I hope each of your children comes home excited about 5th grade and eager to come back tomorrow!  Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  Thank you!

Welcome!!

      Welcome to 5th grade!!  We are going to have so much fun this year!  Please be sure to attend Open House this Thursday, August 8th between 5pm and 7pm.  I would love to meet you, show you where you'll be sitting, and answer any quick questions you have about 5th grade!  You'll also have the opportunity to unload and label all of your supplies so you'll have one less worry for the first day of school.  Parents, please bring your completed student questionnaire.  This questionnaire gives me useful information to best meet your child's individual needs.  I can't wait to meet everyone!  See you soon!
~Mrs. Whitley  :o)