One week down...many to go, but we are READY!

We had a fabulous first week of fifth grade together!

Some favorite moments:

Alex is now ranked the number 1 golfer in his age bracket in St. Louis!  He was even in the paper!  Way to go, Alex!  I guess we will let you off the hook for leaving us to go to your tournament on the first day... ;)  We are so proud of you!

On the second day of school, Summer and Frank helped out in the beginning of the year assembly by role-playing a situation to illustrate our school norms for our Captain community.  Their leadership helped all the students in the school understand the importance of communicating peacefully with one another when you have a conflict or disagreement.  Thank you, Summer and Frank!  Well done!

We spent the majority of our time this week building our classroom community.  It's important for us to get to know each other and for me to learn about each of the members of our class.  As far as content is concerned, we just dipped our toes into reading, writing, math, and social studies in our first three days.  Towards the end of Friday, we did some problem solving on our desks and did some talking about methods with one another.  I loved seeing how each student dug right into the math and gave it their best.  They labeled clearly and questioned each other in a supportive way so as not to "steal the struggle" from their neighbors in the process.  This is a huge indicator to me that we are going to have a great time getting into our units in-depth.

Things to come:

This week we will begin working in our classroom job assignments.  I know the students are so excited to get their work underway!  Their enthusiasm is so energizing!

I am going to expect the students to be completing their planners in class when we do it together, have them signed by a parent at home, and then turned in at the beginning of each morning this week.  Please help them by providing gentle reminders if they are forgetful.  Try to allow them to carry the responsibility on their shoulders, though, which will help them get into that habit for the school year.

You can expect homework each day except for Friday this week.  Our goal is to have homework take no more than about 50 minutes to complete so that students are able to have time for other activities as well.  Students are also welcome to complete homework in mornings before school starts if that works better for their schedules. 

Our reading unit on agency and independence will begin in earnest tomorrow, as well as our writing unit on raising the level of narrative writing.  In social studies we will begin our unit entitled, Three Cultures Meet, which begins with geography and how humans came to populate what we now know as North America.  Our first chapter in math focuses on whole numbers to 10,000,000.

Finally, Thursday night will be Curriculum Night.  There will be a specialists reception at 6:30, and then Dr. Martin will address the families at 7:00 in the cafeteria.  Fifth grade teachers will team together to deliver our presentation about what your children will be studying this year.  If you cannot make it Thursday, we will post our presentation on our websites, and you are welcome to ask us questions via email.

Looking forward to another great week!