Hello Parents & Students:
Just a reminder that Track and Field Day is this Monday during P.E. time and PICTURE DAY is this THURSDAY, October 4th.
Here's what's going on in 5B this first week of October:
Spelling- We are on Unit 4 this week and the words have been posted on the blog.
Language Arts- We will continue to work on our Writer's Workshop projects. Some students have already presented their projects to either the whole class or a small group. All of them have been excellent up to this point. The students are having a lot of fun with this activity. All projects will be presented by Wednesday. We will continue our focus on grammar this week as well, discussing nouns, verbs, adjectives, simple subjects and adverbs. Some of these will be review, others are new. Our next Time For Kid's topic will be on drought. We will discuss what a drought is and how we can solve the problems associated with this. We have also been discussing creating the 5B newspaper. The kids are very excited about this and what their role will be. Hopefully, by the end of this week, we will have a better idea of how to organize this. Of course, we will continue our silent reading time, reading conferences, and reading response journal entries.
Math Accel.- These past few weeks we have been discussing various types of graphs. That will continue this week as well. On Monday, step graphs will be introduced followed by circle graphs. We are getting fairly close to the end of Unit 1 in our new math curriculum. Watch for the Unit 1 study guide to come home later this week or early next week.
Science- We just took our weather test this past Thursday. The results were amazing! The tests will be sent home this Monday along with the other graded work.
Social Studies- We will continue our discussion of Christopher Columbus this week. We are currently reading a Reading A-Z book about his life and expeditions. We have had some excellent discussions regarding Columbus and the kids are taking notes in their journals about him.
That's it for now. Enjoy the weekend!
Mrs. Bennick
Picture
Asheville, North Carolina
Friday, September 28, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
5B News for the Week of 9/24/12
Hello Parents and Students,
Here we are moving into the last week of September! Happy Fall. Time is flying by.
Just a reminder that CoGat testing will occur on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week for all 2nd and 5th graders.
Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Spelling: Unit 3 will be our focus this week. The spelling words for this week have been posted to the blog. Remember, pretests are on Mondays, tests are on Fridays.
Language Arts: We accomplished a lot this past week in reading, writing and grammar. Our writing workshop pieces are coming along nicely. Many groups have chosen to write scripts/plays and will perform them in front of the class. Other students are working diligently on writing essays, comic strips, recipes, and stories. Everyone has been working hard and showing great creativity. Possibly, later this week, some students and groups will be ready to present their projects. In reading, we will continue to discuss current events through our Time For Kids magazines. Our current TFK issue is about the upcoming Presidential election and we will finish discussing it on Monday followed by a quiz. During reading this week we will be making our own book hooks. We will also be doing a blurb pass, in which students read the back cover of a book and tell a quick blurb about it to inspire other kids to read it. Our forty book program seems to be going well for many of the students. They are keeping track of the books they read on their reading logs and are checking off the genre on their genre charts as they finish each book. Our read aloud book continues to be, Because of Mr. Terupt, and it is getting very good now. Something surprising is about to happen.
Math Accel: This week we finished stem and leaf plots and box and whisker plots. We watched a couple of very informative videos about creating these types of graphs and why they are useful. The students visited a couple of interactive websites to practice their skills with these graphs as well. They then created their own graphs either independently or in a group. All is going well in math. This week, we will begin doing research on the weather. The students will then learn about broken line graphs and will construct their own based on realistic weather data that they gather from their research....real life learning.
Science-We are just about finished with our first science unit, weather. The students have been doing some research on the laptops on various types of clouds. The students have defined the type of cloud, indicated what kind of weather that particular cloud brings, and sketched what the cloud looks like. They are required to research four different clouds. However, many students have opted to do even more cloud research at home for extra credit. The science weather test will be this Thursday. Study guides were sent home both via email and in your child's backpack.
Social Studies-About midweek, we will be switching over to social studies and our first topic of discussion will be Christopher Columbus. We will be using a couple of different books to introduce Columbus, one of them being Encounter by Jane Yolen and Howard Zin's, A People's History of the United States.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend! As always, if you have any questions, please email me.
Mrs. Bennick
Here we are moving into the last week of September! Happy Fall. Time is flying by.
Just a reminder that CoGat testing will occur on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week for all 2nd and 5th graders.
Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Spelling: Unit 3 will be our focus this week. The spelling words for this week have been posted to the blog. Remember, pretests are on Mondays, tests are on Fridays.
Language Arts: We accomplished a lot this past week in reading, writing and grammar. Our writing workshop pieces are coming along nicely. Many groups have chosen to write scripts/plays and will perform them in front of the class. Other students are working diligently on writing essays, comic strips, recipes, and stories. Everyone has been working hard and showing great creativity. Possibly, later this week, some students and groups will be ready to present their projects. In reading, we will continue to discuss current events through our Time For Kids magazines. Our current TFK issue is about the upcoming Presidential election and we will finish discussing it on Monday followed by a quiz. During reading this week we will be making our own book hooks. We will also be doing a blurb pass, in which students read the back cover of a book and tell a quick blurb about it to inspire other kids to read it. Our forty book program seems to be going well for many of the students. They are keeping track of the books they read on their reading logs and are checking off the genre on their genre charts as they finish each book. Our read aloud book continues to be, Because of Mr. Terupt, and it is getting very good now. Something surprising is about to happen.
Math Accel: This week we finished stem and leaf plots and box and whisker plots. We watched a couple of very informative videos about creating these types of graphs and why they are useful. The students visited a couple of interactive websites to practice their skills with these graphs as well. They then created their own graphs either independently or in a group. All is going well in math. This week, we will begin doing research on the weather. The students will then learn about broken line graphs and will construct their own based on realistic weather data that they gather from their research....real life learning.
Science-We are just about finished with our first science unit, weather. The students have been doing some research on the laptops on various types of clouds. The students have defined the type of cloud, indicated what kind of weather that particular cloud brings, and sketched what the cloud looks like. They are required to research four different clouds. However, many students have opted to do even more cloud research at home for extra credit. The science weather test will be this Thursday. Study guides were sent home both via email and in your child's backpack.
Social Studies-About midweek, we will be switching over to social studies and our first topic of discussion will be Christopher Columbus. We will be using a couple of different books to introduce Columbus, one of them being Encounter by Jane Yolen and Howard Zin's, A People's History of the United States.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend! As always, if you have any questions, please email me.
Mrs. Bennick
Saturday, September 15, 2012
5B News for the Week of 9/17
Hello Parents!
It was wonderful to see many of you at curriculum night last Thursday evening. Thank you for coming out! Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Spelling: The new spelling words have been posted to the blog. Please take a look at them when you get a moment. The base words will always be posted on the left side, alternate words on the right. The spelling pretest will be on Monday morning and the spelling test will be on Friday.
Language Arts: This past week, we finished up our Fortunately books. We also participated in a written writing interview, similar to the reading interview we took a couple of weeks ago. The writing process for our writing workshop was introduced on Friday along with our new writing project. The students will have a choice as to what they want to write during writing workshop time over the next three weeks or so. We brainstormed many writing activities and they are very enthusiastic about all of their choices. Some are choosing to write scripts for plays, a book of recipes, a collection of lists, an essay, a compilation of poems, comics, etc. This should make writing fun for the students. In reading, we continued our class read aloud, Because of Mr. Terupt, and wrote summaries and letters to me about the chapters we covered. We also read and discussed our first Time For Kids magazine this week. TFK always sparks great conversation in the room! Reading conferences will be complete, with all students, on Monday. I just have three students left to conference with. This upcoming week we will read a story from our anthology entitled, We'll Never Forget You, Roberto Clemente. We will have a test on this story later in the week. We will also continue our grammar focus on nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and simple subjects over the next few weeks.
Math Accel.: We finished up our Histograms at the end of last week. We were able to spend some time on Friday in the computer lab playing math games, which the students always love! On Monday, we will begin Stem and Leaf Plots and then move into Box Plots and a refresher on landmarks...such as mean, median, mode, range, etc. Math class is going very well!
Science: After discussing the Scientific Method last Thursday and Friday, we got to test our hypotheses by going outside and doing the soda/Mentos experiment. It worked wonderfully! It was a lot of fun. We collected the data, analyzed it and came up with our conclusions. Ask your child about it! This week in science, we will begin the week discussing barometers and their uses. We will do a short experiment, with barometers, on Monday and then make our own. We will then learn how to read a barometer and how they are used to predict the weather. Fun times!
That's it for now. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Bennick
It was wonderful to see many of you at curriculum night last Thursday evening. Thank you for coming out! Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Spelling: The new spelling words have been posted to the blog. Please take a look at them when you get a moment. The base words will always be posted on the left side, alternate words on the right. The spelling pretest will be on Monday morning and the spelling test will be on Friday.
Language Arts: This past week, we finished up our Fortunately books. We also participated in a written writing interview, similar to the reading interview we took a couple of weeks ago. The writing process for our writing workshop was introduced on Friday along with our new writing project. The students will have a choice as to what they want to write during writing workshop time over the next three weeks or so. We brainstormed many writing activities and they are very enthusiastic about all of their choices. Some are choosing to write scripts for plays, a book of recipes, a collection of lists, an essay, a compilation of poems, comics, etc. This should make writing fun for the students. In reading, we continued our class read aloud, Because of Mr. Terupt, and wrote summaries and letters to me about the chapters we covered. We also read and discussed our first Time For Kids magazine this week. TFK always sparks great conversation in the room! Reading conferences will be complete, with all students, on Monday. I just have three students left to conference with. This upcoming week we will read a story from our anthology entitled, We'll Never Forget You, Roberto Clemente. We will have a test on this story later in the week. We will also continue our grammar focus on nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and simple subjects over the next few weeks.
Math Accel.: We finished up our Histograms at the end of last week. We were able to spend some time on Friday in the computer lab playing math games, which the students always love! On Monday, we will begin Stem and Leaf Plots and then move into Box Plots and a refresher on landmarks...such as mean, median, mode, range, etc. Math class is going very well!
Science: After discussing the Scientific Method last Thursday and Friday, we got to test our hypotheses by going outside and doing the soda/Mentos experiment. It worked wonderfully! It was a lot of fun. We collected the data, analyzed it and came up with our conclusions. Ask your child about it! This week in science, we will begin the week discussing barometers and their uses. We will do a short experiment, with barometers, on Monday and then make our own. We will then learn how to read a barometer and how they are used to predict the weather. Fun times!
That's it for now. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Bennick
Friday, September 7, 2012
5B News for the Week of 9/10/12
Hello Parents!
Curriculum Night/Parent Orientation will be held this Thursday, September 13th, from 6:30-8:30 pm. Please read the earlier posting on my blog, about this evening, for specific times. A letter was also sent home with your child about this evening. Hope to see you all there.
Also, the spelling lists have been posted. The pretest will be this Monday. If your child gets two words or less wrong on the pretest, he/she will be on the alternate list for the week. If they get more than two words wrong on the pretest, they will be on the base word list.
Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Language Arts-During language arts this week, we will continue our read aloud book entitled, Because of Mr. Terupt. The students are really enjoying this book. The author's second novel will be released in October and we are anxious to read it. The students have been reading their personal books and writing "letters" to me about them. I will soon begin to respond to these "letters" in their reading response journals. Individual reading conferences also started this week and will continue through next week. I have enjoyed chatting individually with the students about their books and their favorite genres. In writing, the students have been working diligently on their own Fortunately/Unfortunately books. They are coming along nicely. They should be ready for you to see at curriculum night.
Spelling- Spelling begins this week and the words have been posted on the blog. Check them out!
Math Accel.- We are moving right along in the new Common Core Math curriculum. This week, we discussed statistical questions and how they differ from non-statistical questions. The students formulated their own statistical questions and surveyed the population (students in our class). The next day, we plotted this data on our dot plots/line plots and then interpreted the data. We learned a lot of new vocabulary words related to these topics. On Monday, we will begin discussing histograms.
Science- We've been very active in science. We have been discussing the weather and how weather instruments are used and what their purpose is. We learned that an anemometer measures wind speed and we made our own. We then went outside to test them. They worked great! Then, we made weather vanes, which involved a lot of measuring. On Monday, we will be discussing states of matter and will be watching a short video on this topic. We will then move into air pressure and will be conducting an air pressure experiment either Tuesday or Wednesday.
That's it for now. Enjoy the week!
Mrs. Bennick
Curriculum Night/Parent Orientation will be held this Thursday, September 13th, from 6:30-8:30 pm. Please read the earlier posting on my blog, about this evening, for specific times. A letter was also sent home with your child about this evening. Hope to see you all there.
Also, the spelling lists have been posted. The pretest will be this Monday. If your child gets two words or less wrong on the pretest, he/she will be on the alternate list for the week. If they get more than two words wrong on the pretest, they will be on the base word list.
Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Language Arts-During language arts this week, we will continue our read aloud book entitled, Because of Mr. Terupt. The students are really enjoying this book. The author's second novel will be released in October and we are anxious to read it. The students have been reading their personal books and writing "letters" to me about them. I will soon begin to respond to these "letters" in their reading response journals. Individual reading conferences also started this week and will continue through next week. I have enjoyed chatting individually with the students about their books and their favorite genres. In writing, the students have been working diligently on their own Fortunately/Unfortunately books. They are coming along nicely. They should be ready for you to see at curriculum night.
Spelling- Spelling begins this week and the words have been posted on the blog. Check them out!
Math Accel.- We are moving right along in the new Common Core Math curriculum. This week, we discussed statistical questions and how they differ from non-statistical questions. The students formulated their own statistical questions and surveyed the population (students in our class). The next day, we plotted this data on our dot plots/line plots and then interpreted the data. We learned a lot of new vocabulary words related to these topics. On Monday, we will begin discussing histograms.
Science- We've been very active in science. We have been discussing the weather and how weather instruments are used and what their purpose is. We learned that an anemometer measures wind speed and we made our own. We then went outside to test them. They worked great! Then, we made weather vanes, which involved a lot of measuring. On Monday, we will be discussing states of matter and will be watching a short video on this topic. We will then move into air pressure and will be conducting an air pressure experiment either Tuesday or Wednesday.
That's it for now. Enjoy the week!
Mrs. Bennick
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
May Watts Parent Orientation/Curriculum Night
MAY WATTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
800 S. Whispering Hills Drive
Naperville, Illinois 60540
Phone: 630 428-6700
FAX: 630 428-6701
September 6, 2012
Dear Parents,
Welcome to a new and exciting school year. The opening of the 2012-13 year went very smoothly here at May Watts due to the hard work of the dedicated teachers, office staff and parents who contribute to the rich life of our school community.
On Thursday, September 13, 2012, you are invited to visit your child's teacher during Parent Orientation/Curriculum Night. This informational night is designed for parents only to attend. Each classroom teacher will make a presentation regarding the district's curriculum and will provide information specific to his or her classroom.
The following schedule should allow for parents of more than one May Watts student to visit more than one classroom. The schedule is as follows:
Parent Orientation/Curriculum Night Schedule:
Kindergarten through 5th grades, Session 1 6:30 – 6:55 p.m.
Whole School Session (CCS Math/Citizenship/CHAMPS/ Introduction of Specials teachers) in Gym 7:05 – 7:25 p.m.
Kindergarten through 5th grades, Session 2 7:35 – 8:00 p.m.
Please remember that due to the large number of parents in attendance it is not possible to discuss individual student progress. There will be a sign-up for conferences in November in the multi-purpose room on this night. (As a courtesy, those parents who have more than three students enrolled at Watts will be contacted by the office to set up their conference times.) The staff and I look forward to seeing you on September 13th.
Sincerely,
Brian LeCrone
Principal
Sunday, September 2, 2012
5B News for the Week of 9/3/12
Hello 5B Parents!
I hope that you are enjoying the long weekend. Just a reminder, there is no school on Monday, September 3rd, due to Labor Day and no school on Tuesday, September 4th due to Building Articulation Day for staff. School is back in session on Wednesday morning (late start).
Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Language Arts: We will continue to discuss book genres and will be watching a very informative powerpoint about the different genres and subgenres. The students will then participate in an activity in which they will categorize books into the different genres. During this time, I will also begin having individual reading conferences with the students so that I can get an idea of the types of books they enjoy reading and how their fluency and comprehension skills are progressing. This week, I will also introduce a writing activity based on the book, Fortunately. The students will then begin writing their own version of this story.
Math Accel: Last week, the students took the Unit 1 pretest, which was quite difficult. Pretests are given so that I can get an idea of what skills the students may already know, so that I can form guided math groups within the classroom. Pretests will never be graded. Once I have gone through the pretests, I design my lessons based on the students' needs. We will start this week with a lesson from the Every Day Math Student Resource Book. The students will participate in a scavenger hunt in which they will work in groups to find which pages specific information is on. Moving forward, the first unit focuses on graphing. We will begin this unit studying line plots/dot plots.
Science: We just finished up our discussion of the layers of the atmosphere. The students were asked to take their layers of the atmosphere books home to work on them a little over the weekend. We will only have about 15 minutes to finish them up in class on Wednesday. Please return them on Wednesday as I would like to hang them up in the classroom. Next in science, we will be talking about weather instruments and what the different instruments do. The first instrument we will discuss is the anemometer. We will work in groups and make our own anemometers. After that, we will move onto barometers. We have had some great discussions about Hurricane Isaac. We have been following the storm on CNN daily and the students are really into it.
Spelling: We will begin spelling the week of September 10th....next week!
Have a great week everyone!
Mrs. Bennick
I hope that you are enjoying the long weekend. Just a reminder, there is no school on Monday, September 3rd, due to Labor Day and no school on Tuesday, September 4th due to Building Articulation Day for staff. School is back in session on Wednesday morning (late start).
Here's what's going on in 5B this week:
Language Arts: We will continue to discuss book genres and will be watching a very informative powerpoint about the different genres and subgenres. The students will then participate in an activity in which they will categorize books into the different genres. During this time, I will also begin having individual reading conferences with the students so that I can get an idea of the types of books they enjoy reading and how their fluency and comprehension skills are progressing. This week, I will also introduce a writing activity based on the book, Fortunately. The students will then begin writing their own version of this story.
Math Accel: Last week, the students took the Unit 1 pretest, which was quite difficult. Pretests are given so that I can get an idea of what skills the students may already know, so that I can form guided math groups within the classroom. Pretests will never be graded. Once I have gone through the pretests, I design my lessons based on the students' needs. We will start this week with a lesson from the Every Day Math Student Resource Book. The students will participate in a scavenger hunt in which they will work in groups to find which pages specific information is on. Moving forward, the first unit focuses on graphing. We will begin this unit studying line plots/dot plots.
Science: We just finished up our discussion of the layers of the atmosphere. The students were asked to take their layers of the atmosphere books home to work on them a little over the weekend. We will only have about 15 minutes to finish them up in class on Wednesday. Please return them on Wednesday as I would like to hang them up in the classroom. Next in science, we will be talking about weather instruments and what the different instruments do. The first instrument we will discuss is the anemometer. We will work in groups and make our own anemometers. After that, we will move onto barometers. We have had some great discussions about Hurricane Isaac. We have been following the storm on CNN daily and the students are really into it.
Spelling: We will begin spelling the week of September 10th....next week!
Have a great week everyone!
Mrs. Bennick
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