5B News for the Week of October 29th, 2012

Hello Parents & Students:

Just a reminder to please return the Parent-Teacher Conference half sheet, if you haven't already done so.  I need to know if the time works for you or we can make other arrangements.

Halloween is Wednesday.  The parade will begin at 2:00 and the parties will follow. Also on Wednesday, the fifth graders will be having a pretend campfire with marshmallows and spooky stories to read.  A treat permission form went home on Friday.  Please return it, by Wednesday, if you plan to have your child eat the marshmallows...or not. 

Here's what's going on in 5B this week:

Spelling:  We will be on Unit 8 this week.  The words have been posted.  The pretest will be on Monday and the test will be on Friday, as usual.

Language Arts:  Mainly, we will be doing research on our new project....how to make the World a better place.  This will take the majority of our language arts time this week.  However, we will be doing some grammar which will focus on comma usage and placement and also a couple of TFK articles which will focus on U.S. voting requirements and comparing the Presidential candidates. In writing, we will continue to work on our persuasive writing skills.  We had a great debate last week on whether or not children ages 8-12 should have cell phones.  The arguments were quite impressive.  Then, we all enjoyed the debate between Mr. Vaid and Mr. LeCrone on year-round school and whether or not it's beneficial. 

Math Accel:  We are currently working on large numbers (trillions, billions, millions, etc.) and small numbers which includes working with decimal points.  We will also begin multiplying with powers, exponents, and multiplication of decimals this week. 

Social Studies:  We completed our colony projects last week and they were terrific!  All of the groups presented and they were all very unique and informative.  All groups worked very hard to include all of the requirements.  It was a great job by all!  This week in SS, we will continue to discuss the first colonies and move onto the thirteen colonies.  

Looking forward to another great week!  Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Mrs. Bennick :-)