Upcoming Activities for the Week of January 27th, 2014

Hello Parents and Students!

Just a reminder that Open House is this Wednesday evening from 6:30-7:30pm.  Hope to see you all there!

I will also be doing Interim Assessment make-ups this week for those who were absent this past week.

Here's what's going on in the curricular areas:

Word Study/Spelling:
This will be our third and final lesson on the Vowel Team syllable type.  This week's words have been posted to the blog.  The test will be this Friday.

Math Accel:  We will continue on in Unit 4 this week.  We have completed lessons on equivalent fractions and prime factorization.  Next, we will be studying greatest common factor and least common multiple.  Expect an exit slip or quiz to follow these lessons.  The Unit 3 tests have been graded and most students did very well on it.  Great job!  They will be coming home on Monday.

English Language Arts (ELA):  We have been working diligently to complete a few different tasks.  First, we all created a book hook for our favorite books.  They will be on display at Open House in the main hallway.  Then we wrote courage quotes or precepts and illustrated them. These quotes/precepts came from our current read-aloud book, Wonder.  We then began creating our picture book mash-ups.  The students chose two of their favorite picture books, read them and then generated their own stories based from ideas from these two books.  Many of them are very creative.  They will also be on display at Open House.  We will continue to work on our picture book mash-ups this week.  Our Time For Kid's magazine topic for this week will be Cheating In School.

Science:  We will be finishing up a couple of electricity experiments this week.  Our goal is to complete our own light kit, study and make both a series and parallel circuit and an electrical switch. These will also be on display at Open House.

Social Studies:  As a way of differentiating social studies, the students will be creating their own "foldable" about our current topic in SS, Life in a New Nation.  Each student will have the opportunity to design and include information about this topic on their own foldable.  Some things that should be included would be... important people, forming a new government, Articles of Confederation, the three branches of government, the Preamble, the Constitution, compromises, treaties, ordinances, etc.  Each foldable will look different and include information the student has chosen to research.  This project will be ongoing for at least a couple of weeks.  The students will also be presenting their foldable upon completion.

That is it for now.  Please email me with any questions.

Thank you!

~Mrs. Bennick :-)

5B Activities for the Week of January 20th, 2014

Hello Parents and Students:

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

First, there is no school tomorrow due to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's Birthday.  Enjoy the day off!

Our field trip to the Robert Crown Center is this Friday, January 24th.  If you have not yet returned your permission form and money, please do so as soon as possible.

Interim Assessments will occur this week on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The subjects tested will be reading and math.

Word Study/Spelling:  We will be working on Lesson 15 this week.  Our topic will continue to be the vowel team syllable.  The words have been posted to the blog and the test will be on Friday.

English Language Arts (ELA):  We will continue to read our current read-aloud book, Wonder.  The students will begin writing their own quotes of courage or precepts.  Also, students will be creating their own Book Hooks based on books that they have read and enjoyed.  We will be creating these in the computer lab and they will be on display in the hallway during Open House.

Science:  We have just about finished up Magnetism and will begin working on Electricity this week.  First, we will be brainstorming what electricity is and how we use it daily.  Both series and parallel circuits will be studied and then we will be making our own!  We will also be making our own light kits with wires, batteries and light bulbs.

Social Studies:  We will finish our discussion of the Revolutionary War and head into life in a new nation.  Our focus for the next couple of weeks will be the Constitution.

That is it for now.  Please email me with any questions.  Have a great week!

Mrs. Bennick

Young Author's Information

Requirements for Young Author's Stories:

·        Be in by the deadline 2/14/14. (Late manuscripts will not be eligible for awards.)

·         Include a rough draft. (Handwritten or typed. The final copy should reflect revisions.)

§  Have a cover with pages securely attached.

§  Have a detachable title page including the child's name, grade, and title of the book.  (This page will be removed for anonymous judging.)

§  Writing must be done by the student. The final manuscript should reflect the student’s writing ability and developmental stage. (For example, an excellent kindergarten submission may use very basic language and may have some grammatical errors.) PARENT INPUT SHOULD BE MINIMAL

Thank you,

Mrs. May

5th grade music program rescheduled...mark your calendars!

Dear Fifth Grade Families,

Due to health issues, I will be on medical leave for six weeks beginning Friday, January 24th.  As a result, Mr. LeCrone and I have tentatively rescheduled the Fifth Grade Music Program to Monday, April 14^th at 7:00 PM.  My substitute, Mr. James Anderson, will continue to prepare the students for the program while I am gone.  I say “tentatively” in the event something unforeseen happens; however, it is my intention to do everything possible to provide this experience for our 5^th graders as it is their last year at May Watts.  Mr. Anderson will also continue holding chorus rehearsals as scheduled.  If you have any questions, you may email me until January 23^rd.  After this time, please direct your questions or concerns to Mr. LeCrone. 

 

Thank you,

Danielle Donaldson

Music Teacher/Choral Director

May Watts Elementary School

Danielle_Donaldson@ipsd.org

5B Activities for the Week of 01/13/2014

Hello Parents and Students:

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

First, just a reminder that there is no school tomorrow, Monday, for students.  It is a Teacher Work Day.

We will have our marble jar celebration on Friday.  Students voted to have some electronics time (no surprise!), craft-making and time for playing board games.  Students may also wear their pajamas, bring an extra snack and bring gum to chew!  Wow!

Word Study/Spelling:  The words will stay the same for this week as last week was a shortened week due to the cold days.  The test will be on Friday.  Please make sure that your child also studies the homophones.  There are a lot of them this week.  This is in addition to the words that are posted on the blog.  Thank you.

Math Accel:  This week in MA, we learned what a coordinate plane is and reviewed the four quadrants.  We wrote our own ratio stories and then plotted the data on a ratio table.  We then graphed the data on the coordinate plane.  This week we will continue reading and drawing graphs.  The Unit 3 study guide will come home late this week and the Unit 3 test will be the following week.

English Language Arts:  We will continue to cover science during ELA time this week.  We covered a lot of science last week completing two magnet experiments and starting our Element's Journals.  This week, we will continue to do research on elements and we will be having a quiz on magnetism on Thursday.  The students have the magnetism sheet that they need to study for the quiz.  We will continue our current events topic which is:  2013...A Year in Review.  We have also started working on our next edition of the Bennick Biz newspaper and the theme is Love/Valentine's Day.

Social Studies:  Our topics for social studies this week include The Colonists Rebel, The Revolution Begins, Declaring Independence and Patriots at War.

That's it for now.  Please email me with any questions.

Thank you!

Mrs. Bennick

5B Activities for the Week of January 6, 2014

Happy New Year and Welcome Back!  

First, I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to all of you for the wonderful gifts your children presented me with before Winter Break.  I am very grateful to have the opportunity to teach such thoughtful; giving children.  I deeply appreciate it.

I hope everyone enjoyed time with family and friends over Winter Break!  There is just one short week left of second quarter.  Third quarter begins on January 13th.  That's hard to believe!

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

Spelling/Word Study:  We will be learning a new syllable type this week.  It is called The Vowel Team.  We will discuss how some vowels work together as a unit to make a specific sound.  This new syllable type will be diagrammed by writing VV with a slide.

Math Accel:  We will continue on in Unit 3 this week.  We will quickly review unit rates and then move onto plotting ratios on a coordinate plane.  Expect a study guide to come home late in the week or early the following week.  Our Unit 3 test is quickly approaching.  We have about two or three lessons yet to cover.

English Language Arts (ELA):  A large part of our ELA time will include both science and social studies as we have a lot of material to cover in a short time.  We will be using the computer lab to research and diagram elements.  We will be discussing atomic number, symbol, atomic weight, the discovery of the element, its characteristics and uses.  We will also be conducting a couple of experiments on magnetism and static electricity in the classroom.  In social studies, we will continue to work our way to the Revolutionary War.  Some of the major events that we will discuss include the Stamp Act, Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, Paul Revere's famous ride and the Battle at Lexington and Concord.  Also in ELA, we will continue to read our current read-aloud book, Wonder and discuss some current events with our TFK magazines.

Science/SS:  Please see ELA above

That's it for now.  Stay safe in this Winter weather we're having!

~Mrs. Bennick