PTA

We had a PTA rep come in today to remind us to have parents sign up for the PTA. If our class has the most parents signed up, we'll receive $50 worth of books for our classroom! So far we only have 5 parents signed up in our class. D Track has at least double that! We need to catch up!

If you haven't really considered PTA before, or if you don't think you have time, consider these points:

1. It only costs $5 for the whole year.
2. That $5 is a direct donation to your child's school.
3. You don't have to do anything for PTA, just the $5 donation is plenty to help out.
4. You get 10% off at the book fairs throughout the year.
5. You'll be helping your child's school and specifically our classroom if we win!

If you're interested, please send $5 to school with your child TOMORROW (or when we come back on track) and we'll get all the paperwork taken care of. Thanks!

REMINDER: Tomorrow is the last day to turn in fundraisers.

Almost Off Track

Just 2 more days until we go off track!! It's been a crazy week and we're getting things packed up so we can go off track. For those of you that aren't aware, in 5th grade we have to rotate classrooms each time we track off and on. So, this week we'll be packing up our classroom and moving our stuff into storage until we come back in a few weeks. When we come back, we'll be in Room 125 (where Mrs. Engh's class currently is).

Parents, sorry for the smaller amounts of homework this week. I've been sick with a nasty cold, plus all the copy machines at school are broken. Combine that with trying to get the room ready for the next class to come on track, and homework has kind of fallen by the way side. I promise once we're back on track homework will resume it's normal pattern. :)

For tonight, make sure you read 20 minutes for the Road to Success (and mark your chart!).

Also, study those vocab words. We'll have a test on Friday.

Road to Revolution

We're making our way to independence in Social Studies. Parents, ask your student how many M&M's they got today and how they felt about it. :)

Here's tonight's homework:

1. Read 20 minutes.
2. Write about 3 events on the Road to Revolution. Write what the event is and what you know about it. Be prepared to share in class tomorrow.
3. Vocabulary - We will have a vocab test this week instead of spelling. Please look up definitions for these words tonight:

revolution
independence
declaration
prime
composite
commutative
weathering
erosion
uplift
geological

Constitution and Car Wrecks

Today is Constitution Day, so we talked a little about what the Constitution is and how it got started. We'll be learning about it more in detail when we get to that point in U.S. history, but we gave it a brief overview today.

In math today, we explored estimating and adding decimals with a real world example. My car got hit in the school parking lot yesterday, leaving my bumper, trunk, and tail light in sad shape. The whole back end will need to be replaced :( So for math, we assessed the damage (with a field trip to the parking lot to see the car) then estimated how much part would cost to replace. We added in labor costs to come up with final estimates. I then listed the actual costs of each part (based on the estimate I got at a body shop) and we added to see the real total. The student with the closest estimate won a treat!

Here's tonight's homework:

1. Read 20 mins
2. Work on your Reflections project (in case your child didn't tell you, I am requiring each student to enter at least one category as a homework assignment.) For more information, visit the Columbia PTA website and click on "Reflections"

2 Weeks Left!!

Can you believe we only have 2 weeks left until we go off track?! This year is flying by already. Today was a usual crazy Friday. We had reward activity/study hall, music, and an assembly about fundraising. Remember: do not go door to door for the fundraiser. It is not safe to go to strangers' houses.

IMPORTANT: Picture day is on Monday (9/15). Come looking your best! If you're ordering pictures, send the order form and a check on Monday. Thanks!!

Have an awesome weekend!!

Remembering 9/11

Today we learned about....

-September 11, 2001 - We learned about what happened and how it affects us today
-The Original Thirteen Colonies
-Landforms in Utah and Utah's Geologic History
-Wrote word problems for double digit multiplication

Homework tonight:
1. Read 20 mins
2. Write and solve 2 double digit multiplication problems
3. Petrified Wood - teach someone about how it came to be

Wednesday Homework

1. Read 20 minutes
2. Sort & Write spelling words (they should be written in your planner)
3. 2x2 Multiplication array for 56 x 23 (this is exactly like what we did in Math today)

Tomorrow is Patriot Day...September 11th. Ask your parents about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. We'll be doing a writing assignment about it tomorrow.

Current Events

Today we learned about how to do current events from newspaper articles. So, for tonight's homework, each student needs to do a current event report based on a news broadcast or article. Here are some suggestions for where to find the news:

-Watch a news broadcast (channels 2, 4, 5, 13 are good resources)
-Pick up a newspaper and read it! (they're really cheap at the grocery store if you don't have one)
-Look at a news website online:
-KSL
-Fox 13 News
-Salt Lake Tribune

After you read the article, write a summary of it using the 5 W's and H model we talked about it class (Who, What, When, Where, Why & How).

Also, don't forget to read 20 minutes!

Almost the Weekend!

This week has flown by since it's a short week!! Here's tonight's homework:

1. Finish your science vocabulary (some finished it in class already)
2. Read 20 minutes
3. Spelling - Play Memory (match the words with the same spelling rules)

Students should also have brought home any work they need to finish for catch up work to go to reward activity tomorrow.

Note: for reward activity tomorrow, it's "Bring Your Own Game", so if you know you've got your work done and your planner signed for the whole week, bring a game to share (no DS or video games allowed).

Wednesday

Today we learned about...

1. Multiplication using arrays
2. Plate tectonics
3. Pilgrim life in Plymouth, Massachusetts


Homework tonight is...

1. Read 20 minutes
2. Spelling - Sort & write (some people finished this at school already)
3. Earthshaking Words
4. Math - draw arrays for 12 x 7, 14 x 8

Spelling Words and Homework

I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend. Today we had a lot of fun learning about what life was like on the Mayflower and we also learned about earthquakes and plate tectonics. Ask your student what Pangaea was.

Here's tonight's homework:

1. Read 20 mins
2. Pilgrim journal - 3 entries about life on the Mayflower (remember they sailed from August to November 1620). Each entry must be at least 1 paragraph. You may email it to me tonight or turn it in tomorrow.

Sorry I didn't get the spelling words out. With this new program, we're sharing spelling words with 6th grade and I didn't have access to the words during school. Here are the words for this week:

Blue Group (last week you had words ending in -er, -est, -ier, -iest):
looseness
delightful
breathless
emptiness
bountiful
thoughtlessness
disgraceful
fanciful
tactlessness
politeness
fruitless
friendliness
respectful
priceless
flawlessness
thoughtless
flawless
attentiveness
scoreless
tactful
rigorousness
insightful
tactless
massiveness

Green Group (last week you had words that end in -ed)
stake
tale
fair
maze
wait
mane
bail
pear
stair
made
hair
plane
main
bale
pair
pail
bear
rays
way
ate
eight
pare
pale
hare
pane
plain
steak

Yellow Group (last week you had words with the long o sound)
drum
bus
cute
use
huge
just
cube
jump
hunt
shut
tube
cut
plus
tune
such
club
June
rude
flute
mule
put

Red Group (short u sounds last week)
I'll give you your words tomorrow.