Week of 11/22-11/26 and Week of 11/29-12/3

Report cards will be going home on Tuesday; however, most of you should already know your child's grades, so no surprises!! I look forward to meeting with you all during conference week. Have a safe, happy, family-filled Thanksgiving holiday.

Some important Prairieview information: The students of Project Challenge grades 3-5 are participating in a Lion's Club Holiday Drive. We are looking for donations such as new toys, new games, toiletries, and food for the needy families in the Darien area. If you wish to participate you will need to bring the donations in by December 13. Remember that some of these families live right here in Darien. So let's help these families have a happy holiday season. PLEASE DONATE!

*Paper Recycling Fundraiser Comes to Prairieview: We are happy to announce we can now raise money for our district by recycling paper! You can help us out, too! Please collect any paper you are going to throw away or recycle (office and school paper, newspaper, magazines and catalogs, and construction paper---no cardboard!) and send it in with your child to school or drop it off at the green and yellow Paper Retriever bin in the Lakeview parking lot (near the fence by the Prairieview playground). The bin is available for drop offs 24/7. The more paper we recycle, the more money we can make! Do something good for our schools AND the environment! Thank you!

Coming up this week (Thanksgiving) and next week:

Mrs. Klacza's Reading/Spelling Class:
We will continue to review summarizing, drawing conclusions, inferencing, identifying author generalizations, visualizing, and word work with vocabulary words using our realistic fiction novels until December 2nd. Next week, we will review main ideas and details using our skills workbook. Our work with extended response will continue as well. A book project will be assigned on Monday for The Kid in the Red Jacket. Students will have time to work in class on Monday.

Spelling: No spelling assignments for Thanksgiving week.
Then... Lesson 12: Pretest on Monday. Homework due onThursday; Test Thursday.

English: On Tuesday, we will be taking the second part of the verbs test, which covers lessons 9 – 15. We will then take a bit of an English break :) Our work will resume on 12/6.

Social Studies: Chapter 7 begins this week, specifically Lesson 1, "The Spanish Move North."

Science: We continue Chapter 6. The students will learn a little more about population and competition with a project using the book The Great Fuzz Frenzy. This will not be introduced until 11/29. Much of this project will be done in class.

Mrs. Klacza's Math Class:
After some extended response practice leads us to Thanksgiving, we will begin studying mean, median, mode, and range. We will use some of Chapter 9 and also some creative mimios and worksheets to learn this valuable statistical skill.

Important Dates:
11/23 – Report cards & Picture retakes
11/24, 25, 26 – Thanksgiving holiday
11/29, 11/30, & 12/1 – Parent/Teacher Conferences
12/3 – Day off (conferences)

Have a wonderful holiday! Mrs. Klacza

Week of 11/15/10 - 11/19/10

Congratulations to the students of Room 208! They have won their first “great behavior” marble party. On Monday, we will celebrate!! Furthermore, today officially ends trimester 1. Some important information follows regarding our 5^th grade late work and extra credit policies.

Late homework - Trimester 2
1 day late - minus 15%
More than 1 day late until unit test is taken - minus 25%
After unit test is taken - a zero is entered in the grade book

Please remember that here at Prairieview, we suggest that students set a personal goal for the grades they would like to earn each trimester, and then work towards that goal the entire trimester. Therefore, students are NOT given opportunities for extra credit assignments. However, teachers may provide bonus points on various assignments throughout the year.

On Tuesday, November 23rd, Fullersburg Woods will be coming to talk with the 5th graders about ecosystems. They will focus on the concept of food chains and the energy pyramid and how everything in our world is connected. This fits in great with our science chapters 5 and 6.

Coming up this week:

Mrs. Klacza's Reading/Spelling Class:
We will continue writing extended responses this week, using questions from our realistic fiction novels. Furthermore, we will continue to review all the skills we have studied so far this school year, specifically, summarizing, drawing conclusions, inferencing, identifying author generalizations, and visualizing. We are also continuing our word work with vocabulary words. We will be finishing The Kid in the Red Jacket this week and the students will be assigned a culminating book project.

Spelling: Lesson 11: Pretest on Monday. Homework due onThursday; Test Friday.

English: We continue our study of verbs with part II of our chapter, specifically studying contractions with not, regular and irregular verbs, verb phrases with have, and correctly using the verbs teach/learn and let/leave. I plan to wrap the chapter up with a test on lessons 8-15 on Tuesday, 11/23.

Social Studies: Did your child tell you how successful our social studies testers were?? We had nothing lower than a B on chapter 6! We won't be starting chapter 7 until the end of the week.

Science: Chapter 6 begins this week with lesson 1 reading and note taking, followed by a Bill Nye video on population. An open note, open book assessment will occur on Tuesday.

Mrs. Klacza's Math Class:
Our “quest” on chapter 6 will be on Monday. We'll then have a “target test” this week to make sure the students are able to master some of the important concepts regarding decimals. We will then be working on extended responses leading us into the holiday weekend.

Important Dates:

11/12 – End of Trimester 1
11/16 – Report cards
11/24, 25, 26 – Thanksgiving holiday
11/29, 11/30, & 12/1 – Parent/Teacher Conferences
12/3 – Day off (conferences)

Have a wonderful weekend! Mrs. Klacza

Week of 11/8/10 - 11/12/10

Don't forget to “fall back” this weekend! It will be great to get the extra hour of sleep, but I really dislike the shorter days. Ah, well, winter is here... Don't forget the roller skating party on Monday! Watch out for the office email with important information.

An important reminder from the office: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 will be picture retake day. Any student that did not have their picture taken prior to this date may do so. They will be required to have a picture envelope with money to have a picture taken. Any student wishing to have a picture retaken will have to return the original picture packet for a retake.

Coming up this week:

Mrs. Klacza's Reading/Spelling Class: We will begin writing extended responses this week. This skill is taught using a short story called The River and a technique with the acronym IEIEIE which stands for Idea, Evidence, Interpretation, Evidence, Interpretation, Extension. Fifth graders should be familiar with this technique. Furthermore, we will continue to review all the skills we have studied so far this school year, specifically, summarizing, drawing conclusions, inferencing, identifying author generalizations, and visualizing while reading a realistic fiction novel. Please ask your child to summarize what we've read so far of The Kid in the Red Jacket! We are also doing a lot of word work with vocabulary words. There will be a vocabulary quiz on Ch. 1-6 on Wednesday.

Spelling: Lesson 10 - Pretest on Monday. Homework due on Friday; Test Friday. (normally, I collect homework on Thursday, but since it is a holiday, I will collect it on Friday.)

English: Part 1 of the verbs test will be on Tuesday. This will cover Lessons 1-8. We will then continue with Lesson 9 Friday (agreement with be/have.)

Social Studies: Our Chapter 6 test will occur on Wednesday after some reviewing on Monday and Tuesday. We won't start Chapter 7 until the week of 11/15.

Science: We will take a break from the science textbook this week and focus on Junior Achievement, Time for Kids, and a Thanksgiving project.

Mrs. Klacza's Math Class: We will study Chapter 6 this week which covers adding and subtracting decimals. We will only cover Lessons 2, 3, and 5 with a quest on 11/15. (We've already covered Lesson 1 on Friday!)

Important Dates:

11/8 – Roller skating party

11/11 – Veteran's Day – no school

11/12 – End of Trimester 1

11/16 – Report cards

11/23 - Picture retakes

11/24, 25, 26 – Thanksgiving holiday

Have a wonderful weekend! Mrs. Klacza