Week of 9/12/11 - 9/16/11

I always feel like the four day weeks are jam packed and very busy. Next week will be a nice, normal five-day week. I hope your child is feeling comfortable here in fifth grade. If you have any concerns, please let me know. It was great speaking to so many of you at Curriculum Night. If you were unable to attend and sign up for a conference, please email me and I will put you on the schedule.

We talked about the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 today and how we all need to do something to help people in some way to commemorate this day in history.

Make sure you check your child's backpack this coming week for the packet regarding our magazine drive. This is a huge fund raiser for our district and we all appreciate your support.

Coming up this week:

Spelling: Lesson 3 pretest will be on Monday. Homework from the workbook will be assigned on Monday and due on Thursday. Practice sheets will be due on Tuesday. Final test is on Friday.

English: We continue chapter 1 this week, focusing on simple subjects & predicates and subjects in the imperative.

Reading: We continue with Tall Tales. The skills specifically targeted will be identifying story structure and distinguishing between exaggerated and realistic story elements. As a review, we will use our visualization skills, define unknown words using context clues, and define and use roots, affixes, prefixes, and suffixes. We will also discuss and practice using similes and metaphors. This week we will be writing our own tall tales with plenty of similes and metaphors!

Social Studies: On Monday we will start our Aztec masks. Later in the week we will read, discuss, and take notes on lesson 3, “Life in New Spain.” Look out for a How to Study sheet because I foresee our first social studies test on 9/20.

Science: We read and discussed lesson 3 from our book and took notes on the scientific method. There will be an open note/book quiz on Tuesday on lesson 3. The week will end with an interesting experiment where we will use the scientific method.

Mrs. Klacza's Math Class:
Our chapter 1 test will be on Tuesday. Please make sure your child has finished the pretest given to them as homework today. We will continue to review the chapter on Monday. Chapter 2 on multiplication is next!

Important Dates:

District Magazine Drive -- Magazine Order Turn-in days: 9/20, 9/27, 9/29
September 30 -- Early Dismissal
October 10 -- Columbus Day -- No School
October 27 -- School Improvement Day/Early Dismissal

Enjoy your weekend! Mrs. Klacza