Month: October 2021

Happy Halloween!  A BIG THANKS goes out to our Room Parents Mrs. Dennis, Mrs. Luz, and Mrs. Sidhu.  They provided the popcorn, juice, candy, and a movie for the fifth graders.  Thanks to Ms. McIntosh as well for providing the gym mats and the movie screen.  See you at Trunk or Treat!

Thank you again for the Hope House food donations!

What’s Up?

Math: Ordering decimals,  understanding that decimals are a tenth, hundredth,  or a thousandth of a whole, writing decimals in word form, standard form, and expanded form

Literacy: Students are finishing The Birchbark House and will begin new books on Monday.  Students have taken their final reading comprehension exam. The new books they will begin next week are:  A Year Down Yonder, Among the Hidden, and The Great Gilly Hopkins.

Writing: Descriptive writing. Students are finishing their “Greatest Fear” composition papers.  Their goal was to write a paper that depicts their greatest fear in such a way as to paint an image in their readers’ heads and make their readers feel the fear.  We are sharing some of the incredible October book reports of scientist/mathematicians.

Spelling/ELA: Short vowel sounds, compound vs. simple subjects, subject and predicate review.  Ch. 5 test with a chicken theme…thanks to Terra.

Religion: Chapter 4 Sacramentals.  Students read about sacramentals and how they help Catholics in our traditions, in our celebrations, and in our prayers.  Students attended mass in the church, and they are working on their saints report.

Social Studies: Students are finishing their Causes of Conflict projects.  They worked in three categories: The Navajo Code Talkers, Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, and Lummi Nation Salmon.  They studied the causes of conflict within the lives of people who are currently working hard to overcome conflict or successfully overcame incredible conflicts in their lifetime.

STEAM: Students had a budget of $150 to purchase materials to make parachutes.  Step 1: They watched humvees drop from military planes 2. worked in 2-3’s to draw blueprints of parachutes 3. did a gallery walk to view all of the groups’ blueprints and write comments/suggestions/questions 4. bought and made their parachutes that held plastic eggs with black beans inside to simulate the weight of real eggs 5. tested their parachutes to make sure that when they landed on the floor, the eggs didn’t break and release the beans.  When all of the eggs have been tested, they will go back to the blueprints to make modifications and we will likely test real eggs.  (Why am I doing this?!?)

Upcoming:

November 1st– All Saints Day Mass (K-8), 12:30 pm

November 4th– Early Release for Parent-Teacher Conferences (11:45 am dismissal)

November 5th– NO SCHOOL to accommodate Parent Teacher Conferences

November 11th– NO SCHOOL, Veteran’s Day

November 12th– Veterans’ Day Mass (2nd-5th), 8:15 am. Boy and Girls Scouts may wear scout uniforms.

November 22nd– Human Food Chain/Prayer Service 8:15 am, Pizza Lunch

November 24th– Early Release for Thanksgiving (11:45 am dismissal), NO EDP today

November 25th-26th– NO SCHOOL, Thanksgiving holiday

November 29th– Boys’ Basketball begins (6th-8th)

 

 

Unsung Heroes: I want to extend my gratitude to Kaleb and Yuri.  When asked if anyone would help clean the library tables, they were the first to jump up and take the reigns…or the rags and spray bottle.  I want to thank Dominic and Maddie for bringing the milk to class and composting the cartons.  And I am appreciative of Sydney’s help in making sure that the contents of the closet are given to their rightful owners at the end of each day.  Thanks to Ethan for consistently giving encouragement to his classmates for jobs well done!  And a big shout out goes to Meleah for spraying and Darren for distributing rags to clean desks.  There are many things that make the classroom run smoothly and helpfulness is appreciated!

Also, a big thanks to all of those students who worked to bring food for the Hope House bin.  Parents, thank YOU for supporting our brothers and sisters in the community.  Gratitude goes to Mrs. Lawrence for the huge bag of socks!

What’s up?

Math: Long division with remainders, test on Friday

Literature: Figurative language, reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, all tied in with social studies and social emotional learning about grief.

Spelling/ELA: /Ô/ sound, compound sentences and conjunctions

Writing: Essential Question- How do writers paint pictures with words?  Students could tell a story by writing, “I am scared of spiders.”  Better yet, they could create a picture of their story by saying, “When I see the hairy little beasts with eight spindly legs skittering toward me, my heart jumps up into my throat!”

Social Studies: Mrs. Town shared beautifully  intricate Colville, Nez Perce, and White Mountain Apache beadwork, a White Mountain Apache burden basket, and a  Yakima cradleboard that she actually used when her children were babies!  Students are working mostly in pairs on their Causes of Conflict project.  They have chosen their presentation mediums: Power Points, posters, or timelines.  They will spend the next few weeks putting their projects together.  In the end, they will see what people do when they are faced with conflict and how people persevere through it.

 

        

 

       

Religion: Second Step: Being assertive.  Archdiocese Lesson: Protecting God’s Children- Safe Friends.  Lesson by Deacon Kheriaty: The Saints, what is a saint, purgatory, heaven, free will, and sin.

STEAM: Students watched a video of a military plane dropping Humvees attached to parachutes.  Students worked in trios or pairs to draw their own blueprints to design their own parachutes from which eggs will be attached and dropped.

5-PS2-1.	Support an argument that the gravitational force exerted by Earth on objects is directed down.

 

 

Upcoming:

October 19th to 22nd– Holy Hoops 4-on-4 Tournament for Grades 5-8 this week

October 25th– Pizza Lunch (rescheduled)

October 26th– Picture retakes

October 27th– PTC General Meeting via Zoom

October 28th– Orange & Black Day; Pumpkin-Carving Contest (drop-off your submission after 7:30 am in the gym)

November 4th– Early Release for Parent-Teacher Conferences (11:45 am dismissal)

November 5th– No School to accommodate Parent Teacher Conferences

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Please read:

 https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/informational/columbus-day-myths

 

Thank you for all of the donations.  Our bin is overflowing with donations from you and from teachers as well!  We will take it all to Hope House next week.

Religion: Students read about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and his devotion to the poor.  Fifth graders studied the Beatitudes and how they can demonstrate them in their own lives.

Math: Students are working on long division with one and two-digit divisors and remainders.

Literacy: Students are reading The Birchbark House, taking notes, and getting used to answering literal and inferential questions.  Some are making connections to other books they’ve read.  It is quite a large step to go from reading for entertainment to analyzing literature, but we will get there!

Writing: Students are writing the rough draft of their five paragraph Greatest Fear paper.  Next week we will get into peer editing.

Social Studies: (OSPI: Since Time Immemorial): Students are in the beginning stages of their Causes of Conflict Unit.  They are presented with various problems for which they must find the causes.  They will also study the civic, geographical, historical, and economic impacts of those problems.  We will be working on this for quite a while.  The three subjects they chose from were the Navajo Code Talkers, Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte, and the low salmon population and its impact on the Lummi.

STEAM: Students put their finishing touches on their shadow projects and worked on a problem solving, team building activity.  Students had a limitation (no verbal communication), a time constraint (10-30 seconds), and one goal for a team of three (put a rubber band around the cup using only yarn).  Students did observations to see what tactics worked and afterwards, they discussed why they were able or not able to achieve their goal.  Erick said that it wasn’t just a STEAM exercise, but a religion lesson as well!