Monday, October 26, 2009 Dear Parents and Students, We had ANOTHER fabulous week in 5th grade! We had a wonderful time at Challenger Space Museum, and our trip to Mars was a sucess! Thanks a million to our Alien/parent volunteers, Mrs. Jorgensen and Mrs. Adair - you guys are real troopers! Parent teacher conferences are fast approaching. Thank you to those of you who have selected a time for your conference and sent in your paper request. Almost all booked, but don't worry...if you haven't sent yours in yet, there's still plenty of time and plenty of open slots. I look forward to meting with all of you very soon. Wishing you guys a fabulous week, Mrs. Hyde Important Dates Friday 10-30-09 - Gradebook closes for Trimester 1; HALLOWEEN PARADE: 1:15 PM Friday 11-6-09 - End of First Trimester PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES/MINIMUM DAYS: 12:00 pm dismissal Friday 11-6-09 Monday 11-9-09 Tuesday 11-10-09 Wednesday 11-11-09 Veterans Day, NO SCHOOL Thursday 11-12-09 Friday 11-13-09 INNER-SESSION BREAK: Mon 11-16-09 thru Fri 11-27-09 Monday 11-30-09 BACK TO SCHOOL This Week In: LANGUAGE ARTS: Unit: "Give it All You've Got!" Story: The Fear Place. We practiced parrot reading (to achieve fluency), we focussed on linking verbs in grammar, and we wrote our first multiple paragraph essay on how a quote relates to the story we read. MATH: We dove head first into Algebra. At first students were leary, but by Thursday, they were so excited about how well they understood the new concepts, that I had to kick them out to get them to go to lunch! SOCIAL STUDIES: We did a lesson together because students are having difficulty doing the assignments independently and getting a passing score. (Only 2 students out of the whole class got passing scores!) Until they can work independently AND competently, we'll have to forgo the cool activities and do the book work as a class. SCIENCE: We started to work on Chapter 2. We will have to complete chapter 2 while learning about Mars, since our space mission in two weeks revolves around an intimate knowledge of the red planet.