TESTING IS OVER!!! YAY!!!!

What a busy week we have had!!! I am so proud of the girls for handling the fact that testing rolled over into two weeks.  Like I told you guys last week, results should be in around the beginning of November.  Despite testing, we have had a very productive week of learning.

In math, we are moving on from order of operations.  This is a topic we will cover throughout the rest of the year, so I want to move onto the next topic.  We are going to learn multi digit multiplication and division.  I know that the girls have been learning about this since the third grade, but we are going to go really in depth with it.  They are going to learn how to draw out the problems, and they are also going to be able to write explanations as to how they got their answers.  This topic is new to our curriculum, and we will be spending the rest of the nine weeks on this. 
In language arts, we finished learning about conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections. We also began learning about similes and metaphors.  We will continue similes and metaphors next week.
In writing, they are getting their final writing assignment of the nine weeks.  They are writing a narrative story on the Underground Railroad.  In their story, they are telling about a slave (or family of slaves) who travel the Underground Railroad to try to get to freedom.  They will get to choose if they make it, or get caught.  This will be the longest piece they have had to write this year, so they won't have to turn it in until Friday, October 12th.  We are going to be talking a lot about the Underground Railroad in the next few weeks, but I am going to suggest they start doing some research on their own to help them start preparing for their story.
In social studies, we wrapped up our unit on citizen rights and responsibilities by doing some mock trials.  They were all based on the nursery rhymes, and it has really helped the girls understand the judicial process.  We have one more play to do Monday, which is the case of Humpty Dumpty: was it really an accident? Starting Tuesday, we will begin our Civil War unit that will last until the end of the nine weeks.  I will give you more information on the unit next week.
In spelling we will be studying Sort 5.

I have a couple of important announcements about upcoming events.  First, we are having our Jekyll Island parent meeting Wednesday, September 19 at 5 pm.  We will going over what your girls will experience on the trip, as well as answer questions you may have.  If you cannot attend, just visit the Jekyll Island 4-H center website to see what we will be covering.  The site is www.jekyll4h.org.  Remember, the cost of the trip is $75 if you pay before October 31.  After October 31, the price rises to $100.  I hope to see you all there.  Second, we are sending home permission slips today for our first field trip of the year.  On October 3, we have been invited to the Cobb County Supreme Courthouse to witness a mock trial.  The trial is based off a real case of shoplifting at Walmart.  Some of the 5th graders will even get the opportunity to be part of the jury.  After the skit, they will get to tour the holding cells, jury deliberation room, and other parts of the courthouse.  We need all permission slips and money in by next Friday our we will not be able to go.  Please get those in as soon as possible.  Finally, first quarter progress reports go home next Friday.  Please remember that these are strictly to let you know where your daughter is half way through the nine weeks.  These grades are not going on their permanent records.  It is just a heads up so you know where they are excelling and where they need help, if any.  There will be a place for you to sign saying you received them and you can leave comments if necessary.  They will be due back Monday.  The grades are yours to keep.  Just cut the signature slip off and send that in with your daughter.  Thank you!

This week, our Arianna celebrated her birthday.  I hope you had a wonderful birthday sweet girl!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Testing Fun

Happy Friday!!  ITBS testing has officially begun.  Today the girls took the vocabulary and reading comprehension tests 1 and 2.  Monday they will take spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and language arts.  Tuesday is math, Wednesday is science and social studies, and Thursday we wrap up with map skills and reference materials.  Test results should be in the beginning of November.  I can't wait to see how awesome your girls all do on this test!

Because of testing, our schedule will be different all next week.  Testing will be from about 8:20-10:00 everyday.  We will have 1 hour between testing and specials, and an hour after lunch.  Because of this, I am going to just do one subject a day instead of trying to squeeze it all in each day.  Monday will be writing and language arts.  We are going to continue working on conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.  We will learn how to incorporate those into our writing.  I will also be doing a brief introduction into narrative writing as they will have a major narrative story assigned to them the week after next.  Tuesday we will be doing math.  We are continuing our work on the order of operations and being able to write mathematical expressions based on reading word problems.  Wednesday will be reading.  We will continue reading out of our shared reading book Because of Winn Dixie and I will be pulling small cooperative groups to work on finding main idea and supporting details.  Thursday will be social studies.  We started our unit on citizenship and civic responsibilities.  We talked about The Bill of Rights this week, and Wednesday we will be looking at jury trials and even doing a skit that involves a mock trial.  Friday, we will do a review of everything we have worked on this week to wrap it all up.  We will still have a spelling sort (sort 4) and a reading log for the girls to complete, but I will not be assigning any other homework throughout testing so they can relax each night to prepare for the next day. 

Yesterday I had to take a day off due to illness.  I hate missing school, especially this early on in the year, but I was happy with how the girls behaved with the substitute over all.  I am bringing them a little treat Monday because of it, although they do not know about it yet.  I do know for sure I will be out October 5th to observe at the Ron Clark Academy for the day.  I was selected to go so that I could see all the wonderful things they do there and bring it back to our classroom.  If you are unfamiliar with Ron Clark and his wonderful school, please check out his website, www.ronclarkacademy.com.  I will also be out half a day on  October 11, and a full day October 12 as my boyfriend is having surgery.  I am expecting their best behavior these days, and since I know in advance about being out, I wanted you to know as well so you can remind the girls that class rules, procedures, and expectations do not change when I am gone.  Thanks so much!

I am attaching a video the girls made on constructive and destructive forces.  They did such a great job with it, they played it to the whole school after the Brumby News yesterday morning.  I was so proud!! I hope you enjoy!

Finally, I want to wish Estefany a Happy Birthday Sunday!!  I hope you have a wonderful day sweetie!!

Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis....Oh my!

What a fun week here at the beach.  We wrapped up our unit on constructive and destructive forces with a bang....literally.  We made homemade volcanoes, so please tune into our videos to see them in action.  We had such a great time with them.  We are in the process of making one other video, and I should hopefully be able to upload it to next week's post.  The girls were split into groups and given a force they had to illustrate.  They essentially made a flip book, but instead of flipping through it to see the effects of their force, I am going to take a picture of each of their illustrations in order, and put them into a movie maker.  They worked really hard on their drawings and showed me they have a full understanding of the forces, and I can't wait to show you their hard work!  This week we also wrapped up place value and moved on to order of operations in math.  Next week, we will continue our work with order of operations.  We are starting our first social studies unit of the year next week, and we will be studying citizen rights.  Finally, we will be studying Sort 3 in spelling.

A couple of big announcements for next week.  As a reminder, we have no school Monday in observance of Labor Day.  Please enjoy your long three day weekend.  Iowa Tests of Basic Skills start next Friday.  You daughter will be tested in all subject areas, and results should be in around the beginning of November.  The test will be from next Friday to the following Thursday.  It is vitally important that your daughter is here and on time everyday.  We will begin testing right at 8.  I know they will all do great!!!  One last thing, I am asking for everyone to get a flash drive to keep at school.  We are doing so many projects that involve the computer this year, and our network is not reliable.  If your daughter has a flash drive, we can guarantee that her work won't get lost.  Plus, if need be, she can work on those projects at home as well.  You can get them at Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and even Walgreens.  They are around $5.  Thanks so much!!

We want to wish our Shara a very happy birthday Sunday!  We hope you have a wonderful day!!

I hope everyone has a nice, relaxing long weekend!

What a wild and crazy week here at the beach!

2 weeks down, 34 to go.  ;)  This has been an interesting week, to say the least.  First and foremost, I want to welcome Yemi, Zakiyah, Debora, Rebeca, Hannah, and Aniyah to our class!!  I am so terribly sad that Mrs. Bowlden was taken from us, but I am thrilled to have each and everyone of you become Sunset Sweethearts!!  I know this is a huge change, but luckily it has been done so early in the year that the move will hopefully be as smooth as possible.  If you are the parent of one of our new girls, please read the previous posts to get caught up on what has been happening in our room.  As always, my door is always open.  Feel free to call, email, or stop by whenever. 

Second, I want to thank everyone who was able to make it to Parent Orientation last night.  I loved being able to meet all of you.  For those of you who were unable to make it, I am sending home all the information with your daughters today.  Please review our class rules and procedures/behavior plan.  The powerpoint and behavior plan are yours to keep.  I just need you to sign the top saying you have reviewed it and send that slip back on Monday.  I am also sending home the medical release forms for our Jekyll Island trip.  That serves as the permission slip.  The trip costs $75 this year, and you can pay in installments between now and January.  We are asking to get all the money in by November 1st, if possible, because we learned this morning the price may go to $100 after that.  Finally, a title one packet is going home, and there is a sheet on the front for you to sign.  Please send that in Monday as well.

This was our first week working strictly with curriculum.  We working on place value of whole numbers and decimals in math.  We learned about to write the numbers in standard, expanded, and word forms.  Next week we will learn how to compare and order numbers with decimals, and then move on to order of operations.  Your daughters have already started working on some persuasive writing for me.  Our class pet, Roger the betta fish, passed away Tuesday morning.  The girls wrote me a short piece convincing me to get another pet.  They did an excellent job, and we now have Toby the betta fish.  The girls even named him.  They are also still working on their volcano papers.  In science we talked about the Earth's plates and how they move.  We went in depth with what happens to Earth as forces such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.  Next week, they will be doing hands on activities with forces.  We will be creating our own volcanoes and letting them erupt.  We are also going to make stop motion videos of earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and floods and how they effect the Earth (especially in cities and towns).  The girls studies Sort 1 in spelling this week and learned how adding the suffix -ed changes the spelling of words.  Next week they will study Sort 2, which deals with a review of the prefixes re-, un-, dis- and mis-.  Remember, they must chose 3 activities from their speller's choice menu to complete throughout the week.  Two must be activities requiring writing, and one can be a nonwritten activity.  They will turn in their spelling on Friday before their tests.  Finally, please make sure your daughter is reading at least 20 minutes a night, and that she completes her reading log (which is due every Friday as well).

We have no birthdays in our class next week.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

Happy birthday and first week pictures

I forgot that I wanted to add a birthday segment each week to recognize the birthdays celebrated throughout the week.  We did not have a birthday this actual week, but our Elizabeth celebrated a birthday on August 1st.  Happy birthday sweet Elizabeth!!  I hope you had a wonderful day. 

Awesome First Week

Well, the first week is under our belts.  I just have to say....this week has been FANTASTIC!!!!  Your girls have come in ready to learn all about each other, have had all of their supplies and forms when I have asked for them, and are already great examples of Brumby Ambassadors!!  If this week is any indication of what our year will be like, we are going to have a wonderful year!

First, let's cover some housekeeping items.  We are having open house next Thursday, August 23, at 6:30.  You will get to come see our room and what we have done so are, as well as learn about how is year is going to flow through the curriculum.  If you are not a member of our PTA yet, you really should join.  It is only $6 a family.  Membership gets you free entry to all PTA functions, and there will be one of the night of open house.  They will be having a movie night with the film "Spy Kids 4" showing.  If you are a member of PTA, it is free for your children to watch the movie while we have our meeting.  They will also be selling pizza, drinks, and other refreshments.  Due to class size issues we are asking that your children do not attend the class meetings, so movie night is a great way to avoid hiring a babysitter.

Now for class news! We are diving right into the curriculum next week.  We are setting up our lessons around thematic units.  Our first unit is on constructive and destructive forces of nature.  Your daughters will be assigned 3 projects next week that will all be due on August 30th.  The first is a news article they have to write about a fictional earthquake in LA.  They have to first calculate how much damage the earthquake caused using figures we give them, and then tie that in to an article.  The second is a powerpoint presentation that they will be working in groups to complete.  They will have to create slides about different forces and describe them.  The last is an opinion paper on whether they feel a volcano is a constructive or destructive force.  They will have to create a graphic organizer, rough draft with edits, and a final draft.  They will have ample time in class to work on all of these projects while I am pulling small groups for reading and math, but it will require some work at home as well. 
In math, we will be working on place value with numbers as big as the millions place, and as small as the hundredths place.  We will look at ordering decimals, and writing numbers in standard, expanded, and word forms. 
Our first writing genre will be opinion.  They will learn how to form an opinion and use facts to back their opinion up. 
We will be studying sort 1 in the Words Their Way books for spelling.  They will be responsible for writing their spelling words in their agenda every Monday.  They will receive a speller choice menu Monday that will be used throughout August and September.  There are activities that require writing, and ones that do not.  They must complete two written activities a week, and one non written one.  The non written one they choose will have to be verified by you.  The girls can just write which one they choose on their spelling homework sheet, whichever night they choose, and you need to initial it.  They will turn in the week's work on Fridays. We will take our spelling tests on Fridays.  To do spellingcity.com work, your daughter needs to select Georgia, then the M for Marietta, select Marietta, select B, select Brumby, then select HEATHER SUBER.  My name WILL NOT be on that list.  Mrs. Suber and I work together on that website so it is her name they will choose. 
Their first reading log of the year is going home this afternoon.  The girls are to read at least 20 minutes a day.  She must also complete 4 of the activities on the sheet throughout the week, and turn it in on Fridays.  Please initial the sheet daily after your daughter has read.
Starting Monday, the girls will be responsible for recording their behavior in their agendas.  They will also write down their homework and any other important information I need you to know.  You will learn about our behavior system at Open House, but I just wanted to clarify a few things so there is no confusion between now and Thursday.  Everyday the girls all start on Partly Cloudy.  That means they had a good day.  They have the opportunity to move up to Sunny if they are going above and beyond the expectations of our class.  They can also move down to cloudy, windy, and rainy.  If they move up or down, they will write in their agenda why.  No matter what, their agenda needs to be signed by you every night.  That way I know you are aware of how your daughter is behaving in school.  Since they are in 5th grade, and almost middle schoolers, a lot of the responsibility is going to be placed in them.  If you need to change your daughter's transportation, please put me a note in her agenda. 

Again, we had a wonderful first week.  I hope to see you all at Open House Thursday!

As this is my techincal first day of school, I thought I would update on some things to help have a successful first day of school.  I am really looking forward to meeting your girls and getting started.  Here is a list of things she will need to do before or on Monday....

1. Please make sure she knows how she is going home.  Getting the children home safely is our number one goal for the first day.  If she is riding the bus, please have her know which color bus she is riding.  It is ok if she doesn't know which color, as long as she knows which apartment complex or neighborhood you live in.

2. Do not label any supplies yet, but send in what you can on Monday.  I know it is a lot, so if you cannot get it all here Monday, please try to get it all here by the end of the week. 

3. Make sure you have uniforms ready for the first day.  If you need to order some, you can do so on the Brumby website.

4. I do not allow snacks in the room as we tend to have little critters visit us if I do, but water (only water please) bottles are permitted. 

5. Unfortunately we do not have a pencil sharpener in our room, so please pick up a little one at Walmart or the Dollar Tree.

6. Flip flops are not allowed at Brumby, so make sure you have school appropriate shoes.

7. Your daughter will have a "homework" assignment of making an "All About Me" bag to share with the class so we can get to know one another.  Start thinking of items you would like to share.  You can brings books, stuffed animals, pictures, ect.  Please no electronics or anything of monetary or emotional value. 

8. Come to school Monday ready to have a great year!!

See you all one week from today!