Mrs. Alabakoff's 4th/5th GradeDearborn Public Schools

Mar 16th (No Title)

One more thing—Don’t forget those Pennies for Pasta.  We are raising money for Leukemia Lymphoma Society!

Mar 16th Reminders!

Just a couple reminders:

Forces and Motion test tomorrow!  Students have a folder with a study guide.  We have gone over the study guide and your child made any necessary corrections.  Please study the contents of the folder for tomorrow’s test.

Conferences are next week on Wednesday.  I will be sending slips for some students.  If you do not receive one, it is not necessary for me to see you.

Tower of Books is still in progress!  Students should be reading their books and completing the task that goes with the book.  The tasks are short, so I expect best effort!   I check them in and the students receive their slip for their tower.  Students can check out books from me if they are looking for a certain genre they may not have at home.

Happy Reading!

Mar 9th March Readers!

Sorry for the late post, but it seems March arrived quickly!

If you would like to read to our class on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday either first thing in the morning (9:00) or at the end of the day (3:15), please let me know the day and time that would work for you.

Happy Reading!

Feb 26th Government Assessment

Update:

The Government Assessment was moved to Monday because of the snow day.  The students were happy to have the weekend for extra studying.  Your child should have brought home their purple folder, which has all the information they will need for the test!

Enjoy your weekend!

Feb 17th Week of Feb. 15-19

Sorry for the late post!  Welcome back to everyone!  I hope everyone enjoyed a restful, fun break with family.  I know I did!

Thank you to all for the Valentine goodies!  I definitely enjoyed them over the break.  Thank you also to all the parents for helping with our ice cream sundae party.  You made it so easy and it is greatly appreciated.  Once again, thanks to Mrs. Mathis for organizing!

This week we are learning:

Spelling–Oops, the Thursday before break was so busy we didn’t get to the Spelling test.  Students are doing word work activities with the words to practice and we will take the test this Friday.

Daily 5/CAFE–We are working on summarizing this week, using main ideas.  We are also focusing on strong verbs.  Students are flagging in their reading and sharing so we can then transfer these to our writing.

Math–Our focus this week is larger numbers–writing and reading them in different forms.  We are also working on pictographs.  Students are creating them using a key and are also answering questions based on the data in the graph.

Social Studies–We are learning about Michigan’s government.  Hopefully you saw the cool trees come home that students created based on what we have learned about the 3 branches of government.  We should finish up late this week or early next with rights and responsibilities of citizens.   Students will be assessed next week.

Writer’s Workshop–Our focus this week is a descriptive piece.  Students are creating stories about waking up to find out they have shrunk to the size of an ant.  We will be using our powerful, descriptive language in our stories.

Have a great rest of the week!

Feb 5th Reminders for Next Week

Tuesday-9th—–Mardi Gras Celebration Dearborn Hills Golf Course

Wednesday 10th—–Late Start

Thursday 11th—–Valentine Celebration with Ice Cream Sundaes and cards at 1:45

Roller Skating 6:30-8:30

Friday 12th——No School

Monday 15th——No School

Jan 27th Water for Flint!

Send A Sip…To Our Friends In Flint!

The citizens of Flint face a very serious and long term water crisis. People all across the state and country are stepping up to help and now we can too!

ALL THIS WEEK, ALL DEARBORN PUBLIC SCHOOLS WILL BE COLLECTING CASES OF WATER FOR FLINT. THIS IS A DISTRICT WIDE EFFORT BY ALL OF OUR SCHOOLS.

Please drop off your donation of bottled water before January 29th to any school!

Jan 25th Week of January 25th — 29th

Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!  I showed the kids pictures my brothers sent of all the snow they received!  I think some were wishing that would have come our way!  Looks like we will be having a little more mild temps so hopefully we will get in some good outdoor recess time!

Reminders for this week:

Michigan’s Birthday–January 26, 1837 !

Math Workshop tomorrow evening 6-7 pm; PTA meeting to follow at 7 pm.  Please send in the RSVP for the Math.  It will be something you don’t want to miss.  Great math strategies!

Friday–1/2 day dismissal at 11:45

This week we are learning:

Social Studies–Thank you to the Bucks for the delicious Trenary Toast.  It was good to have a product from the U.P.  Not sure if I thanked the Mendez family as well.  They supplied the delicious   Jiffy muffins–three different flavors.   If I missed anyone else for thank yous, please know how much we appreciate the donations!  The kids are really enjoying it!

They have also been enjoying Michigan History and doing a great job!  They have a folder that will be coming home to study for the history test–probably this Friday!  We just have a couple last minute timeline activities to finish this week!

Science–We have finished our light unit and will take a short assessment tomorrow.  We are then moving on to another type of energy–SOUND!

Spelling–Our unit focus this week is gr, cr, br.

Daily 5/CAFE–We are integrating our Science and Social Studies by using text features to locate information.   Students are also working on reading and researching about an inventor.    This includes main/idea and details.

Writer’s Workshop–We have begun researching our inventors life and will then create a research paper based on our findings.  Students will then get to create their own invention and write about it!

Math–We finished our measurement unit and will now move on to place value with larger numbers.  We will read, write and compare larger numbers.

Enjoy your week!

Jan 13th DuVall Spirit Week next week!

Are the winter blues getting to you?  Why not have a little bit of fun.  DuVall will have spirit week during the week of January 18th.

Monday–January 18th  No School

Tuesday–January 19th:  Sports Shirt Day (wear a shirt from your favorite sports team)

Wednesday–January 20th:  DuVall School Spirit Day (dress in DuVall shirts; it is also Yearbook Activity Pictures Day)

Thursday–January 21st:  Tacky Day (wear a crazy hat or mismatched socks)

Friday–January 22nd: Twins day (dress up like a “twin” in your class)

Everyday we will keep track of the number of students participating in school spirit week.  The class with the greatest number of participants during the whole week will get a Penguin Point per student that can be used for our raffle on Friday, January 22nd!  Show your DuVall Spirit and have some fun!

Jan 4th Week of January 4-8

Welcome Back!  I hope everyone enjoyed a fun, restful break with family and friends!  I sure did!

I want to thank everyone for the wonderful gifts and all the help for the Holiday breakfast!  It is so nice to have all the parental support!  I look forward to all great things in 2016!

Please remind your children to dress for the weather.  When we are able, we will be going outside, so it is important students have hats, gloves and snow pants and boots when necessary.

This week we are learning:

Spelling–Our focus this week is the ow chunk, that makes the long o sound.  It is important students practice their words, but also the chunk with the sound.  We are making connections to other words with the same pattern.  We discussed how the ow doesn’t always make the long o sound!

Daily 5/Cafe–Students are working on their individual goals and strategies.  We are working on getting “deeper” into the books.  We also will be working on cause and effect utilizing our unit in Michigan history to integrate Social Studies.  Students will also continue working on collecting information for main idea and details.

Writer’s Workshop–This week we will be working on creating a quatrain snow poem!  We have a little inspiration now!

Science–We have begun our unit on light and sound by discussing the various forms of energy.  Students are creating a superhero that utilizes one of the types of energy we have discussed.  We will then delve further into the study of light.

Social Studies–We are continuing our unit in Michigan history.  Students will be learning the French and British explorers, how they affected Michigan and their interaction with the Native American tribes.

Math–Our focus will be area and perimeter.  We will be learning about the different ways to find area, including work on measuring to the nearest inch, 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch.

STUDENTS SHOULD STILL CONTINUE TO PRACTICE THEIR MULTIPLICATION FACTS AS WELL!

Have a warm week!