Bake Sale

Good evening everyone. I hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather this afternoon. I wanted to send an update that our class bake sale is this Friday. We need volunteers for popping popcorn, selling snacks and we need donations for the sale. Please comment on here or message me if you can help with any of these things. Thank you!

Spelling Words for this week

I forgot to include the spelling words in the last post. I apologize for any confusion.

The words follow the pattern of being multisyllabic and ending in ‘able’-

desirable, excitable, biodegradable, noticeable, laughable, behavioral, adaptations, perpendicular, reference, liberty

Have a great night and week.

Week of 3-7-16

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. It already looks like the weather is warming up today. This week we have a normal schedule. We are still celebrating March is Reading Month this week and students should be filling out the reading logs they brought home and returning it each Friday. The class that has the most logged time will win an ice cream party. They can read books, magazines, Myon.com or log time reading on Mobymax Stories. We also still have time to have guest readers. I hope you are able to sign up on the calendar in the hallway, outside of our room, to come in a share a favorite book. If you would like to read but do not have a book you would like to read, I can get a book for you to share.

Here is our weekly learning objectives:

Math: We are starting our next unit which takes us back to fractions. We are going to be converting mixed numbers into improper fractions and vice versa. We will be working on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing these fractions. Fractions are always tricky so please be check in with them on their understanding.

Reading: We are moving into informational texts in our strategy groups. You may have noticed their non-fiction texts coming home already on Friday.

Spelling: We are looking at multisyllabic words that end in the “able” chunk. We are going to look at it as a suffix as well. As always the word list is added to Spellingcity.com for the students to practice the word chunk and the content words.

Writing: Students have finished up their “100 year old” writing prompts and we have started moving into poetry. We have been working on diamante poems which are pattern poems that require the students to use different parts of speech in a specific pattern. Ask your student to show you how to write one. We will be looking at multiple types of poems before each student makes a final booklet on their publish poems.

Science: We are continuing their study of DNA and traits. We are starting to use animal traits to see how they help animals survive in their given environment. We will be creating a DNA model this week as well.

The music concert has been moved to April 21st at 7 p.m.

The STEM meeting is March 8th at the Michael Berry Center. Students are not required to attend but I do not think it would be bad for them to hear the presented information. If you are considering or applied already for the STEM middle school, I highly recommend that you attend.

I am excited to announce that I wrote a grant for our classroom and I was selected to receive it. I will be presented the amount today and I look forward to seeing how much money I am able to bring into the classroom for class sets of materials!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Bake Sale

Good evening,

Our class bake sale is March 11th.We baked goods to be donated and volunteers to sell them. We also need volunteers to pop popcorn. Please send us a note if you are able to donate and/or volunteer. Remember that the funds we raise go towards purchasing things for our classroom. Thank you as always for all of you help and support!

Week of March 1st, 2016

Happy Leap Day!

This week we have a regular full week. The concert for their music class has been moved to April. I will give you more details on this as I receive them. Here are our plans for the week.

Spelling: We are looking at words that have multiple syllables and end in the ‘ent’ pattern. Our words are interdependent, decadent, convenient, fluorescent, correspondent and our content words are treaty, tyranny, massacre, continental, consequences. As always all of the spelling words are going home today and they are uploaded onto spellingcity.com for practice.

Math: We are finishing unit 7 which is our first unit looking at expressions and order of operations. Our test will be on Wednesday and then we will be doing some math inquiry before starting Unit 8 next week.

Science: We are continuing heredity and will be looking at decoding DNA to create animals. The students will then have to come up with an environment that the animal would be well adapted to live in.

Writing: Students are writing a personal narrative right now that has them writing from the perspective of their 100-year-old selves. They are really enjoying the writing topic and they have even been researching colleges they wish to attend, to include in their stories. We are also looking at figurative language like metaphors.

Reading: We are finishing our reading group books this week and each student will be moving into an informational science related text. We will keep going on that and we will be looking at the Latin and Greek roots in words. Knowing these roots will help students figure out the meaning to words they have never seen before.

Have a great week!

Week of 2-22-16

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Hopefully some of the nice weather we had on Saturday returns. We are moving ahead in all subjects. Before I talk about our plan for the week, I wanted to send a reminder that there is a STEM Middle School information meeting scheduled for March 8 at 7 p.m. at the Michael Berry Center. We also have our school picture day this Wednesday. Picture Day order forms went home on Friday.

This week:

Spelling: We are looking at multisyllabic words ending with the ‘ant’ chunk. Our words are assistant, brilliant, extravagant, ignorant, significant, formula, coordinate, organism, inherited, acquired.

Math: We are finishing up our unit which is a refresher on line plots and using parentheses in number sentences. We will be having a review and unit test towards the end of the week.

Science: We are working on our unit on heredity and animal adaption. The students are really enjoying the unit so be sure to ask them about inherited and acquired traits!

Writing: We are finishing our publishing of mysteries. We will be starting a narrative from the point of view of the students when they are 100 years old.

Reading/Daily 5: Many of our book clubs are finishing their books sometime this week. The next books in their rotations will be informational text. We are going to focus on comprehension and summarizing of informational text.

Have a great week!

Week of 2-17-16

Hello everyone!

Here is the information for this week. I apologize for not having it up yesterday.

Spelling- We are looking at multi-syllabic words that end in ‘sion’. Our words are recession, concession, vision, comprehension, conclusion, horizontal, vertical, vertebrates, invertebrates, loyalist

Math-We are working on the next unit. We are focusing on order of operations and graphing line plots.

Reading-Our book clubs are in full swing and each student is working on a specific book. We have reading assignments for each group so make sure to check with your student on what they are reading.

Writing-We are working on our mysteries and we will be starting an opinion piece next.

Science- We are working on our animals and plants unit. We are specifically focusing on inherited traits vs. acquired traits. We will be completing a family tree project, as well as a few other activities. If anyone would like their student to opt out of the family tree project, let me know and an alternative project will be provided.

Have a great week!

Week of 2-8-16

Hello everyone,

This week we have a short week. There is no school on Friday or the following Monday. We will still have our spelling list. The gold colored camp sheets need to be turned in ASAP. We would like to hold a camp meeting to talk about everything and we need back those sheets to see who can come to the meeting. This week also is the start of a new card marking. Remember that students need to be reading at least 30 minutes each and every night. Mobymax is assigned as homework on certain nights but is encouraged for nightly practice, if students are below grade level in a subject. It will help catch students up on missing skills from previous grade levels.

Our weekly objectives:

Spelling: We are looking at multisyllabic words that end in “tion”. Our word list is prescription, subscription, introduction, communication, condition, parentheses, operation, authority, classification, diagram

Writing: Students are working on writing mystery stories. We have just started working on these and it will continue for the next few weeks.

Math:We are starting unit 7 in math which focuses on the order of operations and recognizing patterns in our number system.

Science: We are finishing the solar system and will be taking the unit test this week. Our next unit is on heredity and animal adaptations.

Reading: We are working on making connections to our texts. We have our book clubs we are working in and we will be looking at point of view.

Have a great week!

STEM Middle School Information

Hello Everyone,

Below is a post about the STEM Middle School in Dearborn. This is a special middle school for selected students. It focuses on science, technology, engineering and math. It helps get the students in advanced courses and to prepare them for the advanced high school. Please review the information below:

“Applications for the school Year 2016-2017 will be submitted online this year by clicking the link Stem Application 2016.17; Must be a Dearborn City Resident to Apply.  All applications must be submitted by March 18thSTEM Application 2016.17

Enrollment is limited and based on student interest and test scores. Currently, we will have 60 openings for 6th grade (current 5th graders) and no openings for 7th grade (current 6th graders), and 3 opening for 8th grade (current 7th graders).

8th grade is still in the planning stages and we will have more information sometime in semester 2.

Process: Apply before the deadline! Administration will look at your M-Step and NWEA scores. Depending on number of applicants, a selection will be asked to come to the Dearborn Heights Campus and take the Explore test.  Based on those scores students will be invited to attend the STEM school.

Testing is penciled in for the weeks between April 4 and 22nd.

This is a school of choice and transportation is the families responsibility.

Explore Test information and preparationExplore Info and Prep Click on all about the test and on the right are practice tests.”

Week of 2-1-16

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. January Book Orders are due this week. Please make sure to send in the completed form, with cash only, if you and your student would like to order. We are starting a fresh marking period today. We are working up a few units and I will be talking about those in the subject section. A few parents have been asking about supplies needed for the second half of the school year. Each student and the class can use dry erase markers and sticky notes. Dollar Tree has a pretty good deal on sticky notes.

Reading:Students will be finishing Hatchet this week and they will be writing a short piece based upon the book. We working on cause and effect and theme. After we finish Hatchet, we will start looking at Mysteries.

Spelling: This week we are looking at words with silent letters. As always our words are uploaded onto Spellingcity.com for students to get extra practice. Our spelling words are disguises, column, chemical, foreign, wreckage, taxation, adaptation, independence, declaration, genetics.

Science:We are studying constellations and students will be creating their own constellation models. We will finish the unit this week and next week they will have their solar system unit test.

Writing: Most students are finished with their graphic novels. We are looking at using the RAN strategy to analyze and write nonfiction text. We will also be looking at the features of a mystery. Each student will be writing a mystery in the next few weeks.

Math: Our fraction unit is almost done. Today we will look at subtracting and adding mixed numbers, as well as multiplying and dividing fractions.

Have a great week.