This month is already seeming to fly by! I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend. We have spirit week this week and the Bandit Dash on Friday. Presale flyers went home last week. If you need another copy, I posted it on Dojo.  M-STEP is continuing and hopefully finishing by Friday.

This week:

Spelling- https://quizlet.com/_4vtqw4

Math-We are working on adding and subtracting multiple fractions with a common denominator. We will be having our Mid-Module assessment towards the end of the week.

Daily 5- We are reviewing problem and solution, cause and effect, and character traits. We are completing graphic organizers for the first two and using inferences to list character traits for the last topic.

Writing- We are working on figurative language. This week we are focusing on expanding a sentence using onomatopoeia to grab a reader’s attention as a lead or to be an interesting detail.

Social Studies- We are finishing our Shark Tank projects and will be continuing our study of the economy.

Science- This week we are focusing on the respiratory system and the skeletal system.

Have a great week.

I can’t believe we are only a few days away!

This week we are starting our MSTEP assessments. They can be extremely long but we break them up with brain breaks and fun activities. We have not had much interest in sending in healthy snacks or drinks so I will be bringing things in for the days we do not have a parent donation. Sleep and coming to school in a good mood are two of the most important determining factors in a child’s effort/focus during testing. MSTEP is used as a tool to determine if they are on the track from college readiness. Please have them grab lunch in the cafeteria and a snack if they are unable to eat before school. Remember this is a single tool to measure academic success. It does not measure how much they make us laugh, or their kind hearts. The test does now show compassion or artistic ability so while we encourage the best effort possible, remember it does not measure all of those other amazing things about your kids and I can tell you, each of you has a wonderful child who you should be proud of!

Please take a moment to nominate a fellow Nowlin parent, Teacher, or yourself to be a part of the PTA. Without the minimum required Board Members, there will be no camp accounts, which means no poporn sales, no camp fund donations for every 5th grade, no purchases made to improve Nowlin for all students, staff, and visitors. We will not be able to fund classroom projects or donate a bus to each and every classroom for a field trip. There are so many things the PTA does for the building, it would be such a shame to lose it simply because we can’t fill the PTA Board. Please consider helping out and nominating yourself or another person who would be great. It takes a couple of mines and you just submit. Click here- https://forms.gle/h5gPAZrzgcitdMYK8

Academics are different this week.

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Math- we are continuing on fractions

Social Studies we are finishing and presenting our Shark Tank Projects.

Science- we will be we are studying the respiratory system. We will be models to show this.

Reading- We will still have reading groups but the homework will be toned down. They are only reading for 35 minutes each night. The book club work will be reduced due to ELA MSTEP testing.

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. This is our last week before testing begins. We will be doing MSTEP for the next two weeks and then we will have NWEA testing. If you would like to send in a healthy snack for the class for testing, please let me know. You can send me a Dojo message or email. There is a parent involvement meeting this week on IEP’s. I posted more information about it on the Dojo newsfeed so check it out there.

This week:

Spelling: https://quizlet.com/_4s84ov

Daily 5: We are working on working on different types of figurative language and poetry. We are holding our book clubs and daily homework is coming home to be done with their reading.

Math: We are working on Module 5 which focuses on fractions. We are really working on finding equivalent fractions and adding fractions. We will be completing lessons 7 through 11 and that homework will be coming home each night in their Succeed books.

Science: This week we are focusing on the skeletal and muscular systems. We are really focusing on how these systems work together to help us complete everyday tasks. Watch for our model of these systems to be coming home.

Social Studies: Our focus on the economy has really taken off. We are tuning into entrepreneurship and the students will be working on an in-class project to create their own businesses. We will be looking at profits and costs. We will also be studying the impact of small business on the economy. These business ideas will be presented to the class in the format of the TV show Shark Tank. They will be trying to convince me to invest “money” in their business in order to help them grow. This presentation will be a few weeks away as we work on everything.

Writing: We are working on expanding our sentences with high-level vocabulary and creating interest with adjectives and verbs.

Something exciting that we are launching this week is Genius Hour. Genius hour is one hour a week where the students will working on solving an important issue within our community and beyond. They get to choose something that is important to them and each Friday we will spend one-hour researching and developing solutions to these issues. Students will be collaborating and creating together, before presenting these solutions based on their research to the class. This will be a passion project for the students since they are able to pick a topic of their choosing.

Have a great week everyone!

Good morning! There is no school this Friday. There will be no popcorn this week due to no school that day. We are covering many things before our testing starts very soon. If you wish to send in a healthy snack or drink for each student, we are collecting donations. If you would like to donate 28 drinks, snacks, or a bag of peppermints, please send me a Dojo note.

This week:

Spelling: https://quizlet.com/_4rxsrx

Daily 5: We are focusing on writing and determining the meaning of figurative language.

Writing: we are starting to work on research papers. We are focusing on including text features to enhance our writing.

Social Studies: We will continue working on our economy unit with a focus on the impact of scarcity.

Science: we are launching our function of the human body unit.

Math: We started Module 5 last week. We are working on understanding basic functions with fractions. We are also working on multiple stem problems using all 4 operations.

Have a great week.

I hope everyone’s week is off to a great start. Tomorrow is our field trip to Cranbrook Planetarium and Museum. All students needs to bring a bagged lunch in a bag that can be thrown away at the museum. We will not be able to bring any lunch containers back. Also please be sure not to send anything that is glass. Yankee Candle orders should be in this week and we will let you know when they arrive. Conferences are on Wednesday afternoon/evening and you have been sent a Dojo privately of a time, if you have a conference slot. If you did not get a time slot but would like a conference, please let me know and we can make alternative arrangements.

This week:

Math-We are finishing module 4. A study guide will come home today and the module assessment will be on Thursday. We will begin Module 5 on Friday.

Spelling- https://quizlet.com/_4qnzna

Social Studies: We are starting our last unit this week which is on economics.

Science: We are going to be wrapping up our unit on the changes of the earth this week with an in-class project and we will start our final unit on the structure and function of the human body.

Writing-We started an opinion piece of writing about the best place travel. Students are learning to use evidence and concrete sources as part of their argument. Some students are still publishing their last piece of writing and it might be coming home to be published.

Daily 5- We started working on poetry vocabulary and interpreting a poem. We are using figurative language and imagery to understand the author’s intent and mood in the poem.

Have a great week.

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. This is a busy week at Nowlin. All Yankee Candle fundraisers are due Friday. Wednesday evening is our Literacy Night. There will be games and activities so be sure to come by and join in the fun. Thursday after school at 3:40 is our Parent Information Meeting on MSTEP. If you would like more information on the testing your student will have in the weeks following Spring Break, please stop by the media center. Permission slips for the April 10th field trip are due by Friday. Friday is also the end of the marking period so all work sent home to fix and all projects are due by Thursday.

This week:

Spelling- We are learning when we have to change endings from /y/ to /ies/. https://quizlet.com/_4pvn2u 

Math- We will be learning about lines of symmetry and creating symmetrical “stained glass” pieces of artwork. These will have multiple lines of symmetry.

Writing- We are writing spring break narratives and focusing on changing overused words to better choices, during the revising stage of writing.

Social Studies- We will have our government test this week. Look for study guides to come home.

Science- We will be finishing up our changes in the earth unit sometime towards the end of the week. A study guide and test will come home.

Daily 5- We are working on learning to close reading articles with a purpose. We are also learning to annotate as we read to help with notetaking and homework.

Have a great week!

Good morning everyone,

I hope everyone enjoyed the hints of spring weather this weekend. We have a few upcoming reminders. Firstly, tomorrow is our field trip to the symphony. We will be back in time to each lunch at school at our regular time. Tomorrow is also Spring Picture Day. The photographers are going to try to get us in before we leave for the field trip or directly after. Picture information is coming home today with the students. The PTA is running a Yankee Candle fundraiser. Packets will come home today with the students and the collection window closes on 3-29-19. This is an important fundraiser for every class because the PTA has established bank accounts for each class’s 5th grade camp trip. The cost of camp is usually around $200 and the PTA is working on depositing money each year to bring this cost down to make the event more affordable for each and every student. Please take the booklet to work or show your friends and family, to help us ensure we can continue saving money for camp, funding classroom purchases and funding school purchases of needed equipment.

This week:

Spelling- https://quizlet.com/_4mflux

Math- We are working on determining the value of unknown angles using addition and subtraction from the benchmark angles.

Daily 5- We are focusing on comparing and contrasting a variety of texts on the same subject. We are also learning about synonyms and antonyms.

Writer’s Workshop- We are working on using synonyms in our writing to create stronger sentences that are of higher interest. We are also using this to focus on expanding our vocabularies.

Social Studies- All tree projects are due by Friday. We are going to be using mock issues to track their progress as they start in a city court and end up all the way in the Supreme Court.

Science- We are going to be using our knowledge of the changing earth layers and fossils to be archeologists this week. We will be studying what they do and how they do it. The students will also get a chance to try their hand at excavating something very delicate from hard “earth.”

Have a great week!

Good morning!

This week we are continuing with our guest readers for March is Reading Month. The students are also earning raffle tickets for a chance to win a new bike when they are caught being good readers.  We are still taking donations for our informational text literacy raffle basket. Each class is donating one and I will put together the basket on Wednesday.

This week:

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Math: We are learning to use protractors and other tools to measure and describe different types of angles. We are also creating angles based on their descriptions.

Social Studies: Students should be working on their Branches of the Government project. We are continuing to work on the same topic in class.

Science: We are classifying rocks based on their mineral content and how they are formed. If the weather is permitting, we will go on a rock hunt around the school and try to find all three types of rock.

Writing: We are having a group share of our persuasive writing. We are also starting a narrative on a topic of the students choice. We will be focusing on dialog.

Daily 5- We are focusing on inferring character traits based on a character’s actions. We are also looking at suffixes to determine the meaning of unknown words.

Have a great week.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. This week we have a regular week. The sign up sheet to read to the class for March is Reading Month is live and the link is posted on Dojo. There will be a popcorn sale on Friday. Each bag is $.50. All of the $1.00 books have been ordered and will be sent home as soon as they arrive. Picture retakes are also here and will come home with your student today, if they had retakes done.

This week:

Spelling- https://quizlet.com/_4kznsr

Math- We are working on Module 4 which is focused on geometry. We are specifically looking at the line segments, lines, and rays. We will be moving into measuring angles.

Daily 5- We are focusing on summarizing. We will finish our current novel “The One and Only Ivan” later in the week and the students will begin working on a research project. We will also be comparing and contrasting different types of text all written about Ivan.

Social Studies- We are learning about the branches of the federal government and their responsibilities.

Science- We are learning about classifying rocks into the three rock types and learning how these different rock types are formed. This will lead up to using rock types to date fossils.

Have a great week!

Happy Monday everyone. This Wednesday is the Nowlin Skating Party at the Lincoln Park Skating Center on Southfield. Presale forms went home last week.

This week:

Spelling- We are working on prefixes- https://quizlet.com/_4jotnb

Math- We are finishing Module 3 and will have our module later in the week. Watch for a review sheet to come home.

Science- We are going to be digging in deeper to fossil location and the water table.

Social Studies- We are examining issues in the news that impact us on both a local, and nationwide level. We are analyzing the impact of the issue and deciding what our responsibilities are as citizens.

Writing- We are continuing on our persuasive writing pieces. The students are debating whether or not 4th graders should have cell phones.

Daily 5- We are focusing on story elements as we read The One and Only Ivan. We are completing flap books based on each section of the book. We are also working on understanding the persuasive techniques used in advertisements.

Have a great week!