Welcome to the second semester! As we take on this second half of 5th grade we will be ramping up expectations as students get closer to transitioning to middle school. To that end, we will be firm with our late work policy. Students will lose10 points off their assignment grade if it is late. We will also be starting a new station work grade, detailed in the next paragraph. Thank you for helping us prepare your child for the larger responsibilities they will have as a 6th grader!
Beginning on Monday, we will be adding a new semester-long grade, similar to our homework grades. In both math and reading, students will have a Station Work assignment. All students will start with a 100 grade for that assignment. If they do not complete the assigned math or reading stations by Friday afternoon, they will lose 5 points from this grade. We want to reward those who have been diligently completing assignments while also trying to motivate students to complete these practice and enrichment activities. We will be going over this during our Monday morning meeting so all students are clear about this expectation.
Ms. Loftis stopped by the 4th and 5th grade classrooms last week to discuss an exciting opportunity for our students-Primetime RVA! An informational letter was sent home with the students on Thursday. If your child is interested in participating they will need to submit a Flipgrid video by Wednesday, February 2. Here is a link to the informational letter: Prime Time RVA Information Letter
House Omhule had a terrific time at the Glow party on Wednesday while the rest of our students enjoyed a STEAM project designing and creating domino displays with donated cereal boxes. GAES collected 660 boxes to donate to local food pantries! Thank you for all of your support with this community fundraiser!
Valentine’s Day is Monday, February 14th. Students are welcome to send in Valentine’s for each student in the class to share. Here is our class list: The Lyons’ Den
2/1 PTA Spirit Night – Gelati Celesti
2/2 Primetime RVA student Flipgrid videos due
2/3 Northeast States & Capitals and Map Quizzes
2/4 Greek & Latin Roots List 1 Quizzes
2/4 Science Force & Motion Test
2/10 Parent-Teacher Conferences by Appointment (2:45 – 5:30)
2/11 5th Grade Math Benchmark Assessment
2/14 – 2/18 Kindness Week
2/21 President’s Day/Student Half Day (Dismissal begins at 11:00)
2/22 Kids Heart Challenge 3:15
Math: We will continue with our unit on Mean, Median, Mode, and Range. This unit will use stem & leaf graphs as well as line plots to analyze data. In addition to materials in the math notebooks and Student Resources, don’t forget about utilizing the links on our portaportal to practice these concepts.
Reading: We will begin our unit on Media messages and distinguishing between fact and opinion. As we begin our celebration of Black History Month this week, we will be looking at important African Americans who have made contributions to our country.
We are kicking off our Greek and Latin roots word study lists Greek & Latin Vocab. #1 with graph (write) and the prefixes ir- and non- (not). These homework pages are a bit different, but we will go over each day’s assigned page in class so students are ready to tackle it that afternoon/evening.
Science: We will wrap up our unit on Force and Motion this week with some fun hands-on activities. Please use the study guide and notes to prepare for the test on Friday, 2/4.
Social Studies: We are continuing to dig into the Northeast Region. This week we will learn about the Northeast climate and significant landmarks and features. Quizzes on the 11 states and capitals and map location will be on Thursday, 2/3.