Hello, everyone!  I hope your weekend was great!  I was very impressed last week with how well all of my students did at getting back to school and focusing on their work.  Great job!

Here is a look at our week ahead:

Mrs. Jacobsen’s Homeroom

• Morning Meetings (8:00 – 8:15):   We will continue to build our classroom community with activities and questions that will allow us to get to know our classmates better.
• Small Group Reading Block (9:55 – 10:30):   This week we will continue our study of the paired texts – “How To Save a Baby Elephant” and “Do Drones Stop Animal Killers?”  These are two short texts that go together and discuss a similar topic.  We will meet in small groups to discuss the texts, specifically by making inferences and reviewing important concepts in the articles.  We will take the Reading Quiz on these 2 articles on Friday 1/15.  Students will have 2 reading menus this week:  one menu to complete on Monday & Tuesday (due Wed. at 8:00 am) and another menu on Wednesday & Thursday (due Friday at 8:00 am).  While students are not working with me in their reading group, they must be working on their Reading Menu in the “lobby.”  As I have discussed with the students, they must click to join our class meeting, but then be in the “lobby” so I can see that they are present in class.   All students in 5th grade will have the same reading menu assignments.  The assignments in this menu will consist of a mix of reading, writing, science, and social studies activities.  Students will have 2 days to complete the “Must-Do’s” in their menu, and they will be due by 8:00 am on the following morning.  Students will also continue with Wordly Wise this week.  The class will take the Wordly Wise Lesson 6 Quiz on Friday 1/15.
• Class Read-Aloud:  From 1:00-1:15 each day, I will be reading aloud from our class novel, Save Me a Seat.  Please encourage your child to enjoy listening to the story and not do anything else during this time.

Math Classes:  

• Math 5 and Math 5/6:

  • Classes will take the Graphs (SOL 5.16) Test on Monday 1/11.  The test will cover the 2 types of graphs we learned about in this unit: line plots and stem and leaf plots.
  • On Tuesday, we will begin a new unit on Probability (SOL 5.15).   We will learn the following concepts:
    • how to identify the probability, or the likelihood, of events using both words and fractions (ratios)
    • tree diagrams – how to write them and understand them
    • the fundamental counting principal
  • Students will have notes, examples, videos, and other helpful websites in their Schoology course to use to help them study and review the concepts.
  • Throughout the unit, students will complete independent assignments in the afternoon to help understand and practice these math concepts.  It is very important that students complete their assignments on time so they do not get behind on learning these concepts.
  • As a reminder, students must be working in Dreambox throughout the week.  As I have discussed in class, students are now required to complete 4 lessons per week (or 60 minutes per week) on Dreambox.  A “week” on Dreambox begins on Sunday morning and ends on Saturday evening.  I will count all of the minutes and lessons that occur during that time.  Every Sunday morning, the time starts over again.

Have a great week, everyone!

-Mrs. Jacobsen