Fifth Grade Parent Newsletter
# 2
September 13 – September 27, 2006
Dear Parents,
Sept. 21: “Sock it to Poverty.” Students are asked to
provide new socks and underwear for the less fortunate. These are the most needed and least donated
clothing items!
Sept. 19: School
pictures for Grades 5-8.
Sept. 22: Parish
Fiesta
Listed below is a general outline
of the work the fifth grades students will be doing for the next two week
(Sept. 13 – Sept. 27). Please check the
student’s daily assignment notebook for
specific information.
Religion: Chap. 2 is about “The Word of God.” Students will do a quick study of the
writings of the Old Testament: The Torah, Historical Books, Wisdom Writings;
and the Prophetic Books. In the New
Testament students will study the writings of the Four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles,
Epistles and Other Letters, and Book of Revelation.
Social Studies: Chapter 1 discussed our nation’s geography
and the relative location of the five regions of the
English: Students continue to develop good
paragraphs. Specifically, classes are
concentrating on clarity of ideas and supporting details. Every paragraph should explain only one
idea. That idea (or thought, or opinion)
is stated in the opening or beginning sentence, supported with the next couple
of sentences, and re-stated in the close or ending sentence. Students are working hard to eliminate random
thoughts or opinions, and support
and develop one good idea. English grade
continues to include weekly spelling and vocabulary tests, with words taken
from our vocabulary text, and/or from our class novel. English grade also
includes the weekly letter written to a featured “student of the week.” First week letters were written to the
teacher, and they were simply delightful. This week Claire Kuenne, Maggie
Hutchison, and Mary Burke can look forward to reading friendly letters from
their classmates.
Science: A brief progress report for both science and
math was given to students to take home today.
Students will be completing Chapter 1 in the next two weeks. The Chapter 1 test is tentatively scheduled
for Sept 25. Check assignment notebooks
for the exact date. Chapter 2 covers
reproduction, plant life cycles, animal life cycles, and traits and heredity.
Math: Students have completed work on reading and
writing big numbers and will be moving on to an examination of
multiplication. They will multiply large
numbers with ending zeros and look for patterns. The all-partials method of multiplication as
well as the traditional multiplication algorithm (the compact method) will be
examined. The assessment over this
material, the “Making Money” activity, is tentatively scheduled for the week of
Sept 17. Check assignment notebooks for
the exact date. Students are informed of
test dates a week ahead of the test.
Other material to be covered in the next two weeks includes practice in
estimating products and exponents and scientific notation.
Some good websites for extra practice in math are:
www.funbrain.com (games for all math concepts, different
levels of difficulty)
www.mathforum.org (This is the Ask Dr. Math website. Students can e-mail math questions and get a
reply.
www.nctm.org (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
site. Go to “Illuminations”, then
Activities. All grade levels)
Health &
Wellness: We are off to a great
start! The fifth graders are very
enthusiastic and have LOTS of questionsJ. We are learning how to access reliable health
information and have spent a great deal of class discussion time exploring the
reasons why this is important. The
students have demonstrated their ability to access info by finding articles on
health related topics and sharing their summaries with the class. They will continue to do this throughout the
year in a variety of ways as we study different topics. We are currently learning about how to set
health goals and each student will be setting and working to achieve a
week-long goal throughout the next week.
I am encouraging the students to talk to you about their goals and
perhaps even set one the whole family can participate in—such as eating
healthier snacks or exercising daily, etc . . .
Please touch base with your child and ask him/her how they’re doing
keeping track of their goal. As always,
please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Sincerely,
Sister Kathleen Marie (Religion, Social
Studies)
Charlotte Jett (English,
Rosemarie Schneider (Math, Science)