Reading:

*AR Update:  Students should be 40% to their AR goal by the end of next week.

*THANK YOU to Mr. Asiano,  Ms. Hoppe, Ms. O’Brien, and Mr. and Mrs. Perasso for reading Sign of the Beaver with us during Thursday’s reading groups.  What a turn out!

*Ask your child how we have been studying author Chris Van Allsburg.  Each Friday we do a reading activity with a different book—and a fun twist on getting the whole class involved in the plot. 

*True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle:  Students continued reading this adventure novel about the high seas.  Ask your child about the man made storm brewing on the Seahawk!

Writing:  Students continued learning how to take notes from non-fiction texts, highlighting the elements of a non-fiction piece, forming a easy to read t-chart from the text and then creating an original paragraph in their own words.  This type of writing is essential in the expository requirements of 5th grade and the Common Core standards.  This week we learned and wrote about lizards and East Woodland Indians.

Math:  This week, Students continued to work on multiplication review, integers, exponents and prime factorization with Ms. Burgess.

Genius Hour:   Students have begun their ‘Genius Hour’ projects.  Ask your child what s/he plans to do with his/her project.

Social Studies:  Students are wrapping up the unit on Native Americans of North America.  This week each student group presented their specific tribe to the class with a Keynote, Website or other teaching aide.  Next week we kick off the simulation game GALLEON!  More adventure on the high seas……

Science:  Our class continued to learn about living systems in vascular plants.    (See your child’s newsletter folder for human body living systems assessments.)  This week we took a ‘leaf walk’, classified leaves, and learned how the ‘veins’ in leaves act like a circulatory systems  in humans. Check out the gallery on the class website for photos of the leaf sorting experiment and ask your child what s/he learned about leaves and vascular plants.

Miscellaneous:

****THANK YOU for the most generous **donations** to the auction box!  We had a very successful auction and the kids of CATS Country are even more eager to earn their keep here in D-2 now that they know what’s at stake!  Gracias to the following families: *** Hoppe, Perasso, Pang, Suchodolski, Viola, Ross, Odland, Petri, Saleh, Winter**** 

Language Arts:

Reading:This week students continued to read about the adventures of Charlotte Doyle and create S.O.S.’s in their writing journals to summarize the chapters.  Ask your child what S.O.S. stands for!

We also continued to read our historical novel about the Penobscot Indians and how European settlers changed the landscape of not only their environment, but their way of life.  The book, Sign of the Beaver, is illustrated by a boy named Matt who is not much older than the CATS in our class.  THANK YOU to Ms. Winter, Ms. Viola and Ms. Hoppe for coming in to reading during our Thursday reading groups.

 ********PLEASE sign up for reading groups!  We have only 1-2 each week and in order to make it optimal for the kiddos, we need 5 volunteers!********  Thank you!

Writing:  Students have been learning how to take notes from non-fiction texts, highlighting the elements of a non-fiction piece, forming a easy to read t-chart from the text and then creating an original paragraph in their own words.  This type of writing is essential in the expository requirements of 5th grade and the Common Core standards.  And it’s a fun way to write!

Math:  Students continue to work on place value, integers, exponents and prime factorization with Ms. Burgess.

Social Studies:  Students are wrapping up the unit on Native Americans of North America.  Ask your child about his/her group’s specific tribe and how they will present it to the class.

Science:  Our class continued to learn about living systems.  This week students took a final assessment on 4 systems of the body.  This week we focused on vascular plants and had a great time doing an experiment with celery to help illustrate living cells.  Check out the gallery on the class website for photos of the experiment and ask your child what s/he learned about vascular plants! 

Miscellaneous:

*WE NOW HAVE A CLASS GARDEN!!!!!  Thank you to Ms. Winter who donated the soil, starters, AND TIME to come in and work with the students to plant 5 earth boxes outside our classroom.  *See photos in gallery

*Congratulations to our CATS spellers!  Brianna, Cameron and Chas will be representing CATS Country in the annual Bel Aire Spelling Bee!

******WE NEED AUCTION ITEMS!!!!**********  Our CATS have racked up some big bucks over the last month of school, and it’s time for them to go shopping.  If you would like to donate items, please do so on Monday.  We will hold the auction on Tuesday morning.

THANK YOU!

*Have you registered for the Bel Aire Maker Faire?  Registration deadline has been extended to September 24th.  See you all there!

Language Arts

This week we have been learning about figurative and metaphorical language, and illustrating this language in poetry.  Your child also learned about their learning strengths, and how s/he is ‘Intelligent’.  Ask your child about his/her strength.  (Musical, Intrapersonal, Kinesthetic, etc.)

Our class has begun the Accelerated Reading Program.  Ask your child about his/her Z.P.D., or comfort-level/book-level range, as well as his/her goal set for the trimester. 

We continued to read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.   Ask your child how the author, Avi, used foreshadowing techniques to give the book a mysterious tone.

Our daily D.O.L. and grammar exercises continued to reinforce our writing skills, and our journal writing is getting even more thorough and detailed thanks to the Journalistic Questions.  (Ask your child about these J.Q.’s.)

Math:  This week, students continued to learn about place value in whole numbers and decimals.  Your child has also begun identifying and evaluating expressions and equations with variables.

Science:  We continued our lessons about living systems, and learned all about the circulatory and respiratory system.  Ask your child to (verbally) take you on a guided tour of the red blood cells.

Miscellaneous:

*The ‘Gallery’ sections of the website is now available for your viewing pleasure.  Be sure to visit this tab next time you are on the class webpage.

* SMILE!!!   Next Thursday, September 11th, is our school picture day.

*There will be no school for students on Monday, September 15th.  Staff Development Day.