Welcome to 5th Grade!

Our Week in Review

September 7th, 2012

Mrs. Hatlestad - Room 210

Welcome!

What an amazing first week, in my twelve years of teaching, this is one of the best first weeks of school yet!! Thank you for entrusting me with your child’s learning, I am looking forward to getting to know each of these wonderful students! In our classroom this year, we have an amazing teaching intern, Adam Kealhofer! He comes to us from Iowa, where he is studying at the University of Northern Iowa. He will spend 8 weeks with us and then move over to 3^rd grade and spend 8 weeks in Mrs. Mitchell’s classroom. I am looking forward to working with him, teaching him, and learning from him.

Weekly Reports:

Every Friday I will to send home a weekly report for your student. The weekly report consists of three different categories; Behavior, Study Habits and Work Completion. This is a great way for you get a feel for how your child is doing in class. Please make sure to sign the form and your student will return these to me Monday morning. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask.

Homework:

I am proud to say that our students worked diligently on their homework this week! WOW! Even if your student was grumbling about the large amount of  assigned work this week, they produced quality work!

 

Our Specialist Schedule for each week:

Monday: Band/Orchestra 1:15-1:55

Tuesday: P.E. 10:25-11:05

Wednesday: none

Thursday: Band/Orchestra 1:55-2:35

Friday: Art 8:50-9:30

**Library check-out and Computer Lab are TBD....stay tuned!**

 

Our Week in Review:

Assessments, assessments, assessments! That seemed to be the theme as the students completed many pretests for me so that I can begin to learn about who they are, what they know, and what academic goals to set with them!

 

Math:

We took a basic facts (multiplication & division) fluency test, a 5^th grade math inventory test and started our first Math Unit: “Multiplication and Division Word Problems”. We worked on reading and solving comparison word problems as well as using the algebraic notation of using letters to represent the “unknown” in a word problem.

 

Literacy:

Routines, routines, routines! We’ve learned how to check out and return books in our classroom library. We now know the “Guidelines for Reading Workshop” and the importance of reading the entire time and showing respect to other students who might be conferring with the teacher. We discussed “Reading is Thinking”, “Ways Readers Choose Books”, and the difference between “Easy, Just Right, and Challenging” books. We created class posters and hung these in the library to reference throught the year.

Social Studies:

We worked together cooperatively to create our own "Class Constitution"(picture above). We have a preamble that states our purpose and we wrote "Articles" which are the laws that will protect our rights as learners and citizens in Room 210.

Our first Social Studies lesson focused on the basic skills of geography. We learned the importance of grids and how to use one when finding locations on a map. We learned that they help with accuracy and make it easier to find locations. This will lead into learning about longitude and latitude next week.

Science:

The 5th Grades at Medina Elementary are participating in a study with the University of Washington. Graduate students came today and administered a “Landforms” pretest in all of the 5^th grade classrooms. At the conclusion of the “Landforms” unit students will once again complete this assessment and we will compare the results. More will be explained at Curriculum Night. J

 

Once again, I want to welcome you and your student to 5th grade! Throughout the year you’ll receive newsletters and general information from me and the school. If at any point you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask (email or phone). I’m really enjoying getting to know this group. I look forward to seeing you again on Thursday evening during our Curriculum night. Time(s) for 5th grade are TBD.

Happy weekend to you all!