First Day of School

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 was our first day of school.  The first day of school is probably the best day of the school year!  There is nothing more wonderful than a spanking clean school and classroom, students who are well rested and eager to start the new year, and staff who are ready and waiting!  Energy is high and everyone is ready for the next challenge.

Many of you are familiar with Wordle, a fascinating way to create word clouds from text.  To make this image I simply pasted the address of this blog into the Wordle form and pressed "submit".  This image, then, represents all that has been written on our blog.  I was thrilled to see that the word "students" is right in the center, and that it is the largest word in the image.  After all, the students are the most important - they are the center of our universe.

This year in addition to teaching math to both fifth grade classes, I will teach social studies and language arts to my "traveling group" and Mrs. Ladabouche will teach science to both fifth grade classes.  Soon, more information about Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop will be sent home and posted on the blog.

We have ordered a homework planner for each student.  As soon as the planners arrive students will place the planner inside the front of their three ring binder and the planner will remain there for the entire school year.  At the end of each day we stop and take some time for students to enter homework assignments, information about special activities that may come up, and reminders about other items of importance.  We would like you to get into the habit of checking your child's planner each evening.  Something new for fifth graders this year is the Reader's Notebook which will go home with students and return with the student each morning along with the novel or chapter book the student is reading at the time. 

Please note that you can now access homework assignments from this blog.  If a student is absent or forgets to write down an assignment simply check the calendar on the sidebar to your right.  Clicking on the calendar will bring up details about each assignment and when it's due.  In the fifth grade students should expect to have reading homework each evening and parents are asked to initial their child's reading log located in the students' Reader's Notebook and which will travel back and forth from school to home each day.  Students will have math homework each night spending some time in practicing the skills that we have learned in class.  Finally, students will have spelling words to study each week.

Students should get into the habit of remembering to bring their instruments each Wednesday and Friday.  Fifth grade instrumental music lessons take place on Wednesday afternoons and Fifth Grade Band practice is held on Friday at 12:30 pm each week.