A Love-ly Month

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we want to express our appreciation for all you do to support your students, our classroom, and our school. From helping on a Pizza Friday – thank you Mrs. Wille, Mrs. Bendorovich, and the parent volunteers in Mr. Hurwitz’s room – to supporting your child’s school progress at home, we are thankful to be on this journey together. Please know that your efforts never go unnoticed and are very much appreciated!

In ELA this week, we will begin a new spelling sort on Monday and meet with our Literature Circles on Tuesday. Please encourage your child to keep up with their reading and Literature Circle “jobs” each week The reading timeline and job assignments can be found on the front page of the packet each student received last Tuesday.

Last Wednesday I was able to attend a reading and writing workshop with several other ELA teachers from Prairie Crossing, and I’m excited about the lessons I brought back to share with your students. Ask your child to share their “reading voice,” “thinking voice,” and “distracting voice” with you. This reading strategy should bring a deeper understanding to the texts – both fiction and nonfiction – they’re reading. Reading Logs will be collected for this week on Friday.

In social studies, we are enjoying everyone’s presentation on the National Parks. Their presentation skills are really developing and many are growing much more comfortable speaking in front of a group. As we continue presentations this week, we will also explore some controversial issues surrounding the national parks through a set of articles. These articles will be accessed through Newsela – similar to Common Lit – and a link will be available on Monday to all students through Google Classroom. From the link, students will be able to “Sign in with Google” to read each article.

And finally, a quick note about late work. As stated in the handbook,

It is extremely important that students understand the purpose of deadlines to promote personal responsibility. In the event assignments are late, the following grading procedure will apply:

Grades 5-6

• Assignments turned in 1 day late                 5% off final grade

• Assignments turned in 2 days late               10% off final grade

• Assignments turned in 3 days late 15% off final grade

• Assignments turned in 4 days late               20% off final grade

• Assignments turned in after 4 days             30% off final grade