Leaves are falling, the weather is changing, and pumpkins are everywhere! It sounds like it must be Halloween season! We are excited for the week ahead, and we’re particularly looking forward to the Halloween celebration our Classroom Coordinators are planning. As Mrs. Psimaras and Miss King mentioned, the Halloween party will take place over Zoom from 12:00- 1:00 on Friday and the Halloween Costume Drive By Parade will be from 1:30- 3:00 that day. We hope to see you all there.

In ELA we are working on our Book Club slides for our novels, Esperanza Rising and The Orphan of Ellis Island. Week 1 was due last Thursday and Week 2 will be due this Thursday. Spelling activities are due on Wednesday, 10/28, and spelling tests will be given at the beginning of class that day. On Fridays we’ve been working on our stories from our Writer’s Notebook #Friday. The students are writing about the best trip or vacation they had taken recently, and last Friday we worked on adding details to our descriptions of the setting. It has been fun to read about these great family memories!

In social studies, we have moved the Thirteen Colonies test to Tuesday in order to allow both classes extra time to review on Monday before the test. Note slides on the Thirteen Colonies (in Google Classroom) were due last Thursday and Study Guides (also in Google Classroom) should be completed by Monday. After this test, we will begin a discussion of the Election process, beginning with the Time for Kids articles that were sent home this past Friday. Learning more about the Presidential election will be a great start to our next unit on the formation of the United States and our Constitution.

As we’ve mentioned before, we are so proud of the hard work our 5th graders have been putting into Remote Learning. We know it’s not always easy to stay up to date with assignments, and we’ve noticed an increase lately in assignments turned in past their due dates. For the first part of this year we have accepted late assignments without penalty. We will be starting, however, to implement the school policy on late work as described in the Parent/Student Handbook. Please refer to this section below:

Grades 5-8 Grading Procedure

When class work is completed and turned in, teachers are able to determine a student’s level of understanding. At PCCS, students will be required to turn all assignments in regardless of the due date. 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