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Ready for the New Year

First of all, we’d like to thank you for your generosity this holiday season. We are so grateful for our 5th grade families, and we were touched by the many ways you and your children spread so much joy and well wishes for the holidays. And thank you to those who helped with the Holiday Party. Under the fearless leadership of our room parents, Heather Bendorovich and Christina Payton, we know many of you worked behind the scenes or volunteered at school to make the party a fun event for the kids! Many thanks also to the Miller family who hosted Mrs. Neil and Mrs. Zimmerman’s class at the farm after a nice afternoon hike! A class photo is attached below.
With winter break now behind us, it’s time to look ahead to the new year. We are very excited to see your students again and to hear about their time spent with family and friends. Although it may take a day or two to get back into the routine, our busy week should soon have them ready to learn!
In ELA, we will get our new spelling sorts on Monday, and the test will be given on Friday. We will also continue reading some short fiction and non-fiction texts to continue to look for text evidence as we read. Our second Common Lit assignment will be due on Wednesday. These reading assignments can be accessed through Google Classroom and students can sign into their accounts using the username and password provided to them or signing in with Google.
In social studies, we will begin our Informative Writing unit as we begin to research and take notes on a US National Park. For this assignment, I’d like the students to use print materials, rather than the Internet, to find a majority of the information needed. Our school has several copies of a National Park book series that students will have access to, but if your child has a specific park they would like to do, they will need to bring books from home or something they have checked out from the library. Park selections will be made on Wednesday and Thursday of this week and research will begin on Friday.
Virginie Bottero and I recently checked out Bluestem books from our local libraries for the students to read. Those books are now due. If your child has The Great Treehouse War, Ban This Book, Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, or Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess, please send them back to school as soon as possible. Also, if your student is interested in participating in the Six Flags Read to Succeed program this year, you can access the Reading Log using our classroom code. Visit sixflags.com/books and use the class code U3K4P to complete the Reading Log. Anyone who reads at least six hours is eligible for a one day pass to Six Flags.
And finally, our classroom Geography Bee will be this Friday, January 10th, and the top 10 contestants will participate in a school wide Geography Bee on Tuesday, January 14th. Our class Spelling Bee will be on Thursday, January 16th, and the school wide Spelling Bee will be held on Thursday, January 23rd. Study guides for both of these contests are attached below.