Updates-
Wow! What a busy week! We have been busy sorting clothing donations for Crespo this week and we are tackling 5th grade learning objectives with vigor. Reminder- Fall Holiday is Thursday this week and there will be no school on Thursday. There will be school as usual on Friday.
As most of you know, 5th grade has been conducting a clothing drive for families in need at Crespo Elementary in HISD. Mr. Sarabia is the new principal at Crespo. We will be taking a field trip to deliver the donations on Friday. We had so many students interested in helping that we arranged for the whole grade level to go in shifts. Our class will be leaving campus at 10:30, staying one hour at Crespo and we will eat lunch when we return to Roberts at 12:30. Permission slips went home in today's Tuesday folder.
Progress Reports and more graded work were sent in the Tuesday folders today. Many students took opportunities to correct some work for a higher grade if grades were not passing. The 5th Grade team has been easing into our grading policy and here it is:
5th Grade Grading Policy
We have been giving students many opportunities for a “redo” and taking the higher grade in the grade book. Now that we are half way through the first grading period, it is time to adhere to the policies as outlined in our school wide Assessment Policy. The policy is as follows:
• A student shall be allowed a reasonable opportunity to make-up or redo a class assignment or assessment for which the student received a failing grade (less than 70%) after re-teaching occurs.
• Assignments that are a redo assignment are to be done at home as to not interfere with current class work.
• The redo assignment will be sent home in the Tuesday folder. It will have a note on it indicating that the student has the option to redo it. It is the student’s/parent’s choice to redo the assignment.
• The grade for the redo assignment will not exceed a 75% in the grade book. If the redo assignment earns a failing grade, the higher of the two grades will be recorded.
Thank you for being flexible during this transition time.
Parent Conferences- I am starting to schedule parent conferences. Some of you have already contacted me. I will be available Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12:45-1:00 and 1:00-1:15. I will also be meeting with parents the day of the International Festival, October 14th starting at 12:45 and setting up times every 15 minutes until 3:15. Please e-mail me and I will keep everyone posted as to what is still available. criversi@houstonisd.org
Math-
With the field trip on Friday and no school on Thursday, we will be switching for Math 2 times this week. I will continue to have students complete Math practice in our class. If you are ever looking for Math reinforcement at home, all the students have a username and password for First in Math. Their password page that went home at the beginning of the year has the student information needed. This website has great Math games. The Everyday Math website also has games.
Reading-
DRAs are complete and we have started reading strategies. Strategies practiced include, writing key words next to paragraphs that tell what the paragraph is about for easy reference. Another important skill is retelling what has been read in student's own words. This is a cross curriculum skill and I am asking students to write/answer in the form of an open response and not in multiple choice questions. This is a new skill for many students and I am modeling and walking through.
Language Arts-
Independent Investigation Method ("double IM" or IIM) has started. Our Unit of Inquiry has been that our understanding of the universe is ever changing and we specifically focused our research on the center of our solar system and how our understanding of it has changed over time. We used 3 web sources to learn how to highlight/underline and restate in own words. We did this as a whole class. We took notes, organized our notes and wrote a paragraph. We studied the views of Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus and Galileo. Our next IIM research topic will be on The Boston Tea Party. The research baton will be passed to students so they can practice determining what information has to do with our subject and taking notes in own words.
Unit of Inquiry-
We are wrapping up Earth and Its Neighbors and will start Response to Conflict next week. The guiding questions in this unit will be What events lead to conflict? Can conflicts be resolved without violence? What are the results of a conflict? This will overlay with The American Revolution and American History.
In addition to conflict, we will begin discussing Exhibition within the next couple of weeks.
Science- Matter will start next week. Students need to know the states of matter (solid, liquid, gas) and the properties of matter. More information will come next week.
Social Studies-
We have started the reasons for the American Revolution. Students will need to know the causes and effects, time lines and important Revolutionary figures. More information to come.....
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