5th Grade Fun Facts

Happy Wednesday! I hope you're having a great week!

Calendar Dates:

Oct. 1- Book It Starts

Oct. 4- No Mass/ Rosary led by the 5th grade

Oct. 6- Spirit Day

Oct. 13- No School/ PD Day for Teachers

Oct. 20- Spirit Day

Oct. 25- Book Reports Due

Oct. 30-Nov. 2- Parent Teacher Conferences

Book It- The 3-5th graders will be participating in the Book It program. I am sending home a calendar in their Take Home Folders for them to keep track of the minutes they read each month. They will need to return the calendar at the end of the month, signed by you! IF they read more than the goal- all the better! If they meet the goal they will get a certificate from Pizza Ranch and a treat from me! This program runs from October through March. I will give extra prizes in March for those who participate and meet the goals for all 6 months! The 5th graders' goals will increase every 2 months. They start out at 600 minutes a month, which is about 20 minutes per day.

Religion- They will have their first test tomorrow. They have had the study guide for 2 days. We are also going to work on the Rosary the rest of the week for next week's mass time. Actually, in October we will step away from the book to focus on the Rosary and learning prayers. Most of that will be done in school.

Math- our next chapter should be easier for them! We will be adding and subtracting decimals!! On Wednesday we talked about the commutative and associative properties to add and subtract. We also worked on solving mentally. I did tell them they always need to show their work unless they are doing something mentally.

Reading- This week they are reading another story that is a fantasy. This one was LONG and lots of big words! I was surprised! This story is about a young boy who is reading a journal about a man's journey in his hot air balloon and the creatures he saw flying through the sky. The creature was a mix of a panther and a bat, but they were white. The young boy was trying to figure out whether he was imagining these or if they were real. They also have lots of skills to focus on. We worked on synonyms and the suffixes -y, -ly, and -ily. We will also be talking about identifying similes in sentences. They will take a test on Friday in spelling and another cold read. Scores were much better last week. I just wish these tests offered more questions to prove the students' knowledge.

St. Jude- Last night I met my sister in Des Moines at St. Francis of Assisi Church. The forearm of St. Jude was on display yesterday for people to venerate or attend mass last night. St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. He is known for miraculous cures of illnesses. I wanted to share some pictures with you. The arm is on tour throughout the US. It was really amazing to see. There were so many people there!