Hello Parents! I hope you are doing well this week! I think we are finally getting into a little bit of a regular routine in the 5th grade room!

Math- They took a prerequisite test last week. The scores were not that great, but I expected that. The test is written assuming we've been working in this series for awhile. It just gives me an idea of what they already know and what we will really need to focus on. We started chapter one this week. They have 2 books. One of the books, we do many of the problems together. The other book has worksheets that they will do as their homework. On Wednesday, they did their first piece of homework. I did tell them to have their big book out so they could refer back to it. They didn't have a ton of problems to do. The other side of the homework was a Test Prep. This gives them questions that may appear on their first test down the road. I don't help with that one because again, I am trying to see what they already know. I did look it over and realized that we will be covering it later in the chapter. This series will be more challenging just like our language arts series was last year. I will try to keep the pace of it doable for them and us! I see the word Algebra appearing soon, but it seems to be things I have taught before. They will be learning about exponents too! This works along with learning place value names and values. As of right now, I am going to only have one "center" time in math until I get more familiar and comfortable with the new series. During that center time I will be working with kids who might be struggling with a concept. Those kids could easily change depending on the lesson we are working on.

Reading- We started our first story this week. It is a funny one! It is just an excerpt from a book, WaySide School is Falling Down.  I am told Mrs. Meisenheimer read it to them in 2nd grade. We did work in centers this week. Miss Miller, our aide, worked on vocabulary skills in her groups. In my groups we read short stories and worked on filling out our story maps. That is a skill in this first story. They are working on picking out the conflict, events, resolution, and main characters in the story.

Next week is a 4 day week. They will take a pretest in spelling on Tuesday with a posttest on Friday.

Religion- We started our year doing Bible research. We reviewed how to look up Bible verses together. They were then given a list of about 10 verses to look up and record the titles of those verses. Our first chapter revolves around the Creation story, but we will also talk about the Holy Trinity.

Book Order- In your child's folder is a book order. I would like all orders by next Thursday. Thanks. Last week I sent home the online code you can use to order instead of giving one to me with a check. If you are going to order with the form, please write your check to Scholastic Books or Amy Surma. Thanks again!

I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend. I am traveling to Doon. My mom is coming back to Creston with me. She will be here for all of September, maybe longer because my sister is having shoulder surgery and won't be able to drive to see Mom and take care of her meds,etc.  Have a great weekend!
God Bless, Miss Surma