Newsletter

Home
Spelling List
Newsletter
Science Project
Reading Book Projects
McAuliffe Site
Email Mrs. Brokaw
Social Studies project
Job App.
Reading log
AR list

January 26, 2006

 

Dear Families,

 

Wow this is the first full week of school we have had since mid-December.  It feels great to be back into some sort of routine, but January has flown by.

We have an exciting month ahead of us.   We will be starting the colonial game Discovery on February 5th.  This is usually a highlight of 5th grade and I am sure your child will be telling you about it as we get into the game.  Also, along with our study of colonization we have a "Colonial Day".  This event will take place the morning of February 14.  Students will move from station to station and make candles, soap, tin punches, mob caps, silhouettes, and marble bags.  They will get to spend some time in the locks and they can play marbles.  Thanks to all of you that have offered to help by sending in money, supplies or helping the day of the event.  We could really use more parent volunteers the day of the event.  We will begin at 9 am and end by noon.  Please let me know if you would like to do this. It is really fun.

Students have also received the instructions for their February book project which will be due February 16.  They were given a hard copy on Tuesday and the form is also on the class web site.  There is paper for the project in the classroom for the children to grab when they are ready.  The January book projects will be returned to your child next week. 

I also wanted to let all of you parents know what an outstanding job the children did on their explorer journals.  In all the years I have done explorer projects I have never seen the quality of work that I saw put into these.  They were beautiful and the writing was exceptional.  I was very impressed.

Finally, just a few housekeeping items:  1. Please remember to check your child's Friday folder and sign the front on the current date.  2. We will be running our class store more often and are in desperate need of goodies for the children to buy.  Any kind of healthy snack food that is individually wrapped (no sugar), drinks or little trinkets sell quite well.  3.  Please check out the Lake Washington School District web site where you will find an online survey.  This is a survey on how the missing weather days will be made up.  The address is www.lwsd.org .

Thanks again for sharing your child with me.  Every day I feel blessed coming to work to such a wonderful group of children.

 

Seize the day,

Ann

 

 

September 29, 2006

 

Dear Families,

 

     It is hard to believe that we have been at school for a month already. This is such a delightful group of children.  I am enjoying every minute with them.  They are coming to school well prepared and they are excited about learning!  They are a joy to teach.

     We had a fantastic time on the Adventuress field trip.  The weather was great and we had a wonderful breeze to keep the sails full.  There will be pictures on the class web site so please check them out.

     We will be finishing up our unit on Charlotte Doyle this next week.  The children are working on their first book project in class.  This is a book where they have named each chapter in Charlotte Doyle and illustrated it.  They are also working on a character study of various characters in the book.  Both of these projects will be due next Friday October 6.  I will be giving them class time next week to complete these projects.  Our next reading unit will be out of the Houghton Mifflin series.  It will be a mixture of fiction and nonfiction stories about natural disasters. 

     In math we are continuing our unit on number sense.  Students are working on what multiples and factors are.  We will be finishing this unit the second week in October.   The next unit in math will focus on multiplication and division of larger numbers.  We continue to work on morning math as well.  You should see these coming home in the Friday folders.  We will begin math journaling and problem solving strategies in October. 

     In science we finished our first activity in the Variables module called swingers.  The students learned about a controlled and manipulated variable.  We are also getting practice with the scientific process with our Friday Silent Science Cart.  This week it wasn’t silent as each table group is growing bacteria in a Petri dish.  They were able to pick something to test for bacteria and made a culture that we will watch over the next two weeks.   We then spent some time learning about good and bad bacteria.  I think some of them were grossed out.  J

     Here are just a few nuts and bolts items in closing.  Don’t forget to have your child return their Friday folders on Monday with the folder in the envelope.  I use these folders during the week to document things and to place corrected tests and homework in.   Thanks to all of you who have donated to the class auction.  All of the items were a hit.  Please feel free to send in items for the next one.  The snacks need to be low fat and with very little sugar.  They also like small toys.  Bouncy balls and football cards were a big hit this time. Finally, I have one mom signed up to be room parent.  I know from personal experience that this can be a huge job.  I would love to have someone help co-chair this responsibility.  Let me know if this is something you would like to do. 

     Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy our lingering bit of summer.

 

Seize the Day,

Ann