Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weekend!  We have been busy at work the last three weeks getting settled, learning expectations, creating a "family" environment and learning, learning, learning!  I am so excited to have each and everyone of your wonderful scholars and watching them grow educationally this year.  I will be posting at least weekly to my blog and our class Facebook page to keep you connected to what we are doing here in my classroom at Huggins. Sorry this is so long and has taken me this long to get this started but I hope you enjoy reading about everything that is happening here in the 5th grade.

Just a recap of the things we have been studying the last three weeks:

Math: We have covered Place Value, Rounding/Estimating, and Adding/Subtracting decimals.  We are moving into multiplication of two and three-digit numbers and problem-solving.  Please work with your scholars at home on multiplication facts as this is the foundation for everything we are learning.  We will be testing over Adding/Subtracting decimals on Tuesday so please review with your scholar at home.  Remind them about lining up decimals, "Zero, the Hero", and that every digit has a "home". :)

Social Studies: We have studied map skills, geography, and Native American cultural regions.  Next we will be studying the Constitution in honor of Constitution Week and will be introducing why Europeans left for the New World.  In your scholar's agendas/planners is a sticky label that has the website for one of the textbooks, History Alive, that we use and has practice assessments.  This is a great tool for studying for chapter tests.  We will be testing on Thursday, Sept.19th on Chapter 3.

ELAR (Reading, Language Arts, Writing): We have studied how to choose "just right" books, "Reading is thinking", schema, metacognition, read the stories "Goin' Someplace Special" and "Shiloh".  We have discussed and practiced expectations/roles for our literature circles or what we like to call our "Book Talks" :)!  In Language Arts, we have reviewed simple/complete subjects/predicates and in Writing we have brainstormed ideas on what people may write about pulling prior knowledge and connecting to our real lives.  Next week we will start our first "Book Talks" over the novel Chocolate Fever, different types of nouns, and inferencing.

Science: We have been mad scientists over the last three weeks!  We studied science lab safety rules, science tools and the scientific method.  We visited the lab twice and did two labs: one measuring using scientific tools, a bubble gum lab (YUMMY!!!) to introduce the scientific method and measuring mass.  We also did a lab in the classroom the first week, "Marble Ramp" where the students had to use only what they were given and their problem solving skills to build a ramp for their marble out of one sheet of newspaper, a meter long piece of masking tape, one marble and the ramp had to be no more than 25 cm high and the ramp had to change direction once.  The students had a blast and I was so excited to see all of the creative ways they built their ramps!

Communication:  I have set-up a Sign-Up Genius account and have sent out the first invite.  We are needing some supplies for our upcoming science labs.  Please check your emails!  I will also be setting up a Remind101 account just for our class.  Be on the lookout for the link.