Learn it. Live it. EVERY DAY! Mrs. Gossett’s Fifth Grade South Shades Crest Elementary www.bgossett.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us
Save the Date
CLASS HAPPENINGS Dear Parents, Is it November already? Our fifth grade year is flying by! Please take a few minutes to read through this newsletter for several important announcements and reminders. A Dauphin Island Field Trip Information Packet will be making its way home soon! This packet will provide you with a detailed packing list, departure and arrival times, emergency numbers, maps and directions, and medication information. Please review this packet carefully! Thanks! Mrs. Gossett bgossett@hoover.k12.al.us 205-439-3000 Curriculum News Reading Making inferences is an important reading comprehension strategy. While inferring, students are expected to use clues to figure out something that is not stated directly. We first explored this strategy with our read-aloud, The Van Gogh Café, by Cynthia Rylant. We will continue making inferences through the study of several poems and other selected texts. In order to prepare for our upcoming historical fiction unit, all students are being asked to purchase the novel Lyddie by Katherine Paterson. This is a wonderful novel that correlates to our current Social Studies unit on the Industrial Revolution. All students need to have this book for use in class by Monday, November 15th. You can purchase this book online or check your local Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million. If you have trouble finding the book, please let me know. Writing/Language Arts Our first writing unit will begin with narrative writing. We will begin with some quickwrites and transition into writing paragraphs before producing a final narrative. In conjunction with the study of narratives, we will continue grammar boot camp with the study of adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, commas, quotation marks, and types of sentences.
November 3, 2010
Math In Math, we are one week into our new unit, Thousands of Miles, Thousands of Seats. The first part of this unit requires students to use place value relationships and multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000 to add and subtract large numbers. In the second part of the unit, students will practice and investigate strategies for subtracting larger numbers, including the U.S. algorithm. Unit 3 will conclude with students refining various strategies and using what they know about place value to solve addition and subtraction problems involving large numbers. For more information about this unit, be sure to check out the Parent Letter and Related Activities to Try at Home posted on our wiki. Social Studies Our study of Chapter 12, Times of Change, has been exciting! Just ask your children about the assembly line production we demonstrated on Monday! Students will take a quiz on Chapter 12 this Friday. Also, information about the Industrial Revolution project was given out today and is also posted on the wiki. We are working on this project at school; however, it may be necessary for students to work on the project at home. The tentative due date for this project is Friday, November 19th. I will let you know if this date should change due to limited computer lab time. We will have a student teacher joining us next week for Social Studies. Kaitlyn White is a student at UAB and will be doing a week long mini-unit on Chapter 13, People Moving South and West. Spelling/Vocabulary We are continuing a bi-weekly rotation of Spelling and Vocabulary Units. Our focus in Spelling has been on strategies for spelling long vowels. With vocabulary, we are continuing to focus on various prefixes. I am always excited when students tell me they saw one of our vocabulary words while reading or they catch me using one of our words in class!
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” - John F. Kennedy -
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November 11, 2010 Veteran’s Day No School for Students November 15 - 19, 2010 SSC Crane Book Fair November 22 - 26, 2010 Thanksgiving Holidays No School for Students December 1 - 2, 2010 Dauphin Island Field Trip
Other Announcements Supplies Needed Our stock of paper towels is running low! If you have any rolls you can donate, we would greatly appreciate it! Scholastic Book Orders The November order will be due on Friday, November 12th. Order forms will be available to students tomorrow. We will place one final book order in early December for delivery by December 17th. Remember, you can always order online. Use access code: GQLHH Parent Survey SSC is conducting an online survey for a Parent Education Night. To take the survey, go to the home page of our class wiki!