Cold Weather - With the changing temperatures, please be sure your child not only has appropriate clothing for the day, but understands what is expected to be worn for recess! I have several students who choose not to wear their coats out to recess. Often they are running around and I know that they are warmer than normal. I will remind them to wear them but I don't force it!
Math - We are well underway with Unit 3. The students are doing a lot of work with division and figuring out what to do with remainders. A real life application came up when I told the students that I had 2 boxes of star cookies. A serving size is 5 cookies and there are 16 servings per box. We had 23 students in class that day so the students had to figure out how many cookies each student would get and what to do with the remainder. These are the types of problems that they are learning to solve. A few students suggested that the remainder goes to me (Ha!) but they worked through to solve it.
During vacation, please encourage your child to continue to use his or her math skills in everyday ways such as this. They could also do work using Dreambox. Each child knows how to log into this and it will keep them thinking mathematically while we are away from school.
Reading - Please have your child read over vacation. Most students are successful at choosing books that are interesting to them and are just right. The students have a lot of access to books at school and can also do so at home. If your child has a device and an Ann Arbor Public Library card you can download the free app, Libby, and check out books through that.
Your child could also work on Lexia during the vacation. This is also an online program that they have access to and can log into.
Mrs. Evans is our new librarian and is able to help the students choose books as well. Our class has library on Fridays at 1:35. If you are able to volunteer your time and help students check out books, please be sure to contact her.
Science Fair - Students should be turning in their science fair papers by Thursday, December 19th. Your child can work alone or with up to 2 other students. The fifth graders should be working on an experiment that is of interest to them. If your child is having trouble coming up with an experiment, please have him or her check in with me. We will be talking about this in class on Monday. Please let me know if your child needs support in school in order to complete the science fair.
No School - Monday, December 23 - January 3
