Friday, April 21st

Today students listened to a guest speaker, Caleb White.  He is a 14 year old student who has done amazing things.  Ask your child about him and if they were inspired by what he said to us.

I sent out an email earlier today about bringing in a baby picture for our front bulletin board.  The baby picture board is a yearly favorite and I would like everyone to participate. Please send in a copy with your child's name and classroom number (15).

Our spring fair basket also needs some more items.  The theme is anti-boredom items: different rub-ix cubes, puzzles, outdoor games, etc.

 Thank you for your continued support and have a wonderful weekend.
Mr. Reed

Family Science Night

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had an excellent Spring Break.  The kids were super tired today, but they had a great time sharing their Spring Break stories.

We talked a lot today about the M-Step test (state assessment) which will begin tomorrow for all 5th graders at WLE.  The test will be entirely taken on the computer. The students will begin with the Reading and Writing test (ELA) tomorrow and hopefully finish by Thursday.  Tomorrow, the 1st ELA test will be a series of questions based on different reading passages.  

Then on Wednesday, students will begin the 2nd ELA test called the performance task. This task is designed for students to view a series of sources (audio, video, articles, pictures, etc.) surrounding a certain topic.  Students will have to write an opinion, narrative, or informational essay based on the information they read in the sources.  Students are extremely challenged to integrate so many learned lessons in order to create this piece of writing.

Please make sure your child is ready for tomorrow's test by being well-rested and having a good breakfast. Thank you!

Take a look at the pictures below.  Students are using their design and engineering skills to design a tower using 1 piece of thick card stock and tape.  Science time just seemed to fly by today.

Reminders:
-  Please donate anti-boredom items for our Spring fair basket. (see note)

Science BA Thursday

I created an online quiz game that will help with your studying.

Click on the link below and follow the directions to play.

Link - Click me

Friday, March 20

 5th graders had a very busy week.  During Writers' Workshop, students are learning more about nonfiction writing.  Each student has selected a topic and they have been researching information; then recording this information into their writers' notebook.  The students of room 15 are going to be creating informational books based on their research.

To compliment this, in Readers' Workshop, we are learning about nonfiction text structures and reading for the main idea.  At the end of this week, the students were learning about the authors' message in nonfiction books.  Along with this learning, students are continuing their book club assignments.

In Science, we just finished a unit called variables.  We have been doing many experiments and learning about scientific design.   Recently, students learned more about kinetic/potential energy and forces such as gravity and friction, then applying this new information to the recently completed experiments.  Students will be having a Science BA next Thursday.

During math, students were collecting data and creating line plots based on their reaction time.  They were using sheets of paper and dropping them so that a partner would grab them revealing their reaction time (pictured below).  We then used that data to find the mode, range, and average.  Today students completed chapter 6 BA test.

Have a great weekend!

Mr. Reed

Reminders: 

- next week is Spirit Week (see below)

- green Sarah Banks schedule form due 3/28

- Science BA (Thursday, March 30)

Next week is “Spirit Week” at Walled Lake Elementary.  Please follow the schedule below to join in the fun! 

- Monday, March 27^th:  Mismatch Day

- Tuesday, March 28^th:  Hat Day

- Wednesday, March 29^th:  Students Dress like Teachers

- Thursday, March 30^th:  Decade Day

- Friday, March 31^st:  WLE Spirit Wear Day

Reaction Time in Math....

Spring Pictures came home today

Hello Families,

I just wanted to give you a heads up about Spring Pictures.  They work a little differently than fall pictures.  Here is what you need to know:

-If you do not want to purchase pictures, just send all of the uncut pictures back to school.

-If you want to purchase pictures, great.  Keep the ones you want and return UNCUT pages and payment back to school.  You only pay for what you keep.

-They DO NOT do retakes for Spring pictures.

-The Fall picture will be the picture in the yearbook.

PLEASE RETURN THE UNCUT PICTURES AND/OR PAYMENT by FRIDAY!

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Text Structures

We've been working hard in room 15 learning how nonfiction writers use different text structures.  The students are learning that authors of nonfiction decide to write with different text structures based on how they want their reader to learn information.  We've learned about cause and effect, chronological order, description, problem and solution, and compare and contrast.  Students (pictured below) are playing a text structure game focusing on identifying the different text structures.

 We also had an author visit us today; ask your child about how this author visit was different than any other.

Reminders:
- Book Fair next week
- March's reading month

Homework:
- Unit 5 test being sent home today; please sign and return (we went through the entire test today during math)