Ms. Quesenberry - Over the Rainbow

Scholastic Book Orders

In the Thursday folder this week you will see a flyer for Scholastic Reading Club books for 5th Graders.  If you like to order books, please take a few moments to explore the selection together and let your child help choose books he or she is excited to read.

You can order online at scholastic.com/readingclub, where you’ll find a wide selection of quality children’s books that are just right for your child’s reading level and interests. You can can search by reading level and topic which is very helpful.  

What I love about using Scholastic is that you can earn bonus points that our class can spend on FREE books!  I use Scholastic to order any "book club" sets that we use in class.  They have really great, affordable options.  You just enter the class code: QJX8C and every dollar you spend sends points to our classroom account. So, if you were considering buying books for holiday gifts or just looking to add a new book to your student's collection, please think about checking on Scholastic before you order on Amazon.  Sometimes they even have quality books on sale for just a dollar!  

 

First Time Ordering Online?

• Go to scholastic.com/readingclub
• Enter our one-time Class Activation Code:  QJX8C
• Shop and submit your child's book order.
• Your books will be delivered directly to the classroom.

The due date for orders for this month is December 20th, but you can access the website to order books at anytime during the year!  Let me know if you have any questions.  

Cereal Box Book Report

After the break, we will be replacing traditional homework with a cereal box book report.  Students will go home with this letter the Monday after break. ( Download No Homework December).  In case you want to pick out a book and start reading over the break I wanted to give you a heads up about the expectations.  

The highlights: students will need:

-to choose a book on their reading level

-read the book

-save an empty cereal box

-turn the box into a new brand of cereal based on their chosen book

-write a "commercial" to present their "new cereal"

-bring it all in on Monday, December 19th

Students will come home with a detailed explanation for each part of the box and some templates to fill out and use.  Here are a few finished examples:

                                        

We can't wait to see the finished products!

After the break: November 28-December 2

Wow!  I can't believe it's already time for Thanksgiving break. Everyone should have seen their student's progress report yesterday. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.  Many students have goals of all As/Bs or all As and they are doing a great job working towards those goals.

Coming up after the break:

Writing- The "Bio-books" are continuing to develop.  Research and drafting is complete, so after the break we will move into publishing the books. One student had a great suggestion: an all-about the author page at the back of the book!  I love how invested these authors are in their publications.  I can't wait to see the finished product!  

Reading- We are transitioning from informational reading back to narrative for the last few weeks of this quarter.  We will be working a lot on being a "text talker" and using evidence/examples from the text to support our thoughts, responses, and opinions.  

Math- Students did SO well on the Unit 2 test on Wednesday!  After the break we will move into multiplication and division of decimals as well as FRACTIONS!  We have many hands-on lessons planned for math to help students grasp these concepts. 

Social Studies- We are well into the "turn of the century" in Social Studies.  We have talked about inventors and cattle trails and are ready to move into the Spanish American War and Panama Canal after the break.  The next week we will cover immigration and Ellis Island and Battle of Little Big Horn.  Tentatively, we are planning to test on December 9th, but I will keep you updated. 

Stay tuned for a December homework change.  Students will have a book report to complete instead of their typical math/vocabulary homework.  Students will get directions and supplies after the break.  I will also post instructions to the blog in case they get lost on the way home :). 

We hope everyone has a relaxing break and gets to spend great time with family.  We are very thankful for your students and for all of you and your support! 

Next Week: November 14-18

Progress reports will be going home next week in the Thursday folder.  Speaking of Thursday folders, you should have seen a copy of your student's ITBS scores in their folder yesterday.  Let us know if you have any questions about those!

Coming up next week:

Writing- We are continuing our "Bio-books".  Students have each picked a famous person to do research on.  We have quite the variety of biographies ranging from authors to athletes to musicians and former presidents. Students have selected 4-5 topics to use as "headings" on their biography pages.  We are also going to create a table of contents, glossary and cover for our "Bio-books" before we share them.  

Reading- We have been studying biographies in class as well.  We have been doing A LOT of comparing and contrasting different formats of biographies and different people in biographies.  We've used venn diagrams, T-charts, and other outlines to record our thinking.  Next week we are going to look at some modern picture book biographies.  This is a fairly new category for books and there are some really amazing examples such as Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston-Weatherford. When we read these books we are going to talk about the illustrator's thinking and how the pictures add to the words.  

We are continuing to read Shades of Gray as well.  The main character, Will, has just been faced with a difficult decision: will he stay with his aunt and uncle or go back to his hometown and live with the Doctor?  We made some predictions and are eager to find out the decision.  

Math- We finished Unit 2 teaching this week.  Students should now know how to read, write, and compare decimals as well as adding and subtracting decimals.  We send home a study guide on Thursday to study for the Test next Wednesday (November 16th).  Students can earn 10 extra points just by completing the study guide!

Social Studies- We kicked off our new unit: Turn of the Century. This week we focused on cattle trails and their importance in the late 1800s.  We talked some about supply and demand and life as a cowboy.  We had fun watching some clips of cowboys in Texas and listening to some cattle trail songs.  Next week we will talk about some of the inventors that became famous around the turn of the century.  We will focus on George Washington Carver, the Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison. 

Vocabulary words: transcontinental, immigrant, homestead, exoduster, sodbuster, demand, supply, cattle, railhead, Chisolm Trail

Let's make this last week before Thanksgiving break a great one! 

Electricity Study Guide

I am giving students a copy of their electricity study guide today.  They have until Monday, November 7th to complete this.  I am going to encourage students to complete the study guide by Friday (November 4th) so that they will have answers for our review on Friday.  I am posting a link to the study guide below with the answers in red.  Students will have a blank copy to fill in, but if they need help they can check this answer sheet. The textbook is a great resource for this unit.  We have also used a number of online resources to practice building circuits.  I will post those links below as well. Students have done well in this unit, so I expect their test grades to reflect this on Monday!  

Click here to access the study guide:  Download Electricity study guide answers

Conductor/Insulator practice: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/8_9/circuits_conductors_fs.shtml

Circuit builder (see the components and examples of series/parallel): http://thefusebox.northernpowergrid.com/page/circuitbuilder.cfm

Static Electricity explanation: http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/static

Happy studying!