Happy Holidays

Wishing all a happy holiday!  I hope you are enjoying time with family and friends and good books! See you next year!

Winter Concert

Today we were treated to music of the season.  Fourth and fifth graders performed for the whole school in the morning and for parents in the afternoon.  Mrs. Coroniti and Mr. Napierkowski did a fabulous job, and the band and chorus members delighted us all.  Great job everyone!

School Store

We had a very successful first week!  Room 13 students will continue working at the store this week and next.  Then one of the other fifth grade classes will take over. Many thanks again to Mrs. Elliott and Mrs. Becker for their help this week.

School Store

Thanks to Mrs. Elliott for helping with our "Grand Opening"!  Since we have Art tomorrow I will enlist some of Mrs. Jaffe's students to work in the morning.  Mrs. Becker has agreed to help out Wednesday, and Mrs. Elliott will be back on Friday.  We have awesome parents!  Look for pictures soon.

Food Drive

The fifth grade student council has organized a food drive for the Burlington Food Pantry.  Fifth graders are responsible for bringing in 100% juice drinks ( no glass bottles please).  I've asked students to ask their parents to volunteer to help deliver the food items to the Food Pantry on  Dec. 15.  If you are interested please contact me at 781 238 5688 and I'll get back to you with the details. If you donate food please remember to check the expiration date.  Thanks for supporting the children's efforts!

Happy Thanksgiving

Here's what I'm thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving to all my wonderful students and their fabulous families!

Typhoon the Guinea Pig

Our class pet, Typhoon, is a sweet guinea pig.  Thanks to all who have supplied carrots, apples, and other crunchy vegetables.  If you would like to take care of Typhoon over the Thanksgiving break, bring in a note from your parents. I will select one note from the pile and make arrangements with your parents to pick up Typhoon the week of Thanksgiving.   

What are COWS?

COWs are Carry-over-words.  These are words we misspell on our Friday test, so they carry over to next week's list.  These words are written on the inside cover of the red spelling notebook.  They count on the next week's test, so students need to be studying them along with their weekly list of words.

Another spelling item:  starting with this week's test there will  be dictation.  Sentences will be read and students need to listen carefully and write them.   Also beginning this week when students receive 100% three times consecutively, the following week they are spelling free!  This caused quite a bit of excitement, and a new enthusiasm for studying and using correct spelling.  Students are also accountable for correct spelling in their writing.  One tip for proofreading spelling is to read the writing from the last word backwards.  This forces the reader to concentrate on one word at a time!

A belated bithday wish to Christina, whose birthday was Friday.  We loved the yummy brownies!!
Happy Birthday!

Trick-or-Treat for Unicef

Among the many activities planned by our fifth grade student council is a collection for Unicef. Many of our fifth graders collected money as well as candy on Halloween.  Pictured here are student council members who form the Community Helpers Committee.  They recently helped Mrs. Jaffe separate the coins from the bills during recess.  We are all very grateful for the generous donations made, and proud of our students who give their effort and time for such a worthwhile cause.  Unicef helps so many children by providing access to medical care and food. As soon as all the money is counted I will post the amount collected. Thank you!

What's New This Week?

We now have a new visitor (we have passed Seymour to Miss Conceison's class) a guniea pig named Typhoon.   We would appreciate some newspaper, cardboard and maybe some snacks for Typhoon.  He needs fruits and veggies every day, just like us.  Speaking of fruits and veggies- ask your fifth grader what some of the early explorer-sailors had to eat on their expeditions, and why fruit and vegetables are so important!
As we say goodbye to Seymour we would like to dedicate some of the poems we wrote to him.  Here's one by Josh. Happy Birthday Josh!

Snap!

Carry house on your back, snap!

Never run, snap!

No teeth but a beak, snap!

Stay away from the tooth fairy, snap!

Be the meanest turtle around, snap!

Shred things to tiny peaces, snap!

Tell your great grand kids stories

Snap!

Snap!

Snap!

Chirping Crickets

Math problems, Inca videos, Guided Reading groups,Writing Workshop, Science posters and Student Council- in the background of all these activities we could hear chirping crickets. Check out the Seymour video page and share our excitement as Seymour feasts on his favorite meal!  Thanks to the wonderful Ms. Pavlicek and our awesome Science Center for our visitor.
Have a great weekend!!

Welcome Seymour!

We are the proud caretakers of Seymour, an eastern box turtle.  He is fond of crunchy crickets and tasty mealworms.  We have researched some fascinating facts about all kinds of turtles and will be writing some poems to show what we've learned.  Stay tuned for some fun and  informative poetry from the turtle-loving fifth graders of room 13!

This Week in Room 13

This week we will be studying about ancient American civilizations- the Maya and Aztec. After viewing video clips and reading from the text students will complete a graphic organizer to better understand the important details.  Here's an interesting link to check out: 
http://www.ballgame.org/. 

In Math we continue to explore subtraction strategies.  Ask your child to show you the "adding up" or the "negative numbers" way to subtract.  Later in the week we will work on estimating in multiplication and division, so practice those facts!

We are preparing to group students for reading.  The fifth grade teachers are very excited to be working with even more of the fabulous fifth graders in small instructional groups three days a week.  

As we explore great literature in our Daybooks and in read alouds we are noticing things that readers and writers do.  Today in The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow we experienced the beauty and tranquility of the seashore right here in our reading corner as we reflected on the amazing sensory details and vivid vocabulary. 

 I want to thank all who were able to attend Back To School Night!  It was great to see you all, and I look forward to working with you throughout the year.

Reminder: Bead fundraiser (for fifth grade) due October 8