Friday, November 20th, 2015

Happy Friday Families!

This afternoon, you will receive an email regarding whether or not you received your child's report card, titled "Fifth Grade Report Card Verification".  At your earliest convenience, please reply to the link.  

You will also receive an email from Mrs. Gluck regarding report cards.  Please follow the instructions in the email from Mrs. Gluck to view your child's report card.  I am looking forward to meeting with you next week to discuss your child's progress!

Our students have worked hard the last few weeks to end our first grading period. Thank you for your continued support at home.

Here are the targets we are currently working on to start off the second grading period: 

Literacy

* Our students are currently working on looking for two or more main ideas in a text and understanding how these ideas are supported by details in the test. We will also continue develop vocabulary by determining the meaning of unknown words in a text. Over the next few weeks, we will learn to identify text structure and how various text structures work with specific types of literature.

Writing

* We will continue research on our " Real Life Superheroes" informative papers. Throughout the writing process, our students will focus on finding domain specific vocabulary to better describe our individuals.

Math

* We will start to review basic fraction skills, then switch our focus to adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers with unlike denominators.

The Unit 3 math letter is attached below. 

Unit 3 Family Letter

Social Studies

* We are extremely excited to introduce the Trade Fair coming up in December!  Please keep an eye out for the letter which explains the event!

Science

* Our focus is switching to three of the main systems of the human body (Digestive, respiratory, and circulatory). 

Upcoming Events

** November 23 and 24 - Parent / Teacher Conferences. 

** Reading and Math MAP testing begins the week of December 7th.

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Friday, November 6th, 2015

Good Afternoon Families!

We had an absolute blast celebrating Halloween last week!  A special thank you to our parent volunteers who made our party a huge success!

And can you believe that our first grading period is coming to an end?  Our students have worked extremely hard to learn our target concepts and have picked up and practiced strong study skills along the way.  Thank you for your continued support at home.

Here are the targets we are currently wrapping up as we start to close the first grading period:

Literacy

* Our students are wrapping up finding the theme of a story, including how characters in the story respond to challenges. We finished reading two inspiring stories about characters resolving their conflicts by finding courage within.

Writing

* Our students completed writing an opinion essay about what they thought were the two most pressing issues and topics of slavery, as told through our text, "The Road to Freedom". They worked very hard to support their ideas with evidence from the text and utilized strategies to help give their readers a lasting impression.

Math

* Through hard practice, our students are learning various strategies of how to multiply and divide using decimals.

Social Studies

* We are wrapping up the first grading period discussing trade expansion, specifically Marco Polo and how he sparked the Age of Exploration.  We are also discussing the Columbian Exchange and its effects on the Europeans and the indigenous people of the Caribbean.   

Science

* We are finishing weather by discussing how meteorologists analyze high pressure and low pressure areas in order to predict weather.

Upcoming Events

** Wednesday, November 11th - No School (Teacher Institute Day)

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Friday, October 23rd, 2015

Hello Familes!

Fall is in the air and the fifth graders have been working hard in all subject areas!  Please read about all of our hard work below:

Literacy

For our daily shared lessons we've been reading a story called The Road to Freedom. It is narrated from the point of view of a young girl who is traveling on the Underground Railroad with her mother in hopes of making it North to freedom. The kids have been highly engaged with the text and we’ve had many great discussions related to topics raised within the story.

Writing

We have been using The Road to Freedom as a springboard for various writing samples. We have practiced short, constructed responses with prompts, and we are currently preparing to write a longer opinion paper based on topics/issues related to slavery from the book.

Math

Yesterday we finished the target that deals with dividing with a larger dividend and divisor. We emphasized the partial quotients algorithm to solve these problems. Students were given a CFA in order to monitor their progress on this skill. Those who did not meet will be given further remediation.Today we started on the next target of adding and subtracting decimals.

Social Studies

We’ve been engaged in lots of learning about trade. Most recently we’ve started to learn about the trade that took place early on in our World’s history.

Science

This week we continued on with our weather unit, focusing on the greenhouse effect. We even conducted an experiment to show how it works! Be sure to a ask your child about it!

Reminders/Upcoming Events

** Please be sure that your child is doing the minimum of 30 minutes per week of practice!

** Completed October reading logs will be due Monday, November 2.

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Halloween Parade and Parties

Please see Mrs. Gluck’s blog posts for the details. The kids will need to have the signed permission slip back at school by next Friday in order to be able to go home for lunch and change into their costumes. Everyone else should bring their costumes to school to change into after lunch. The parties will immediately follow the parade. Thank you in advance to all the parents who are sending items and/or helping at the parties! The kids are really looking forward to it! 

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Friday, October 9th, 2015

Hello Parents,

We've been busy learning and working on projects in all of the subject areas.  Please read below to see what our students have been tirelessly working on:

Literacy
We are finishing up Unit 1 in our new reading series. All of the novels we've read have shared the theme of "Depending on Each Other.  At this point, we are synthesizing the texts by comparing and contrasting their overall content and structure.  In Unit  2, we will focus on the theme of "Finding Courage".  We will look at how characters respond to challenges and events.

Writing
We are finishing up our natural disasters brochure projects and presenting them to the class.  Next week, we will begin opinion writing.  We will focus on organizing ideas, gathering evidence to support these ideas, and developing a strong conclusion. 

Math
We are continuing to work on multiplying larger numbers. We will start division at the end of next week and then move on to decimals.

At your convenience, please take a moment to read the parent letter for Unit 2.  Click on the entry below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gs3mqBamC6wZ0HgHDtDFxtyB18XzfGPkvDQxH
MK1dmE/edit?usp=sharing

Social Studies
We are wrapping up our Supply and Demand target.  We will begin discussing trade within the next couple of weeks.

Science
We are concluding our discussions and studies of natural disasters.  Our weather unit will continue with observing weather systems and causes of weather patterns.  This is a good topic to discuss with your child at home.  

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Room Parent News

Please take a moment to read a message from our room parents, Kim Iannuzzi and Lisa Dluger:

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Have a great weekend!

Friday, September 25th, 2015

Happy Friday Families!

We've been busy with learning and completing projects in all of the subject areas!  Please read about all of our hard work in each of the subject areas below:

Literacy
* Our students are reading a short novel called Washed Up.  The story is about three families competing in a "survivor" scenario on a television show.  We are focusing on our "close reading" skills, which involves looking back in the text for information and providing textual "evidence" for our responses.

Writing
* Our students are working on informative essays about a habitat/environment they selected to research.  They are closely looking at the plants and animals that are found within their chosen habitat.  Our students are utilizing a thinking map, which they developed with research information, in order to compose their essay.  This is currently being typed on a Google Doc with their iPads.  Eventually, students will add text features such as photos and maps to their essay in order to support and enhance their topic.

Math
* We are finishing up the last target within Unit 1 which focuses on the exponents and the powers of 10.  The CFA connected the target will be administered next week, as well as the post test for Unit 1.  Be on the lookout for a unit review!

Social Studies
* Our students took their CFA on locating countries on a map using relative locations.  Next week, we will start our economics unit, starting with goods and services and supply and demand.  We have several fun projects planned in the weeks ahead!

Science
* We have started our weather unit and our first focus will be on natural disasters.  We will also take the information we're learning in the unit and compose an informative essay.

Keyboarding
* Students will begin using our new keyboarding program in the computer lab next week.  They will bring home an informational sheet which contains the passwords they will need to log into the program at home.  Starting next week, students will be expected to spend a minimum of 30 minutes PER WEEK on keyboarding at home.  This should be recorded on their reading logs. 

Buddies
* Our class is buddied-up with Mrs. Levin's first grade class!  We had such a fun time helping our first grade buddies understand how to properly walk in the hallway.  We are extremely fortunate to have such great role-models in our classroom! :)

Click on the picture to enlarge

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Good Afternoon Families!

We've settled into our classroom routines and are currently wrapping up targets in literacy and math.  Needless to say, our students have been hard at work!

We have not started the official typing program as of yet, so please disregard the section on the reading log for practice. We will start a new typing program at the end of the month and I will forward any details as they become available.

Here are the targets we are currently / planning on working to master over the next couple of weeks:

Literacy

* Our students are wrapping up finding the theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic. Over the next couple of weeks we will start looking at how to quote accurately from an info/explanatory text.

Writing

* We will be begin conducting research for an info/explanatory paper. The students will learn to use a variety of resources to find their information.

Math

* Our students will continue to understand that a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left using whole numbers and decimals. We will also start talking about exponents.

Social Studies

* We plan on starting geography in the coming days.  We will start working on relative locations with states and countries.

Science

* We plan on starting our weather unit in the coming days and look forward to fun explorations!

Upcoming Events

** Monday, September 14th  - No school

** Wednesday, September 23rd - No School 

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Good Afternoon Families!

It was an absolute pleasure seeing you last night!  I hope you found curriculum night to be informative.  Your involvement and support are greatly appreciated!  

The link you clicked on is our classroom Blogger page, which will have bi-monthly classroom updates.  Included in the updates will be our current target concepts in all academic areas, classroom events, and important upcoming dates.  An email with a link to our classroom Blogger page will be pushed out every two weeks when our Blogger page is updated.

Here are the targets we are currently / planning on working to master over the next couple of weeks:

Literacy

* Our students are currently working on finding the theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic.

Writing

* Our students are off to a great start writing narrative pieces. We are currently working on orienting the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters.

Math

* Our students are currently working on writing and comparing decimals to the thousandths using base ten numerals, number names, and expanded form.

Social Studies

* We plan on starting geography in the coming days.  We will start with locating, on a map, the major river systems of the world.

Science

* We plan on starting our weather unit in the coming days and look forward to fun explorations!

Upcoming Events

** Tuesday, September 1st - Early Release

** Monday September 7th - No School (Labor Day)

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  Thank you and have a fantastic weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan