Monday, October 23rd, 2023

Happy Monday Families!

It was great seeing all of you at conferences to discuss your student's academic and social emotional progress. I loved that I was able to learn more about each student through the conversations we shared! Now that we're deep into the first grading period, I am excited to see how much more our students will grow throughout the year. There is so much to teach and so much to learn, but so little time!

Literacy

Our students finished our first longer text, The Night of the Spadefoot Toads. The students really enjoyed sharing a longer text that extended over multiple weeks. Using this shared text, we worked on literacy skills such as summarizing and identifying the narrator's point of view.

Last week, we started reading a nonfiction text titled Explorers: Triumphs and Troubles. This text highlights the details and impact of various explorers' expeditions throughout history. As we read the text, we are working on identifying the author's main point/s while determining reasons and evidence as support. To practice determining the author's main point/s, we ask ourselves, "What does the author MOST want us to know or believe about what was written?" We will continue our work on this learning target using various texts.

Writing

We started our first analytical prompt last week. Students chose an ecosystem and researched the threats that there are to that ecosystem, as well as ways to protect that ecosystem. We are now working on planning body paragraphs that are well supported with not only text evidence, but our own words in an explanation.

Math 

We are continuing to focus on fractions as we get closer to finishing our second unit in math. Our students are moving away from utilizing money and time to model the operations and are learning how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators by finding common denominators and equivalent fractions (5.NF.1). Over the past week, we practiced how to solve fractions story problems (5.NF.2). 

Social Studies

We are really enjoying our first Social Studies unit! Our discussions have focused around the perceptions of Indigenous American Cultures and learning how to formulate questions to help guide our students' learning on how to better honor the cultural heritage of this land. We will be exploring more about the perceptions of the first Thanksgiving Dinner.

Upcoming Dates

Tuesday, October 24th - Early Release

Friday, October 27th- Willy Wildcats Chocolate Factory- PTO Event

Tuesday, October 31st- Halloween Class Parties

Friday, November 10th- End of Trimester 1

Thursday, November 16th- Family Reading Night

Friendly Reminders

**Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night.

**If your child participates in orchestra or band, please remind him/her to bring their instrument on their lesson day.

**Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!

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

Golden Shelf Marker Winners

Our class won the Golden Shelf Marker for exemplary behavior in the library!  I am very proud of our class!

Thank you for your continued partnership and have a great week!

Enzie Pangilinan

Friday, September 22nd, 2023

Happy Friday Families!

There has been a lot going on in our classroom this past month, and we are looking forward to what the school year still has in store for us.  Please read below to find out about all of the wonderful learning that is happening in our classroom!

Here are the concepts we are currently/planning to work on:

Reading
Over the last couple of weeks, our students have read various texts in order to determine the narrator's point of view.  Much of our instruction revolved around Pale Male, a story about a red-tailed hawk living on the ledge of a building on Fifth Avenue, in the heart of in New York City.  Through the text, our students were able to have an understanding of different perspectives, from residents who wanted the hawk removed to those bird lovers who wanted the red-tail hawk protected.

Writing

Our students wrapped up their first narrative pieces. They demonstrated great success utilizing their graphic organizers to plan and develop their stories through the use of a detailed sequence of events and effective character development.  Students were also encouraged to add dialogue into their writing to enhance the reader’s understanding of their characters, setting, and events.  This week, our students started to plan a second narrative piece in order to apply what we’ve learned in order produce an even higher quality sample.

Math

Our students wrapped up Unit 1, which focused on evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses, using the correct order of operations.  We are also a month into our Number Corner lessons, which have been focused around clock and money fractions and finding the volume of rectangular prisms.  Next week, we will start Unit 2, which will focus on addition and subtraction of fractions.  The introduction of clock and money fractions in Number Corner will help to provide a springboard for teaching our students to find common denominators before adding or subtracting fractions.  

Science

We wrapped up our discussions about ecosystems.  Over the last couple of weeks, we learned about consumers and the flow of energy through an ecosystem.  We learned that consumers must eat animals in order to obtain their energy and to survive.  Through various discussions, activities, and investigations, we also learned that the flow of energy starts at the sun and flows to the producers and then to consumers.  Be sure to ask your child about our owl pellet investigation!

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Upcoming Events

**Monday, September 25th - NO SCHOOL (Yom Kippur)

**Thursday, October 5th - NO SCHOOL (Family/Educator Conferences)

**Friday, October 6th - NO SCHOOL (Family/Educator Conferences)

**Monday, October 9th - NO SCHOOL (Columbus Day)

Friendly Reminders

**Please have your child charge his or her iPad every evening.  Much of what we do throughout the day revolves around our iPads.

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

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

Have a wonderful weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Monday, September 11th, 2023

Happy Monday Families!

Our school year is off and running! It was an absolute pleasure meeting many of you at curriculum night! I hope you found it to be an informative and useful evening.  Your involvement and support is greatly appreciated! 

Welcome to the first installment of our bi-monthly blog post! It is my goal to keep you informed and up-to-date about the learning that is taking place in the classroom, as well as making sure you are aware of important upcoming dates and and events.

In addition to becoming comfortable with all of our organizational and academic routines, we have spent the last few weeks engaged in a variety of team building activities in order to establish a level of trust between classmates! Each day, we start with a morning meeting where we have the opportunity to set a positive tone for learning!

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

Literacy

Our students started our new shared text, The Road to Freedom. The story is narrated from the point of view of a young girl, Emma, who is traveling on the Underground Railroad with her mother in hopes of making it North to freedom. Our students have been highly engaged throughout text and are having many great discussions related to topics raised within the story.  Using this shared text, we will work on literacy skills such as identifying a narrator's point of view, as well as a variety of comprehension skills related to the text. 

Writing

Our instruction over the last few weeks has involved “laying the groundwork” for students to plan and write an original narrative story. As we progress through this instruction, students will compose an original story with the goal of including an effectively written introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and an effective conclusion. Students are writing in response to a prompt which asks them to compose a story about a character who perseveres through a challenge.

Math

Our students are currently working on writing and evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses. We have also been reviewing a variety of multiplication strategies—and have learned a few new ones as well!  The first few weeks have also involved getting used to our math routines. In fact, since September started late last week, we also started our daily Number Corner routine. Be sure to ask your student about what we’ve done so far!

Science

Instruction utilizing our science curriculum is well underway!  Our current focus is on understanding the various ecosystems around the world. We’ve learned about how members of an ecosystem interact and depend on each other. Currently, we are also learning more specifically about the producers, consumers and decomposers who make up our ecosystem. We even have a very engaging science investigation on the horizon which involves dissecting owl pellets!

Upcoming Events

**Friday, September 15 and 22— PTO sponsored Frozen Treat Fridays

**Tuesday, September 19th- Early Release @ 2:05

**Monday, September 25th—No School District Holiday

**Tuesday September 26th-28th—PTO Sponsored Ivy Hall Book Fair 

Friendly Reminders

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

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

A snapshot right before our welcome back assembly!

Sunday, May 28th, 2023

Happy Sunday Families!

It is so hard to believe that this will be our final blog for the year. It has been an amazing year with your children. Thank you for all you have done to make it such a success. Here is what's happening the last few days of school:

Twin Groves Transition Day

The students really enjoyed our time at Twin Groves last week. They were able to hear all about next year and everything Twin Groves has to offer. They were given quite an informative presentation by Twin's principal, assistant principal, and teachers. They were also given a tour of the building by former Ivy Hall Students. Our students left Twin Groves with a lot of excitement for next year!

Literacy And Writing

We wrapped up our final CFA and PBA of the school year!  Over the last few weeks, we read various paired fiction texts to find a common theme, then compared and contrasted how the authors of each approached the shared theme within each story. We also finished our "How To" analytical essay and worked hard to make the writing process move faster and more seamlessly as our students transition to middle school.

Our students are also required to complete the Summer reading project given by the Twin Groves language arts teachers. We discussed and gave an overview of the process in class. Please click on the link below to find out more information:

Summer Reading Project

Math

We wrapped up Unit 7 this week which focused on division and decimals. Throughout the unit, we worked with powers of ten and then moved into the multiplication and division of decimals. We also learned multiple strategies of division in order for our students to solve complex problems and to solve real-world word problems with remainders.  

Social Studies

As we wind down our Social Studies unit, our focus has shifted to understanding the Bill of Rights and how the Amendments apply to everyday citizens and to their own lives.  Our end goal with understanding the Amendments is how our students can strengthen our democracy and how they can be agents of change.

Important Dates:

*Monday, May 29th: No School (Memorial Day)

*Friday, June 2nd: Last Day of School (HALF DAY - Dismissal at 11:45)

Final Reminders:

*Please bring a second bag next week so we start to send cubby materials home.

 

Thank you for your partnership this school year and have a wonderful summer!

Enzie Pangilinan

Friday, May 5th, 2023

Happy Friday Families!

It is crazy to think we have already reached our last month of the school year! Students have worked hard this week and finished our last round of MAP tests for the year.

This week, our class won the Learning Center's Golden Shelf Award for outstanding behavior. It was the second time this school year. Our class truly takes pride in our behavior and character!

Read below to see what we have been working on!

Literacy

We finished reading our shared text, Jess and Layla’s Astronomical Assignment. It is a science fiction book about two girls who get a homework assignment from their teacher and they end up going back in time to understand more about astronomy and famous astronomers. We started reading another story, Mayday on the Moon of Jupiter, another science fiction story. We then worked on comparing and contrasting how the authors of each approached the shared theme that they have.

Writing

We wrapped up our Real Life Superhero speeches this week! Students have really enjoyed researching, working on their notecards, and sharing their hard work with their peers. Our next writing assignment, students are going to be putting together a How To essay. We are working hard to make the writing process move faster and more seamlessly as we approach middle school

Math

We are in our last unit, Unit 7, already! This unit teaches us multiple strategies for dividing whole numbers and fractions. We will be learning more about how the powers of ten affect place value in numbers. Finally, we will be learning multiplication and division of decimals.

Social Studies

We have begun our final unit of study in social studies- Rights & Responsibilities. Students have learned about the different branches of government and the checks and balances that those branches use on each other. Next, we will be exploring how our country’s founders established a system of federalism within the United States.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, May 10th- 5th Grade Music Show

Friday, May 12th- 5th Grade Party

Monday, May 15th- Twin Groves Middle School Visit

Tuesday, May 23rd- Early Release

Friday, May 26th- Half Day

Monday, May 29th- No School- Memorial Day

Friday, June 2nd- Last Day of School- Half Day

Thank you for your continued partnership and have a wonderful weekend!

Enzie Pangilinan

Sunday, April 23rd, 2023

Happy Sunday Families!

This week, the kids persevered through quite a bit of testing—but also enjoyed some fun learning experiences as well! We have now completed the Illinois Science Assessment, as well as our final literacy placement test. Yesterday and today we completed our unit 6 math assessment, which will lead us into our final math unit of the year, starting on Monday. 

As we progress through the final months of school, we will have many special events and dates that will be important to mark on calendars. Please pay special attention to the dates listed at the bottom of the blog updates so that you can stay informed!

Literacy: 

This week we focused on our cause/effect literacy target which asks students to think about the relationships between concepts and ideas in their reading. We read several sections of a science text called Our Mysterious Universe. We also read texts about sharks and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where we were also exploring cause/effect relationships within the text. Next week we will start reading a fun book called Jess and Layla’s Astronomical Adventure. Here, we will be comparing fictional texts of similar content and/or topic. The two main characters of the story travel back in time and meet many of history’s famous philosophers and scientists! As we read, we will continue to practice literacy skills such as comparing and contrasting characters and settings, analyzing themes and using quoted evidence from a text to support responses. Eventually we will read another science fiction story of the same genre called Mayday on the Moon of Jupiter, so that we can compare and contrast how the two stories approach their respective themes.

Writing: 

Students will soon begin working on a research project and oral presentation. Piggybacking off the previous reading we did on real life superheroes such as Richard Martin and Raoul Wallenberg, each student will be asked to choose someone they feel embodies the qualities of a real life superhero. They will conduct research about this outstanding individual and give an oral presentation to the class. This project incorporates many reading and writing targets for students.

Math: 

We have now completed Unit 6, which emphasized skills in the area of geometry. During this unit, students practiced classifying figures in a hierarchy based on properties. They also located points on a coordinate plane based on ordered pairs. Students should now also be able to identify patterns between corresponding terms and show their ability to generate numerical patterns when given specific rules.  

Science: 

We have continued to work on our unit on Changes in Matter, which encompasses the three states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas). During this unit we engaged in two fun investigations. During the first, students identified various powders such as baking powder, talc powder, salt, and sugar, by using their attributes and reactions to substances such as iodine, water, and vinegar. This week, students used combinations of two different liquids and powders to determine when new substances had been formed. They observed for changes such as color and temperature—or whether substances fizzed or bubbled when mixed together.

Social Studies: 

This week we started our final inquiry-based social studies unit of the year. We will explore the topic of democracy, and generate ideas throughout the unit about how citizens can contribute to keeping a democracy healthy.

Important Upcoming Dates:

***Tues., April 25—Early Release @ 2:05

***Wed., April 26—6th Grade Math Placement test 

***Thurs., May 4—5th grade travels to Twin Groves to watch their Musical Presentation

***Wed., May 10—5th grade Music Program at Ivy Hall @ 6:30

***Friday, May 12—5th Grade Party after school

***Monday, May 15—Visit to Twin Groves during the school day, Orchestra concert

***Thursday, May 18—Band Concert

***Friday, May 19—Field Day

Thank you for your continued partnershp!

Tuesday, April 11th, 2023

Happy Tuesday Families!

Welcome back! I hope that everyone had a restful Spring Break. The students deserve a round of applause for doing a great job creating and presenting their conference slideshows! With Spring Break coming to an end, it could only mean one thing... the countdown to summer has officially begun! We are looking forward to all the fun and learning that's ahead of us within the last couple months of school! 

Literacy

This week, we read and learned about the Navajo code talkers. During World War II, the code talkers played a crucial role in helping the U.S. Marines send coded messages using the complex and unwritten Navajo language. Using texts from Reading A-Z, Newsela, and Epic, we are practicing our skill of compiling information from multiple sources together in order to demonstrate a deep understanding about a specific topic. Throughout the readings, we are also working on explaining relationships and interactions, such as cause/effect and problem/solution, while using text evidence as support.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be taking the series of literacy assessments used for middle school placement. The writing assessment will take place on Thursday, April 13th, and the reading assessment will be on Monday, April 17th. 

 

Writing

We started to wrap up our analytical choice essays, which involved students choosing from a list of topics that included binge-watching television shows, electric cars, student lunches, and homework. After planning and drafting, students worked to refine their essays to ensure that they effectively stated their stance on the chosen topic, provided sufficient supporting details from credible sources, and edited any grammar and punctuation errors. We will continue to work on various analytical writing skills with prompts that encourages students to provide their opinion about topics, such as the necessity for movie theaters or daylight saving time. 

Math

We are continuing to practice skills in the area of geometry in Unit 6. We have been exploring the hierarchy of polygons, with an emphasis on triangles and quadrilaterals. Using academic language related to angles and sides, students have been classifying and describing shapes based on their attributes. Next week, we will review and extend our thinking on the concept of volume, which was covered in Unit 1. Our next math placement assessment will be on Wednesday, April 26th. 

Science

In our current unit, we are exploring the concepts of matter. To observe the properties of different white powders, the students engaged in a fun hands-on investigation! The students conducted different experiments to test various properties of the powders, such as appearance, water solubility, chemical reactions, and color changes. Students really enjoyed acting like a chemist during this investigation! We will have another great hands-on investigation in the coming weeks, which will involve combining various substances to see if new substances are formed.

Upcoming Events

• Thursday, April 13th - Literacy Placement Test (Writing)

• Monday, April 17th - Literacy Placement Test (Reading)

• Tuesday, April 18th-Thursday, April 20th - Illinois Science Assessment (ISA)

• Wednesday, April 19th - Pizza Bingo/PTO Book Fair (@ PM)

• Friday, April 21st - Half Day (Dismissal @ 11:45 AM)

• Tuesday, April 25th - Early Release (Dismissal @ 2:05 PM)

• Wednesday, April 26th - Math Placement Test

Friendly Reminders

• Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night

• Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

• Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts up to 12

• Band and orchestra students should remember to be prepared with their instruments and music books on the days of lessons

Thank you for your continued partnership!

Enzie Pangilinan