Mrs. Eckhardt's Fifth Grade: February 14 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Happy Valentine's Day! Today was a hoot. We exchanged Valentines and enjoyed a great party provided by our wonderful PTA. In case you've never seen an elementary school Valentine's party, it is adorable. I love watching the kids exchange Valentines and read what they say. And giggle. And take what the Valentines say very personally. So cute!

Next week is a big week for us! I will be absent Monday to go to a curriculum meeting, we will have our field trip on Tuesday, and we'll be building our bird feeders on Wednesday and Thursday. We also have our character assembly on Thursday, and we filled our behavior chart today, so we'll probably plan a fun reward for sometime next week. I'll give you a couple day's notice when the class decides what they want to do. Whew! We'll be very busy.

In science next week, we will be concluding (and disposing of!) our decomposers experiment, and then we'll be building our bird feeders. In reading, we are reviewing setting and working on comparing and contrasting two texts by making text-to-text connections. In writing, we'll work on verb tense and we'll also be doing additional language lessons on figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, personifications, idioms, etc. In math, we'll review angles and begin studying symmetry.

Reminders:

Our FIELD TRIP is Tuesday, February 18. Students need to dress appropriately and bring a jacket/coat, depending on the weather. We will leave JTSD around 9:30 and return between 1:00 and 1:30. We are headed to Smallin Cave in Ozark.
Please have your fourth grader download the app Haiku Deck. For a complete list of required apps, please click here.
Check with your child to make sure he/she has all the bird feeder supplies they will need. We want to recycle and use materials we already have available as much as possible, so we can avoid spending money. We will have tools here at school for cutting, drilling, hammering, etc.
I've noticed a few students getting out of the habit of completing their morning work at home. Morning work is homework that needs to be completed at home. If students try to do it in the morning, they are often rushed and don't do their best work. By doing this work at home, students have more time, plus it gives you an opportunity to see what your child is working on and what he/she needs help with.
To help students who lose their morning work, I've added a section to our blog where students can view and print morning work sheets that they have misplaced (see below). They may print it if they have access to a printer, or they may copy it down on notebook paper. Either way, they are expected to come to school with morning work completed. I'll add next week's morning work when it is distributed on Monday. Thank you so much for your help with this!