May 14th-18th

Hello 5th grade parents! We are so close to the end of the year and have many exciting events coming up! Please see below for lots of information:


You're invited!

What's Happening at TCE:

Biodiversity Center

The 5th Grade will be taking a field trip to the Biodiversity Center on May 21st. We are looking for a few chaperones from each class to come with us. Please email your homeroom teacher if you are interested. Please have your learner bring in their yellow permission form.

Lost and Found

The last day to collect anything from lost and found will be Wednesday, May 16th. All items still in the lost in found on Thursday, May 17th will be donated around lunchtime.

Field Day

Please remember to have an updated background check if you are planning on walking with the classes during field day. You can complete this at https://www.coppellisd.com/Domain/3443. Also, please fill out the PINK permission slip to allow your learner to walk to the park and swim with their class. Your learner will not be able to participate in these activities if the form is not returned and signed.

Lunch Changes

Due to the end of the year quickly approaching we have had some changes in our 5th grade lunch schedule. Please note the changes below:

May 29th and 30th lunch will be at 12:00pm for 5th grade.

Summer Learning Ideas

License Plate Math

This game involves fraction, multiplication, and division. You chose a “number of the hour,” and your children need to figure out how they can combine numbers they see on passing license plates or even road signs to reach that number. To make it trickier, you can award only one point for each plate, and whoever thinks up the last combination wins the point. For example, if the number of the hour is 15, and the plate reads JR-1435, your son might spot “3×5,” but then your daughter could call out “(1+4)*3.” (link)

License Plate Codes

Keep track of any vanity plates you see. Use a basic alphanumeric cipher to substitute the letter on plates for numbers. (The easiest code is just giving each letter of the alphabet the number of its position in the alphabet, in which A = 1 and Z = 26.) Calculate to see which vanity plate has the highest numerical value. (link)

License Plate Place Value

Have each passenger find a license plate and write down the number, taking out any letters. Ask your child to read each number to you (if she can), and compare them and see whose number is the largest. Ask: Can you identify the number in the tens place in each license plate? What about the hundreds place? Does anyone's plate have a larger place value than hundreds? What is it? Whose license plate number is larger if you add the numbers on each plate together? (link)

Distance and Time

Turn “Are we there yet?” into a learning opportunity. Create paper tickets for each trip and share how many tickets long the trip will be. At even intervals, collect one ticket from your child. This fun exercise gives children a tangible and visual way to understand distance and time. Using different colors allows your child to practice patterns and learn early addition problems or fractions. (link)

Counting Game

Basic counting games might sound dull, but they can be a fun way for your child to practice their counting and addition skills if you throw in a competitive edge. Have your children make predictions about what they think they’ll see on the road and keep points for sightings. For example, each child can choose a color of car and a kind of animal (birds don’t count!), and get a point for each time they see their attributes. Your kids will pit their favorite colors against each other, or maybe it’ll be a battle between horses and deer, but they’ll learn not only to hold cumulative sums in their minds, but they’ll start to notice probability principles, too. (link)

Attribute Finds

Each child chooses a color of car, a make, and an attribute, for example “green,” “Subaru,” and “bumper stickers.” You’ll want to think of a list of “attributes” beforehand, things that are easy to spot and equally probable, like bumper stickers, dents/damage, backseat passengers, or rearview mirror decorations. Every time they see a car that has one of those three attributes, they call it out and claim points. The points scale according to rarity— e.g., you get one point for any green cars, two points for any Subaru’s, and three points for bumper stickers. If a green Toyota with a clean bumper drove by, you’d get one point, and if a white Chevy with a bumper sticker drove by, you’d get three. The real fun comes in when a vehicle has multiple attributes, in which case you add the numbers for the attributes—to use our example, a green Subaru with bumper stickers would be worth six points. You can add all kinds of variations to make it harder and more intellectually involved, like multiplication for multiple attributes, or giving your children the ability to “call” each other’s attributes out first for half points. (link)