Hi everyone! Thank you for visiting our blog and taking the time to read this communication. We appreciate you!
Colored Name Cards for Car Loop
Earlier this week, you received a colored name card to keep in your window as you drive through the car loop. We want to give a quick shout out to all of the parents that have already been using the colored name plates in the car loop line. They are so helpful when we're trying to make dismissal run quickly and efficiently. Thank you!
Red Ribbon Run Rescheduled
Due to the weather, the Red Ribbon Run has been rescheduled to Thursday, Oct. 31st during your learner's Specials time (9:55-10:50).
Parent Compact
Today each child will come home with a copy of our 2019-2020 School-Parent Compact. (It's printed on yellow paper.) As a Title 1 school, we collaborate with parents and staff each year to update our school compact. It is a great reminder of the partnership required between the school and home in order to fully support each of our kids. I have also included a link to the document below. Please take a moment to review it, sign, and return to your child's homeroom teacher by next Friday, November 1st.
Parent Survey
CISD is currently surveying our families in order to gain insight into your perception of our schools and district effectiveness. This survey shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete and will be a valuable source of information for us, as we work to make our schools and our district the best that they can be. You may complete the survey online between now and Nov. 4, using a computer, tablet or smartphone. To take the survey, please visit https://surveys.panoramaed.com, then select your child(ren)’s school. If you have multiple children in CISD, we ask that you take the survey for each school your child attends.
Give for Grants
We love the Coppell Education Foundation and their mission to fund educational, motivational and transformational programs for learning. Check out these grant proposals in the link below. We wrote a grant for Apple Pencils for the fifth graders. We'd love for you to consider supporting one or more of these grants.
Veteran's Day Ceremony
We will have our Annual Veteran's Day Ceremony in the TCE Gym on November 11th at 8:00 am. Ms. Martin included more information about this in her Parent Blog.
5th Grade Spelling Bee
Every year, the fifth grade has a School Spelling Bee. Prior to the School Bee, we have Class Bees, which are open to any student that wants to participate and serves as the "qualifier" for the School Bee. You can learn more in this letter explaining the School Bee.
We are not allowed to post any study lists online, but we have sent study lists home with the students. (We initially had some issues with the copies, but all of the students have the correct lists now.) We will include some addition study resources in the "Option Homework and Review Resources" section of the blog below.
Accessing Your Son/Daughter's Schoology
As we shared at Curriculum Night, Schoology is a great resource to use to learn more about what we are doing in class. If you login to your son/daughter's account (or ask them to login and show you), you'll be able to see resources added by teachers, assignments, pretests and quizzes, and discussions. Each of us uses Schoology differently, but it would be beneficial for each class of parents to visit from time to time. If you'd like to access your own account (rather than logging in as your child), you can use this site to learn more about how to do it.
2019-2020 Creative Writing Competition
It's time for the 2019-2020 Creative Writing Competition sponsored by the Coppell Gifted Association. This will be the 12th year CGA has run this competition, and we'd love to have our 4th and 5th graders participate. Please see below for the link to register and important details:
- FREE for Coppell ISD to students to enter.
- Open to any student in grades 4-12
- Students do not have to be part of the gifted program to participate in the competition
- Deadline for submissions: December 6, 2019
- Details and Rules at https://coppellgifted.org/2019-2020-creative-writing-competition/
KTEX Spotlight
The 5th graders in the KTEX Productions & KTEX Editing Club produce our Daily Announcements show called KTEX. On Fridays, we put on a longer show with extra segments such as Jokes, Weather, Sports, and a Global Goals Update. The learners write the script and run all of the equipment! We thought you might enjoy seeing the Friday Show each week. Click here to see the Friday Show from Friday, October 25th.
As you know, we have a payment plan for our Sky Ranch trip. You can view the information letter here. The second payment of $50 is due Friday, November 1st. You may pay by cash, check, or online via this link. Please contact your homeroom teacher or Mrs. Ford, the Assistant Principal, if you would like to discuss payment plans.
In math next week, we will be continuing our financial literacy unit by exploring budgeting, taxes, and forms of payments. Please consider talking to your learners about your family's finance choices as a way to reinforce our unit!
Science
In science next week, we will be continuing our types of energy unit by exploring the workflow experiences. We will specifically explore electrical energy and parallel/series circuits!
Reading
In reading, we have been focusing on strategies to find the main ideas and supporting details of a nonfiction text.
We'd love for you to talk to your son/daughter about the nonfiction text we're reading in class, When Lunch Fights Back. You could also ask what strategies he/she uses to find the most important ideas in their books.
Writing
In writing, we are continuing to write our informational books. We focused on asking questions about a partner's topic as a way of helping them elaborate.
We'd love for you to talk to your son/daughter about the topic he/she chose to write about for the first book of this unit!
Social Studies
We completed a Mind Mission about Valley Forge this week. The learners were challenged with the task of designing a shoe that would have kept the soldiers' feet warm in the snow while they camped at Valley Forge during the American Revolution. We'd love for you to ask them about their design!
As a reminder, all of the activities listed below are optional resources for you and your family.
Math
Click here for the optional homework for this week.
Reading & Language Arts
We would love for your son/daughter to spend time reading at home! They can read any text that catches their interest. We are currently in our Nonfiction Unit, so any informational texts they are interested in would be great.
Here are a couple of websites that offer current event articles targeted towards preteens and teens. With your guidance, they could choose articles of interest to read.
If you would like some extra resources to help your son/daughter study for the Class and School Spelling Bees, you can use these sites:
- My Spell It
- Word Central Games (Alpha-bot or Robo-Bee)
- For Fun: Could you win the Spelling Bee?
Your son/daughter can also work on an entry for the CGA writing competition. (See information above)
November 7: STEM Night
November 8: North Feeder Night at the Coppell HS Football Game
November 11: Veteran's Day Ceremony 8:00 AM
In honor of Red Ribbon Week, we had our first Friendship Friday of the year! Learners sat at any lunch table they wanted!
 |
| These learners enjoyed a quick game of Pass the Pigs during Slow Start in the morning. |
 | ||||
|
 | |
|
 | |
|
 |
| Our 5th grade writers asked their partners Who, What, Where, Why, and How questions about their informational books as a way of helping each other elaborate. |
 |
| What types of materials create open circuits and what types of materials create closed circuits? |
 |
| Learners researched a specific type of tax (payroll, sales, property, or income) and then created #Keynote presentations to share their expertise with their group! |
 |
| Learners researched a specific type of tax (payroll, sales, property, or income) and then created #Keynote presentations to share their expertise with their group! |
 |
| Learners researched a specific type of tax (payroll, sales, property, or income) and then created #Keynote presentations to share their expertise with their group! |
