TCE 5th Grade: Week of November 18th

Hi everyone! Thank you for visiting our blog and taking the time to read this communication. We appreciate you!

Turkey Trot

The 5th graders would love for you to join them at the Turkey Trot on Tuesday, November 19th. The run was originally scheduled for the 22nd, but we are moving it up due to a chance of rain later this week.

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.

https://give.livingtree.com/p/town-centerelementary

Donations for 5th Grade's Service Learning

The fifth graders will be preparing boxes to donate to the homeless shelter during our Better Together day in December. We would so appreciate if you are able to donate any of the items listed above. Please let your child's homeroom teacher know if you have any questions regarding these donations.

Yearbook Sales

Colored Name Cards for Car Loop

We want to give a quick shout out to all of the parents that have 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!

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/

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 was due Friday, November 1st. The third payment of $50 will be due February 2nd. 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.

Math
In math next week, we will be continuing our operations with fractions unit by diving into multiplication with a fraction and a whole number.

Science
In science, we will be continuing our force and motion unit by testing our Slippery Sole shoe designs. Ask your learner about how they have been researching and designing the sole of a shoe to create the most friction possible! On Tuesday, we will review for the learners post-test that they will take on Wednesday. Our next until is over Earth's changing surface.

Reading
We will wrap up our Informational Unit this week! The learners will practice synthesizing information, analyzing author's viewpoints, and comparing/contrasting informational texts. The students will also complete their Unit 2 Post Assessment on Thursday.

Writing
In writing, the learners will take what they have learned about writing informational books and publish a digital book! You can see the project presentation in your son/daughter's Language & Literacy Course in Schoology (Unit 2). The learners will be creating their books in an app called Keynote, so you won't be able to see their work as they go. However, you'll be able to see the published copies at the end. We are so excited to see their final products.

The Class Spelling Bees will be this Thursday, November 21st. Please encourage your son/daughter to take the brave step in participating and help them study at home!

Social Studies
We will finish up our study of the American Revolution with a project called the ABCs of the American Revolution. The learners will identify a noun for every letter of the alphabet that connects to the American Revolution. Ask you son/daughter about their ABCs! You can see the project presentation in your son/daughter's Schoology account (through the Social Studies course).

As a reminder, all of the activities listed below are optional resources for you and your family.

Math
Click here to view a 30 page fraction review document with important pre-requisite skills to our current unit. We recommend having learners practice 1 sheet at a time, since there are many pages in this resource! (We realize that every other page on the pdf is upside down. The learners can just flip it over once it's printed.)

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?

Another great way to help your son/daughter prepare for the spelling bees is to help them practice spelling words aloud. We suggest practicing in front of the mirror.

Your son/daughter can also work on an entry for the CGA writing competition. (See information above)