Week of February 10

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

February 13: 5th Grade Valentine's Day Party from 2:00-3:00 PM

February 14th: No School (Teacher Work Day)

February 17th: No School (Weather Day) 

February 20th: TCE Cultural Night (See image below) 

March 5th: Open House from 5:30-7:00 PM

April 3rd: All Sky Ranch Paperwork due

Schedule Changes - February 13

On February 13, the students will have the awesome opportunity to participate in some coding activities led by our District Digital Learning Coaches. Since we also have our Valentines Party on that day (see below), we had to make a few schedule changes. So, 5th grade specials will be from 10:40-11:30. 

5th Grade Valentine's Party

Our 5th Grade Valentine’s Day party will be on Thursday, February 13th at 2:00 in the cafeteria. We would love to have you join us for the party if you are able! If you are able to come and help out, please email your class room mom (or teacher). Room Moms would love for volunteers to be there by 1:40 to help set up. 

We will exchange Valentine’s before our party. Your child may make or bring Valentines cards for each person in the class.  Your son/daughter received a class list with student names. 

In addition, students may decorate and bring their own bag or box from home to hold their valentines.  They may decorate it however they would like! Please be sure that their box/bag will fit inside their cubby. We can’t wait to see how creative they get!

3rd Annual TCE Cultural Night

Please see the image above to learn a bit about Cultural Night.

Friendship Friday

As a special 5th grade treat, every Friday for the rest of the year will be "Friendship Friday." Learners will get to sit anywhere they like in the cafeteria (mixed up classes). This is an opportunity for learners to begin preparing for middle school cafeteria etiquette, as well as a special reward for their great behavior!

Yearbook Pictures

6th Grade Parent Meeting - CMS West 

Please see the image below regarding a 5th Grade Parent Meeting at West. This meeting is only for parents of incoming 6th graders at Coppell Middle School West. As we receive information about parent meetings at East & North, we will share that information here. If you are unsure as to which middle school your son/daughter will attend, please contact Laura Fairchild, our Principal's Secretary, or Kelly Matlock, our Counselor. 

Photos for 5th Grade Graduation Slideshow

The 5th grade room parents have created Google photo folders where you can start uploading photos of your learners with their TCE friends to be used for the 5th Grade Slideshow at the end of the year. The ideal photos to upload are of groups of 3 or more and have Town Center 5th graders in them. Please use the links below to upload photos to your homeroom teacher's album.

5A Schaaf: https://photos.app.goo.gl/MKzHHRr5ZM539zW89

5B Foroodi: https://photos.app.goo.gl/EKppkUJuzWkkVW23A

5C Natherson: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xb4Lyjm3zVrnUhGGA

5D Taylor: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NJgD6S8Ef7JyYKh49

Please click here for a digital version of the Sky Ranch information packet. The forms that will need to be filled out are towards the back of the packet. Please ask your homeroom teacher if you have any questions!

For access to a digital Google Folder that includes all of the required forms to be filled out and returned, please click here. 

Please remember that the required Sky Ranch forms are not due until April 3rd, 2020. However the sooner you get them in the better!

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 Friday, February 7th. 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 starting a new unit about coordinate planes. Learners will explore graphing coordinate pairs and creating input-output tables.

Science

In science this week, we will be starting a new unit about patterns in our natural world. Learners will be exploring how the sun, moon, and earth react as well as concepts such as tides and moon phases.

Language Arts & Reading
In writing, the students have been researching about chocolate milk. Based on this research, each student has made a claim as to whether or not schools should sell chocolate milk. This week, the students will write a second draft of their argument essay. Within this draft, learners will focus on adding powerful quotes to support their arguments. In reading, each student is researching a debatable issue. Students will continue to learn how to research both sides of an issue, synthesize information from multiple sources, and determine which facts are most important to the argument. You could help us out by talking to your son/daughter about claims, reasons, and evidence! In Spelling, we have just started a brief study of Greek roots. Ask your son or daughter to tell you about the Greek root phon and the Greek root graph.

Social Studies
We are just starting our 4th Unit, Westward Expansion. This week the learners focused on the following vocabulary words: acquisition, boundary, cede, expedition, reservation. Next week, the learners will learn about the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark.

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

Math

With eight instructional weeks left until the learners take the Math STAAR test on April 7th, we would like to begin providing some optional homework opportunities for the learners to practice the format and question set up they will see on the end of the year state assessment. Please click here to access a collection of mini-assessments on a variety of topics. For this upcoming week, we recommend learners work on pages 15-18. You will also find an answer key. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Reading & Language Arts

Please click here for a Time for Kids article:  

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 Argument & Advocacy Unit, so persuasive texts, debates, or nonfiction articles would be advised. You can check out some interesting debate topics here.

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.

• NewsELA
• Dogo News
• Time for Kids

Week of February 4th

Hi everyone! 

Please see the Google calendar embedded above with important dates and reminders. 

Important Reminders: 

• The next Sky Ranch payment of $50 is due Friday, February 1st. 

What's Happening Around TCE? 

PTO Meeting
Our TCE staff and PTO Board would love to have you all join us for our next PTO meeting. It gives you a chance to give input on school events and hear about all the great things happening at TCE. The following items are on the agenda:

• Budget Update
• Upcoming process for parents, staff, and learners to give feedback on the looping process
• Color Run Spring Fundraiser Updates
• Survey for parents to give input on future PTO meeting topics that would be informative and timely (Ex. Social emotional issues, Keeping your kids safe while using technology, How to best support your child's learning at home, etc.)
• Upcoming Movie Night
• Update on programs
• Book Fair
• Teacher Grant Celebrations

Valentine's Parties

• Our 5th Grade Valentine’s Day party will be on Thursday, February 14th at 2:00 in the cafeteria. We would love to have you join us for the party if you are able! 
• We will exchange Valentine’s before our party. Your child may make or bring Valentines cards for each person in the class.  The names of the students in each class have been sent home (as a paper copy). In addition, students may decorate and bring their own bag or box from home to hold their valentines.  They may decorate it however they would like! Please be sure that their box/bag will fit inside their cubby. We can’t wait to see how creative they get!

Author's Visit
We are excited for author Aisha Saeed to visit our Town Center Elementary 4th and 5th graders on February 12! Ms. Saeed is the author of Amal Unbound, which was the 2018 Global Read Aloud Upper Elementary/Middle Grade selection. If you would like to order a book for your 4th/5th grader, please look for the order form in your child's backpack or print it from this link. The order form AND complete payment must be turned in to our librarian, Mrs. Keene-Carlson, no later than Friday, February 1. Families are also welcome to purchase their own copy of Amal Unbound from Amazon or another bookseller. Those copies of Amal Unbound should be brought to Mrs. Keene-Carlson before the date of Ms. Saeed's visit so that we can get the books prepared for her to sign. If you have questions, please email Alena Keene-Carlson at acarlson@coppellisd.com. 

Reminder: YEARBOOKS ON SALE NOW! 

It's that time of year to purchase a yearbook for your child. Yearbook cost was not part of the Trailpass this year, so the only way to purchase is through balfour.com at a cost of $25. You can also purchase an ad to appear in the yearbook to make this year extra special. Optional ads come in multiple sizes ranging from $15-$120. We sold out last couple of years, so don't miss out! 

Friendship Friday in Fifth Grade

As a reminder, we will be having "Friendship Friday" every other Friday during lunch, starting this week. You can read more about this in our previous post. 

Sky Ranch Updates

Sky Ranch Payments 

As a reminder, the third Sky Ranch payment of $50 is due Friday, Feburary 1st. You may pay by check (payable to Town Center Elementary), cash, or credit card. Visit this link to pay by credit card. As of February 1st, your balance should be $150. If you have not yet made any payments, or your balance is less than $150, please contact your son/daughter's teacher to provide an update on your plan for payments. As always, if you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask. 

Important Sky Ranch Dates

• Chaperone Interest Forms are due Feb. 8th
• All Sky Ranch Paperwork is due April 10th. 

Want to Know More About Sky Ranch? 

We thought it might help if you could look at some pictures as a family. Click here to see the pictures! 

A Peek into Our Classrooms

Learners in Miss Peccarelli's room used their iPads to annotate a nonfiction text during their Unit 2 Assessment. 

Learners in Miss Perry's room lead the class in a Mad Libs activity for "Chat Chair" at the end of the day. 

Learners in Miss Seifert's room participated in Glow Day to review for their fractions test! They played lots of games in the dark using black lights and neons. 

Learners in Miss Seifert's room participated in Glow Day to review for their fractions test! They played lots of games in the dark using black lights and neons.

Learners in Miss Seifert's room participated in Glow Day to review for their fractions test! They played lots of games in the dark using black lights and neons. 

Learners in Miss Perry's room used Keynote (an Apple app) to create models of the solar system.

The 5th graders had the awesome opportunity to help the kindergarteners set up their Bulb accounts! It was so great seeing the big kids helping the little kids. We've shared some photos below. 

You can always follow the hashtag #tce5th on Twitter to see more pictures from our classrooms. 

Curriculum Updates: 

Math

This week in math, we will be starting our unit over expressions and equations. The learners will be exploring prime and composite numbers and learning the order of operations. 

Math Homework: As a reminder, the homework will include a STAAR Prep section and a section to practice the concepts currently being taught in class. You can find the link to the homework here.

Science

This week in science, we will be continuing our unit over patterns in the natural world. The learners will finish their model of the solar system on Keynote. We will then move on to exploring the characteristics of the sun, earth, and moon.

If you would like to see your learner's reflections from the Flipgrid from last week, please visit https://flipgrid.com/tceconnect and enter the password Patterns!

Social Studies

This week, learners will begin understanding the impact of the Gold Rush, Trail of Tears, and Oregon Trail. 

Reading & Language Arts

This week we will be starting a new weekly homework assignment called Article of the Week. The learners will receive a new article each Friday, and they will have four activities to complete during the week. For the homework, learners may need to access Schoology from home. They can access Schoology from this link: https://schoology.coppellisd.com/.

• Moon Mission article - Due Feb. 8

This week in spelling, we will be focusing on the latin root, rupt. The learners will spell words with rupt in them and will learn the meaning of the word

This week in writing, learners will be finishing up two expository essays. We hope you'll ask them to share them with you! Then, we'll be starting a new poetry unit in which the learners will write different types of poetry using poetic devices.

Updates: February 20

Thank you for taking the time to stop by our blog and read about what's going on in 5th Grade. Please be sure to check the Google Calendar that is linked at the top of the blog for important updates. 

Announcements

• Town Center Cookbook - We wanted to have the opportunity to create a TCE Family Traditions cookbook this year since our theme is all about family and celebrating the diversity within our community.  We would love to have you share one of your favorite family recipes to go into our cookbook this year.  If you are interested in participating, please send in your recipe to Casey Wagner, cwagner@coppellisd.com, or you may send in a paper copy of your recipe to the front office. 

• As a reminder, we did add headphones to the learners' supply kits this year. We invite the learners to watch videos, use online learning tools, and play educational games in class often, and it is really important that they have headphones for these tasks. If your learner does not have a pair of headphones at school, please help them locate a pair so that they can be prepared for class. 
• Thank you so much to everyone that was able to come to the Engineering Extravaganza! We loved seeing our #tce5th families!
• Coppell offers a great summer program called Camp Invention. Check this link to learn more about this opportunity. 
• We are pleased to announce that we will have another Field Trip opportunity for the learners in the spring! We will be visiting the Coppell Biodiversity Center. This trip is tentatively scheduled for May 12th. 
• Our lovely Room Moms set up a photo booth at our Valentine's Party, and they created a video montage from all of the pictures. Click here to see the video! Thank you to all of our parent volunteers that helped make the party a success!

Sky Ranch Updates

• Please see our Sky Ranch flyer for updates and details about our trip. Within this flyer, we have included a link to our payment letter and a place for you to ask questions about the trip (should you feel the need). 
• We had an informational meeting for all 5th grade parents on Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 5:30 PM. If you were not able to make it to the meeting, you should have received a copy of the paperwork in your learner's take home folder. 
• Our third payment of $50 was due on Friday, January 27th. After this payment, your paid balance should be at least $150. If you are unable to make these payments, please reach out to your son/daughter's homeroom teacher.  Of course, we understand that sometimes budgets can be tight and it may be hard to make the payment by that date, and we are happy to help if we can, but we do need for you to communicate with us rather than just not pay. Thank you for understanding! 
• All payments (a total of $200) and all paperwork is due March 10th. 
• We had many parents volunteer to come along on our trip as chaperones! Thank you to everyone that offered to come along. 

Coppell Middle School North Visits

• Coppell Middle School North counselors will be coming to visit our 5th graders on the morning of April 5th to talk about the transition to middle school and course selection. 
• In addition, we will be taking the fifth graders to North for an elective showcase on April 3rd. We will have more information about this trip in the weeks to follow. 
• Finally, please see the following flyer about a guest speaker at Coppell Middle School North. You can learn more about the speaker, Michelle Icard, here and here. 

Curriculum Tidbits
*We hope that you will periodically check our Twitter accounts as we tweet glimpses of what we're learning in class. You can find our tweets by searching the hashtag #tce5th or by going to our individual pages.

Math

In math the learners have begun learning about the key attributes of coordinate planes. The learners are expected to graph  an ordered pair on a coordinate plane. In addition, learners will be expected to generate a numerical pattern when given a rule in the form of y=ax or y= x + a and graph.

Science

In science, we are continuing to explore Earth’s changing surface. We will be focusing on what fossils can tell us about the Earth’s past and the advantages and disadvantages of alternative energy resources (renewable energy) as compared with fossil fuel resources (nonrenewable energy).

Reading, Writing, & Spelling

In reading, we will continue to analyze text and find text evidence to defend our thinking. We will also continue to review key vocabulary words to support our learning! 

In writing, we will continue to explore persuasive writing by researching both sides of an issue and developing arguments. 

Social Studies

We are learning about the various events that angered the colonists and eventually lead to the American Revolution. Ask the learners about the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, and the Sons of Liberty! 

Homework Tidbits

• Reading Homework: 
• We are counting down the weeks until STAAR! Starting this week we will have your learners studying STAAR Reading vocabulary words for homework. They will also be exposed to these words during the school days and will be assessed on Fridays. 
• In addition, we will be starting our weekly Article of the Week (AOW) homework this week. If you were here last year, this homework will look similar to last year's homework. The learners will be provided with a current events article, and they will have specific tasks to accomplish each night. 
• ***We will not have an AOW for the shortened week of February 20th. 
• Weekly Spelling List - Quiz on Friday: As a note, the learners do have a weekly spelling list that they are expected to study throughout the week. We include "Study for Spelling Quiz" in the homework section of our daily agendas, so if every your learner says they don't have homework, they do. While we do cover spelling in class, it is important for them to take the time to study at home as well. 
• Math/Science Homework: The weekly homework packet will be including Math practice and Science practice. The learners will have up to 5 Math questions and 5 Science questions a week. The learners also need to be completing their Reflex Math time. If their Reflex Math is not completed for the week, they will be required to spend that time in Homework Club during Texan Town. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact your learner’s Math/Science teacher.

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Finally, thank you again for taking the time to read our blog. We know how important it is for our TCE families to know what is happening at school! If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask. Our contact information is linked below for your convenience.

5A Morgan Peccarelli - mpeccarelli@coppellisd.com

5B Kate Seifert - kseifert@coppellisd.com

5C Marly Natherson - mnatherson@coppellisd.com

5D Jenna Taylor - jltaylor@coppellisd.com