Updates: December 5th

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

• We will be having Specials from 9:30-10:30 this Wednesday and Thursday so that the learners can rehearse for the program in the cafeteria. 
• We will be having lunch at 12:00 PM on Wednesday, December 14th. Please be aware of this time change if you plan to come and have lunch with your son/daughter.
• Our Winter Party will be on Thursday, December 15th at 2:00 PM. The entire 5th grade will have our party together. 
• Please be aware that we will have Early Dismissal at 12:50 PM on Friday, December 16th. (See info on District Website)
• 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. 
• Our Art for the Sky Program with Daniel Dancer was a huge success. Thank you to PTO for providing us with the opportunity, and for all of you for finding a white shirt for your kids and for donating jeans. 

5th Grade Program

• 5th Grade Program - The learners will be performing in the North Pole Musical this year. The program will be Tuesday, December 13th. We will have a morning performance at 8:30 PM and an evening performance at 6:00 PM. Both performances will be in the TCE Cafeteria, and you are all invited to attend. 
• Mrs. Garrett has asked that the learners arrive at 5:30 PM in preparation for the evening performance. 
• Learners that do not have specific speaking roles should wear a white shirt and jeans. Learners that have specific speaking roles will wear costumes provided by Mrs. Garrett. 
• If you have any questions regarding the program, please contact Mrs. Garrett or your child's classroom teacher. 

Service Learning Opportunities

Giving Tree

• When: November 30th-December 15th
• Where: Place new, unwrapped toys under the Christmas Tree by the front office
• What: Town Center first graders are collecting new, unwrapped toys for children in need. We will be donating the toys to the Lions Club. When you place your toy under the Christmas Tree, please sign your name on an ornament and hang it on the tree!

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 will have an informational meeting for all 4th grade parents on Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 5:30 PM.

Spelling Bee

• We had so many learners participate in our school bee, and we are so impressed by their dedication, commitment, and bravery! 
• Congratulations to our 5th Grade Spelling Bee Champion, Mihir from 5C, and our Runner Up, Parthi from 5D. Way to go 5th graders!

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

The learners will continue to work on the different operations with fractions. This includes multiplying a whole number by a fraction, dividing a whole number by a unit fraction (fraction with 1 as the numerator), and dividing a unit fraction by a whole number.

Science

The learners will be taking a test over our force, motion, and energy unit this week. Then we will begin on our next unit, earth’s changing surfaces.

Reading, Writing, & Spelling

In reading, we have been reading and responding to the Junior Great Book story, All Summer in a Day! It is an interesting story that our kids enjoy.

In writing, the learners are continuing their study of the proper way to write and punctuate dialogue. They are having fun reading and creating comics and transcribing them using the rules of dialogue!

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. 

Social Studies

We have just wrapped up our study of the European Explorers and their reasons for exploring the Americas. We will be starting our study of the Early English Settlements!

Homework Tidbits

• Weekly Spelling List - Quiz on Friday
• Reflex Math
• Weekly Math Homework - Due Friday

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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

Updates: Week 13

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

• The TCE Turkey Trot will happen on Friday, November 18th during specials (11:10-12:00). 
• Please remember that the learners will have the week of November 21-25 off because of Thanksgiving. 
• Coppell ISD will providing ESL classes for parents. Click here to see the flyer. Classes will be Monday evenings 5:30-6:30 with beginning classes offered at Wilson and Intermediate/Advanced classes offered at Austin.  The classes are open to any parents who need them.
• Please see the attached newsletter and calendar from our PE teacher, Mrs. Martin.
• 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. 

5th Grade Program

• 5th Grade Program - The learners will be performing in the annual Winter Program this year. The program will be Tuesday, December 13th. We will have a morning performance and an evening performance.
• The learners are currently participating in auditions. 
• We will have more information about the program coming soon. 

Service Learning Opportunities

• Trim the Turkey
  The second grade learners at TCE will be having a canned food drive to ‘trim the turkey’ for families in need this holiday season. We will be partnering with North Texas Food Bank to collect nonperishable trimmings for turkeys donated online. The district will not be collecting frozen turkeys as they have in previous years, but you may still donate a turkey online. (The link to donate a turkey online is in the flyer attached below.) For more information, please click on the image below to read the attached flyer! 

• Blue Jean Drive
  We will be having a special program coming to our campus this December that focuses on art, the world and each individual's role in helping our environment, and the importance of having good character within their lives.  In preparation for the program in December we are doing a blue jean drive collection in order to help with our school art design that we will be creating. Please bring any kids or adult size jeans that you might be able to donate to the front office of TCE.  They can be gently used or have holes in them as well.  After we use them for the school wide art display we will be donating them toward a non-profit organization to be given to others or recycled as other products.

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). 
• Our next payment is due Friday, November 18th. If you are unable to make that payment, please be sure to email or reach out to your learner's homeroom teacher. 
• We will have an informational meeting for all 4th grade parents on Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 5:30 PM.

Spelling Bee

• Our class bees will occur on the morning of Thursday, November 17th.  (This is a date change as we originally scheduled it for Friday the 18th.) Any learner that would like to participate is invited to participate in those bees. The top 8 learners from each class bee will be invited to participate in the school bee. 
• Learners have been given grade level lists to study. They will need to study and prepare on their own time. Learners should practice spelling orally as this is not something they are used to doing. 
• The school bee will occur on Monday, December 5th during the school day. We will designate one winner and one runner up from our school bee. The district bee will occur on January 11th at 9:00 AM. 
• If you have any questions regarding the spelling bee, please email your learners' Language Arts teacher.

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

This week in math the learners will be continuing learning about fractions. They will be working in groups on a “holiday fest” project and incorporate different operations with fractions throughout the learning experience.

Science

In science the learners will continue exploring force and motion. They have been working in groups to design a structure and test how force affects an object.

Writing & Spelling

In writing, we are continuing our Imaginative Writing Unit which will focus on writing imaginative stories and incorporating various grammar skills such as writing compound sentences and punctuating dialogue correctly.

In addition, our learners are participating in our Annual Gratitude Challenge. Learners have choice in how they respond each day, but they are required to post on their individual blogs. We are very grateful to PTO for providing these blogs for our learners. Your son/daughter can login to his/her blog to show you their posts. They really enjoy sharing their writing on the blogs.

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. 

Social Studies

We really enjoyed our election unit! The learners learned about the voting and election process and were able to make connections between what they had learned about the Constitution and the election process.

Homework Tidbits

• Weekly Spelling List - Quiz on Friday
• Reflex Math
• Weekly Math Homework - Due Friday

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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

Service Learning Opportunities

Please read about a few great service learning opportunities happening at TCE right now! 

Jeans Donations
We will be collecting blue jeans for a school-wide art project. If you and your family have any old jeans that you do not need anymore, please donate them to our project! You can send them in with your learner any day over the next few weeks. 

Trim the Turkey
The second grade learners at TCE will be having a canned food drive to ‘trim the turkey’ for families in need this holiday season. We will be partnering with North Texas Food Bank to collect nonperishable trimmings for turkeys donated online. The district will not be collecting frozen turkeys as they have in previous years, but you may still donate a turkey online. (The link to donate a turkey online is in the flyer attached below.) For more information, please click on the image below to read the attached flyer! 

Updates: Week 11

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

• The TCE Turkey Trot will happen on Friday, November 18th! 
• Please remember that the learners will have the week of November 21-25 off because of Thanksgiving. 
• Coppell ISD will providing ESL classes for parents. Click here to see the flyer. Classes will be Monday evenings 5:30-6:30 with beginning classes offered at Wilson and Intermediate/Advanced classes offered at Austin.  The classes are open to any parents who need them, not just parents of ELLs in case you have that situation/question.
• Last week, Veteran's Day flyers went home. If you and your family would like to honor a veteran in your family, please return the flyer. 
• We will have our Growth and Development presentation on Friday, November 11th. Please be sure to read the letter that came home a few weeks ago regarding the presentation. As always, please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions. 

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). 
• Our next payment is due Friday, November 18th.

Spelling Bee

• We discussed our class and school spelling bees with our learners in Language Arts class today. Your learner received a list of 4th & 5th grade words to study in preparation for our class bee. Once they are ready for the next grade level lists, they may ask us for them! 
• Our class bees will occur on the morning of Friday, November 18th. Any learner that would like to participate is invited to participate in those bees. The top 8 learners from each class bee will be invited to participate in the school bee. 
• The school bee will occur on Monday, December 5th during the school day. We will designate one winner and one runner up from our school bee. The district bee will occur on January 11th at 9:00 AM. 
• If you have any questions regarding the spelling bee, please email your learners' Language Arts teacher.

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

This week in Math we will be starting our unit on Operations involving Fractions. The learners will be taking a pre-assessment on Tuesday.

Science

This week in Science we will be participating in learning experiences that deal with Force, Motion, and Energy. They will be learning about sound waves, thermal energy, friction, electric circuits, heat energy, and light energy.

Reading
In reading, we will begin our nonfiction unit. The learners will practice nonfiction reading strategies in a variety of texts.

Writing & Spelling

In writing, we have just wrapped up our Personal Narrative Unit and our learners are publishing their narratives. You may see your learners' finished writing in their Google Drive.

We are beginning our Imaginative Writing Unit which will focus on writing imaginative stories and incorporating various grammar skills such as writing compound sentences and punctuating dialogue correctly. 

Social Studies

We have just wrapped up our study of the Bill of Rights. Your learner should be able to tell you what each of the 10 amendments protects! We are now beginning a short unit on Presidential Elections. The learners will learn about the election and voting process. We will not be studying the specific candidates or their specific political beliefs. The learners will, however, have the opportunity to participate in a mock election in which they'll vote for either Duck or Squid for president! They are excited about this opportunity.
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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

Updates: Week 9

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

• The first Sky Ranch payment is due Friday, October 21st. If you and your family will not be able to make this payment, please email your son/daughter's teacher. (See the blurb below about more Sky Ranch details.) 
• Pumpkin Design Challenge - Town Center is having another Pumpkin Design Challenge. Please click on the picture to learn more about the challenge. 

Conferences

As you know, we will be having Parent Teacher Conferences during the beginning of October. Our official conference day (in which learners will not have school) is Friday, October 7th, but we will be offering additional time slots as well. If you have not yet done so, please sign up for a conference time slot. 

If you sign up for a face to face conference, you will have a 15 minute slot to meet with both of your son/daughter's teachers. These conferences will be learner-led, and we invite you to bring your son/daughter with you.

Miss Peccarelli & Miss Seifert's Classes: 

• 5A/5B Conferences Sign Up
• 5A/5B Pre-conference Question Form - Complete prior to your conference time. 

Miss Natherson & Miss Taylor's Classes: 

• 5C/5D Conferences Sign Up
• 5C/5D Pre-conference Questions Form - Complete prior to your conference time. 

During our conference, one of the things we will be discussing is your learner's beginning of the year data. To help you better understand the data and because the 15 minute time slot can go by quickly, we have created a short presentation for you to view prior to your conference. This presentation includes two videos and will explain each of the assessment tools in detail. Please take a few minutes to view it. 

5th Grade Fall Conferences Parent Presentation

PDF | Google Presentation 

We look forward to conferencing with you about your learner! 

Updates Week 6

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

• We loved having visitors in our room for Special Friends Day last week! 

Parent Teacher Conferences

• Friday, October 7th is our Parent Teacher Conference Day. On this day, learners will have the day off, and educators will be at school having conferences. We would love to conference with you and your son/daughter, and we hope you will be able to sign up for a conference time. 
• If you sign up for a face to face conference, you will have a 15 minute slot to meet with both of your son/daughter's teachers. These conferences will be learner-led, and we invite you to bring your son/daughter with you. (If there is a topic you'd like to discuss without your son/daughter present, we can arrange that as well.) 
• We are offering some conference slots during the week prior to October 7th as well. If you are unable to find a time slot that works for you, please let us know and we will be happy to set something up. 
• If your schedule does not permit a face to face conference, we would still love to offer you a phone or email conference. If this is the case, please email your child's homeroom teacher to set one up. 

Conference Sign Ups: 

If you would like to sign up for a face to face conference, please access the following links. Prior to your conference, please complete the quick questionnaire so that we may be more prepared for your conference. 

Miss Peccarelli & Miss Seifert's Classes: 

• 5A/5B Conferences Sign Up
• 5A/5B Pre-conference Question Form - Complete prior to your conference time. 

Miss Natherson & Miss Taylor's Classes: 

• 5C/5D Conferences Sign Up
• 5C/5D Pre-conference Questions Form - Complete prior to your conference time. 

Classroom Communities

• We have emphasized that at TCE, we are one big family. In keeping with that theme, we will be showcasing family pictures in our classrooms again this year. If you have not already done so, please send a picture of your family to your child's teacher. You may email the picture or send in a printed picture. Thank you for your help with this! 

Curriculum Tidbits

Math

The learners will begin a new unit exploring the place value of decimals. They will be able to represent numbers with decimals up to the thousandths place.

Science

This week in science we will continue exploring the different properties of matter.

Reading

In reading, we will wrap up our study of our first short story, Charles, through the Junior Great Books curriculum with a "Great Debate" in which the learners will discuss their ideas about the story. In preparation for this "Great Debate," the learners will be working on justifying their opinions with evidence from the text.

Writing & Spelling

We are loving our Narrative Writing Unit! So far the learners have learned about how to "Begin with a Bang" and end their narratives with a "Take Away Conclusion." Later this week, we will focus on writing more descriptively and really engaging our readers.

In spelling, the learners will continue to get a new list each week, study and understand the spelling patterns throughout the week, and take a quiz on Friday. As requested at Curriculum Night, you may access the learner's spelling lists on our class websites.

Social Studies

We have begun our study of the United States Constitution! Our learners are beginning to understand the purposes of our checks and balances system and the role of our three branches of government!
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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