5-26-17

5-26-17

If you would like to register your child for the Portage District Library summer reading program, click on the link below.

Our all school picnic is next Thursday, June 1st.  Please come join us if you can.  I need to know if your child needs to order a sack lunch for that day ASAP so the cafeteria can be prepared.

We received our 2nd shipment of caterpillars today and all is right in the world again.  Hopefully we can put the caterpillar massacre of 2017 behind us.  My biggest concern now is time.  I'm afraid we will not have enough school days to observe the entire life cycle.  It will be cutting it close.  If anything, I may have the kids bring a clear container or jar in on the last day of school and send everyone home with their chrysalis.

We wrapped up Module 7 this week and the final assessment on measurement is in everyone's homework folder.  Module 8 is our last of the year.  We have around 16 lessons to cover on Time, Shapes, and Fractions and about 12 days to do it.  We may be doubling up on a few lessons to make sure we get through everything.

Language Arts

We finished up our last story for Unit 6 and took our Unit 6 Reading Assessment this week.  Those will be the last scores that will be recorded for reading this year.  We will go back cover a few stories that we skipped but their won't be any recorded grades.

This was the final week for our What a Surprise! unit. We wrapped it up by thinking about this: “How is life now the same and different from life long ago?” We read an informational text about Benjamin Franklin, who made many helpful new discoveries long ago. In addition to Now & Ben, we will read A Model Citizen, where we learned of the many other helpful things Ben Franklin did for his country.

Target Vocabulary: accomplishments, inventions, result, designed, achieve, composed, remarkable, amounts 

Phonics Skills: Reading longer words; final stable syllable -le 

Vocabulary Strategy: Using a dictionary 

Comprehension Skill: Compare and contrast—tell how two things are alike or not 

Comprehension Strategy: Visualize— picture what is happening as you read

5-12-17

5-12-17

I hope everyone enjoys their special day and thank you for all that you do.

It's that time again!  We are having another Box Tops collection contest next week, May 15-19. If you have any at home, send them in with your student!  If you can send them in already clipped and in plastic bags, that would be even better!

ANCHOR RUN 5K

WHEN

FRIDAY, MAY 19TH, 6PM

WHERE

10011 PORTAGE ROAD

PORTAGE, MI

MORE INFORMATION

The 5K Walk/Run (6:00 pm) and 1 Mile Fun Run (6:45 pm) events start and finish at Lake Center Elementary. The course is an out and back course along-side Austin Lake.

All proceeds support the Lake Center Elementary PTO.

This is a fun, family-centered event! Register by May 12th to be guaranteed a t-shirt. Register more than one person in your family and receive a discount on each additional registration! Register now on the Run Sign Up Page

If you would like to volunteer at this event, please visit our Sign Up Genius Page to see what is needed.

Registration for 5K Run/Walk provides each participant a Meal Deal. This includes a hot dog, chips and a drink. Additional Meal Deals may be purchased before or at the event for $3 each.

For more information, visit anchorrun5k.weebly.com or contact Rachel Bryant at rachbry5@yahoo.com

We continued with our unit on surprises as we read two new selections this week. Two of Everything is a folktale from China. A farmer finds an unusual brass pot that doubles everything put inside it. But is that always a good thing? In the traditional tale of Stone Soup, we read about a clever man who figures out how to make soup from a stone. With both stories, we explored the question “What clues help you understand a story character?”

Target Vocabulary: contained, grateful, startled, odd, search, leaned, tossed, village 

Phonics Skills: Reading longer words; vowel diphthongs oi (boil), oy (toy) 

Vocabulary Strategy: Antonyms 

Comprehension Skill: Understanding characters—tell more about characters 

Comprehension Strategy: Summarize— stop to tell important events as you read 

Lesson 9 

Objective: Solve word problems involving different combinations of coins with the same total value.

Lesson 10 

Objective: Use the fewest number of coins to make a given value.

Lesson 11 

Objective: Use different strategies to make $1 or make change from $1.

Lesson 12 

Objective: Solve word problems involving different ways to make change from $1.

Richie has 24 cents. How much more money does he need to make $1?

Shay buys a balloon for 57 cents. She hands the cashier 1 dollar. How much change will she receive?

We should just about be done with our economics unit by the time our caterpillars arrive on Wednesday.  Our focus this week was on natural resources.  Basically anything that we use from nature that helps us produce the goods that we buy.  Some examples of natural resources would be :  the sun, air, plants, oil, coal, fossil fuels, sand, water, animals, etc...

We also discussed capital and human resources this week.  Human resources are the people that build the goods or provide the service.  Capital resources are the tools used to make the goods or help people provide a service.

Anchor Run 5K - 5/19

Half Day of school - 5/26

Student Council Spirit Day (Wacky Hair) - 5/26

Memorial Day - No School - 5/29

School Picnic - 6/1

PTO Meeting - 6/5

Ice Cream Social and Scholastic Book Fair - 6/8

Student Council Spirit Day (LCE Spirit Wear & Sunglasses) - 6/9

5th Grade Farewell at Airway Lanes - 6/14

5th Grade Graduation/Last Day of School/Half Day - 6/15

5-5-17

5-5-17

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the kind gifts, notes, snacks, and all of these wonderful flowers throughout the week.  I really do appreciate it.  Usually I'm the one buying flowers.  I really am lucky to teach such a wonderful group this year.  Thank You!

Help us with No More Summer Reading Loss!

Did you know that students who continue to read for pleasure over the summer months are able to come back to school in the fall without falling behind their peers and actually gain a month in reading?  Unfortunately, students who do not spend their summer reading often times come back two months behind where they ended the previous school year!  We are prepared with your support to stop this slide for our students!  Just by ensuring your child reads between four to five books over the summer months will be a GREAT start to preventing the summer slide!  Of course, the more they read the better, but if we can get them in the habit of reading each day over the summer we WILL see great results!  

Here’s what we need from you.  Simply donate any of your gently used children’s books to Lake Center Elementary.  We will begin collecting books this Monday through June 2nd.  We will have a drop off site in the front entrance and one on the second level in front of the media center.  Please have these books separated by chapter books and trade/picture books.  Any student who drops off books will receive a book/reading toe token for their chains from their classroom teacher! Along with this item, if we are able to collect 3000 books during our LCE Picnic Day students will EARN face painting and the ability to bring in their rubics cubes, spinners and fidget cubes that day as a reward!   

The best part is that the last week of school, every student at Lake Center Elementary will be able to pick out between 2-3 books to take home and read over the summer!  We know that choice is a HUGE motivator in their willingness to read so we want our students to be able to pick the books they want to take home and read.  Any additional books collected will go towards continuing to encourage reading at our Meet Up and Eat Up sites throughout the community.  More to come on this!

Lesson 6

Objective: Recognize the value of coins and count up to find their total value.

Lesson 7 

Objective: Solve word problems involving the total value of a group of coins.

Example:

Danny has 2 dimes, 1 quarter, 3 nickels, and 5 pennies. a. What is the total value of Danny’s coins? b. Show two different ways that Danny might add to find the total. 

Lesson 8 

Objective: Solve word problems involving the total value of a group of bills.

Part 1: Solve a put together with total unknown type problem. 

Alyssa has 5 five-dollar bills, 12 one-dollar bills, and 3 ten-dollar bills in her wallet. How much money is in her wallet? 

Part 2: Solve a take from with result unknown type problem. 

Silas uses 2 twenty-dollar bills, 3 five-dollar bills, and 4 one-dollar bills on a gift for his aunt. He is going to save the rest. If Silas started with $80, how much will he save?

Part 3: Solve a compare with smaller unknown type problem.

Deste has 4 ten-dollar bills and 6 five-dollar bills. She has $25 more than Kirsten. How much money does Kirsten have?

We've made it through most of our economics unit.  Students should know the difference between needs, wants, producer, consumer, goods, and services by now.  I have one more activity involving goods and services and then we'll move on to natural, capital, and human resources.  We should be all wrapped up with our econ unit before the caterpillars arrive.

We really had a good week of writing.  We were able to complete 2 informational writings on Working In Space and Mars.  We were also able to complete 2 opinion or persuasive writings.  Those topics were about whether or not you'd like to be an astronaut and what do you think the best job in the world would be.  We had some interesting conversations about what would be considered a great job/career.  I've been collecting all of our writings from the entire year and will send them all home at once in their writing folders at the end of the year.  It really is fun to look through all the writings and see their growth from the beginning of the year.

5/10 - Bike to School Day!

5/19 - Anchor Run!

5/26 - Half Day

6/1 - All School Picnic

6/5 - Raindate All School Picnic

6/8 - Ice Cream Social/Book Fair 6:30 pm

6/15 - Last Day of School ½ Day dismissal at noon/ 5th grade farewell at 9:15am/ Meet your  teacher at 11:30 am