November 27th through December 1st

Keenoy’s Pups News                                                            

December 1, 2017

Dear Families,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I enjoyed the extra time off with the family.  We always host Thanksgiving, and our children had a blast playing with their cousins.  Have a wonderful week and thanks again for your continued support this year.

Keenoy Pup of the Week-Rashad N.

Hello, my name is Rashad.  I have one sister and a brother.  I really enjoy basketball and all of the students in my class.

Pup of the week on Monday-Henry S.

Please bring any pictures or items that you would like to put on our bulletin board that is located outside of our classroom.

Holiday Open House Reminder

Mark your calendars for Paxton Keeley’s annual winter performance and open house on Friday, December 15.  Fifth grade choir begins singing in the gym promptly at 1:05.  Then, the entire 5th grade takes the stage at 1:25 to sing.  Following the singing, feel free to join us in the room for an open house from 1:45-2:05 This will be a very busy day for Paxton Keeley.  Our parking lots and hallways will be full.  Be sure to arrive early as we begin singing promptly at the time above.  We only sing a few songs, so if you are late you could miss the performance. Due to limited space in the gym, students are not allowed to attend their sibling’s performances.  A complete Holiday Performance schedule can be found on the last two blog posts.

Math

Math

This week students………

*Solved a variety of fraction number stories.

*Solved fraction addition and subtraction problems that included fractions with unlike denominators. 

Reading

We are nearing the end of our book, Zach’s Lie by Roland Smith.  I have continued modeling good comprehension strategies as I read.  We are still working on inferring, using context clues to figure out the meaning of unknown words, and making thoughtful predictions.  I have really been impressed with the deep level of thinking that is happening during class discussions.  Students are also doing a much better job of keeping their reading notebook work up to date and organized. 

Writing

We have entered our informational genre of writing this week.  After carefully looking through the pre-assessments that students took prior to Thanksgiving, it was noticeable that organizing ideas within paragraphs is an area for us to work on.  We will work on these skills daily for the next week or so.  I feel like building this paragraph understanding will pay dividends when we start working on our research project after break. 

During our work with organizing factual information into paragraphs, we will also build crafting techniques that help to make facts sound interesting.  Even though this is a different genre than Personal Narrative, I do not want students to lose their writing “VOICE.”  Non-fiction writing does not have to sound boringJ

Social Studies

I had a lot of fun taxing students the week of Thanksgiving Break.   They were all fired up (in a kind way) about the King taxing his morning donut gift.  In the end, I gave the taxed portions back to them.  All the scenarios that I hoped would come from my taxing came up naturally.  I had a student who boycotted the donut altogether.  I had a group that was trying to secretly meet with others to sign a petition.  We also had some students who shared they were hesitant to go “against” the king because of the repercussions.  We had a lot of fun and nobody got too carried away by taking the fun too far.  I found many connections with our “mock” taxing that tied back to the late 1700s. 

We are currently learning about some of the key battles in the Revolutionary War.

Science/Word Study

Our class will pick back up with these two subjects next week.  Please look for student’s Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check papers to come home on Tuesday so that they can study their words.

Important Dates:

Dec. 15 Winter Performance & Open House

Dec. 21  Winter party at 2:15

Dec. 22-Jan. 3 Winter Break

Jan. 4 School Resumes

Jan. 9 Fine Arts Extravaganza (field trip) - note is in the folder

Jan. 10 Biztown (field trip to Chesterfield)

Jan. 15 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day-No School

Jan. 25 PTA movie night 6:00-8:00

Have a wonderful week!

                                                                                                            Sincerely,
                                                                                                            Dan Keenoy