Welcome to Room 11 Fifth Grade, Ms. Keeney

1. Welcome to Room 11Fifth Grade, Ms. Keeney Wednesday August 29, 2012 Please turn off or silence your cell phones. Thank you!

2. Welcome to Room 11! • Thank you for coming to Curriculum Night ! • My goal this evening is to give you an overview of the curriculum and some classroom procedures. • Time is limited so there will not be an opportunity for individual conferences or questions about your student. Please contact me by email if you need a conference about your student before our Goal-Setting Conferences in early October. • Thank you again for your time and support. I look forward to working with you and your child this year.

3. Communication Information • School phone number (408) 257-9282 extension # 211 • E-mail address: keeney_susan@cusdk8.org (This is the quickest way to communicate!) • My Teacher-Web website includes many things including: • Daily homework postings • Announcements about various events and due dates • My monthly newsletter will be posted here, as well as emailed to you as an attachment I will email you frequently with various announcements. If you haven’t got any emails from me yet, it means I don’t have your email! Please email me tonight and I will add you to the list.

4. Classroom Philosophy Fifth grade is the pivotal year before your child reaches middle school and pre-adolescence. This year we will focus not only on the curriculum standards, but also on your child’s ability to develop, demonstrate and accept responsibility for his or her learning and behavior.

5. Class Expectations & Discipline Policy Our classroom emphasizes three expectations, the “Bobcat Be’s”: Be Safe, Be Responsible and Be Respectful. We have developed a simple set of school-wide rules, and every student at Blue Hills has had instruction and review of each of the Bobcat Be’s as they relate to each area of school, including this classroom. Some examples include: turning in homework on time, being kind to others, paying attention to lessons and directions, and being on time, playing fair, asking appropriate questions, behaving appropriately towards other students and staff, following rules, etc.

6. Consequences Students who make good choices are doing what they’re supposed to do! I give lots of encouragement for good behavior. Students may sometimes earn privileges and rewards for good behavior. Students who make inappropriate choices will face consequences. They may include, but are not limited to: • Time-out in another part of the room or in a different classroom • Loss of class earned “fun time” or other privileges • An E-mail home teacher • Parent/Teacher/Student conference • Conference with the principal • Community service during lunch or recess • In-school suspension or at-home suspension

7. Homework Policy • Homework is for practicing and developing skills, responsibility, and organizational strategies. • Students copy the homework assignments from the board into their assignment journals. • The assignments are also posted daily on my website, except when I am absent or when the district server is down. • Homework time should generally be no more than one hour per night. None on weekends, except long-term projects, or if the student wants to work ahead on some regular assignments. • Almost all homework is started in class. Many students who use their in-class time well actually finish it in class. • If you feel your child is spending too much time on homework, please contact me. Please make sure they are actually working on it, not just day-dreaming! :) • Fifth grade students need time to play and day-dream, too!

8. ICMM ICMM stands for "I Can Manage Myself". Thisis an incentive and recognition system for the students to turn their completed homework in on time. After each eight week period, if the student has turned in all homework on time and complete during six of the eight weeks, they earn an ICMM card and a homework coupon. • 1st card Copper • 2nd card Silver • 3rd card Gold • 4th card “Clear” Many students are excited by getting this reward and recognition of their good work habits.

9. Grading Students will be graded on a combination of homework, projects, in-class assignments, tests, quizzes, informal assessments, and participation. Physical education and music are graded by their PE and Music teachers CUSD uses a 6-point rubric • 1: Minimal Proficiency • 2: Limited Proficiency • 3: Developing Proficiency • 4: Proficient (This is a GOOD grade!) • 5: Advanced Proficiency • 6: Exceptional Proficiency Some work is also graded with a check, plus or minus.

10. Keeping Their Ducks in A Row! Learning organizational skills is key in fifth grade. I will provide time, guidance and encouragement in class for you student to keep his or her materials in order. Encourage your child to do this independently at home as well. Some assignments will be “chunked” into smaller pieces, which helps students learn to organize their time as well. Check their assignment journals!

11. Reading/Language Arts • Whole class and small group instruction, lots of writing about what they’re reading and talking about what they’re reading • Using the reading strategies emphasized throughout the year (summarize, evaluate, predict/infer, phonics/decoding, monitor/clarify, and question). • Fiction and non-fiction readings, from our textbook (Houghton Mifflin Reading) as well as novels, poetry, and other sources. • Projects and presentations are also included. Literature may include: Frindle, Esperanza Rising, Holes, The Indian in the Cupboard,Bridge to Terabithia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,Song of the Trees, and others.

12. Math Mathematics (Houghton Mifflin) is our textbook. Our goal, of course, is to prepare every student for sixth grade math. Both enrichment and review are provided for students as needed. Near the end of the year, Miller and Kennedy give an assessment to the students for placement in sixth grade math. Students have math homework Monday through Thursday nights. Problem solving work outside of the text book is also given from time to time. Fifth graders also take part in the Math Olympiad contest, and we will do some practice (problem solving and logical thinking) in class.

13. Social Studies In Social Studies students will be: • Learning note taking skills • Doing lots of reading about historical events and people in our textbook and from other soures • Practicing test taking and study skills • Doing group projects, oral presentations, and having group discussions.

14. … more Social Studies Social studies topics this year include • Native Americans, Explorers, the Colonies, the American Revolution, the 50 States/Geography, The Constitution, and Western Expansion. • We will be doing the Constitution and Branches of Government unit earlier in the year because of this fall’s election.

15. Writing and Speech Our writing curriculum is mainly based on the Step-Up-To Writing Program. Except for literature responses, all writing is done in class under teacher supervision. The genre for fifth grade include: • Personal Narrative • Persuasive Essay • Research Report • Poetry/Creative (not on report card) • Literature Response Speech and Oral Presentations • Individual and group presentations are assigned throughout the year.

16. Spelling • Each student has his or her own individualized spelling list each week. • The spelling lists are based on the spelling curriculum from our reading textbook, and also include the names of our states and capitals, which will be tested later in the year in Social Studies. • Vocabulary building will be separate from the spelling curriculum. • Spelling grades on the report card are based primarily on students’ everyday writing, not solely on their spelling tests.

17. “Latin Roots” Vocabulary Development • Students work on studying prefixes and suffixes and their meanings. • Parents or other adults need to work with them four times a week to memorize the meaning of the “roots” and to be familiar with the meanings of the vocabulary. • A quiz is given at the end of each week on that week’s “roots” and vocabulary, as well as the previous weeks’ lists. • A comprehensive test is given periodically.

18. Science Fifth grade science covers three major units: • Water Planet – Weather and a bit of Astronomy • Mixtures and Solutions – basic chemistry! • Living Systems- basic biology! And two smaller units towards the end of the year… • Human Growth and Development • Too Good For Drugs

19. …more science • Students will be conducting experiments, writing observations, doing science readings and discussions in class and in science lab. • They need to keep their worksheets and science notebook neatly in their science folder. These can go home for studying from time to time. • Students will be graded based on classroom observations and worksheets, as well as periodic quizzes and tests. • Fourth and fifth grade science topics appear on the STAR test this year.

20. Book Orders • Book orders will be sent out twice this trimester, and once in each of the other trimesters. There is never an obligation to buy books from Scholastic. I use the points earned from the book clubs to buy more classroom library books and other materials for the classroom. • Owning their own books is often an incentive for children to read more. Building an at-home library is a great thing to do for your child.

21. Long Term Assignments • Long-term assignments are given throughout the year; some are to be completed at home, such as book reports, others, such as the state report are done entirely at school. • Long-term assignments teach responsibility and the students (and parents) will be given several reminders of the due dates once the assignment has been given.

22. Field Trips • NASA Ames Encounter: Astronomy and Outer Space March 13 • Properties of Matter: Science Laboratory at the Tech Museum. September 24 • CST Play: “Pocahontas” April 12 • Outdoor Camp: February 5 through 7

23. Outdoor Education Camp • Overnight “camp-like” outdoor experience for fifth graders as required by CUSD. • February 5-7 (2 nights, Tuesday night and Wednesday night) • Mission Springs Camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Comfortable, motel-like rooms with attached bathrooms. • Two or three Blue Hills teachers, parent chaperones, high school student “counselors” and camp docents supervise students during the day. The parents and high school students sleep in rooms next to student rooms at night. Teachers sleep in room downstairs. There is usually one docent on site at night. • More information will be distributed closer to the date. • There will be a parent question-answer session in January.

24. ROOM 11 TRAFFIC DUTY • Keeping all students safe at dismissal time is a community responsibility. • Each classroom’s parent community is responsible for morning and afternoon parking lot and Goleta supervision duty for a two week period. • Our dates are the weeks before and after winter break. Please keep these dates open, and sign up for several time slots when the Google.doc calendar becomes available.

25. New Lunchtime/Recess Snacks This year the upper-grade lunchtime will run from 11:55 until 12:45, 25 minutes later than last year. Because there is a longer period between breakfast and lunch, I strongly encourage you to send a healthy, substantial recess snack with your student every day. Also if you are bringing your student’s lunch later in the morning, please bring it to the office before 11:00. Please do not try to drop your student’s lunch off on the playground.

26. Some final suggestions tonight… As a parent of three children myself, and having worked with hundreds of fifth graders over the years, these are some of the things that you can do at home that I have found to help students be more successful at school and in life…..

27. Successful, happy fifth graders … • Get 10 or more hours of sleep a night • Have a quiet place to study and do school work • Get some physical activity after school every day • Have very limited time on computers, iPads, electronic devices, TV, etc. • Are not “overscheduled” after school • Have unstructured time to play, to day-dream, to read for fun, to doodle, to build things, to be creative, to think “outside the box” etc. • Have time regularly with the family

28. ThankYou • Thank you for coming tonight. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns. • I am looking forward to a great year for all the students of Room 11!