Weekly Newsletter 5.23.14 & 5.28.14

It is hard to believe that the end of the school year has arrived! The year’s end always brings with it a tremendous sense of accomplishment. So many things have been accomplished this year! The past week had many activites from field day, fishing, talent show to graduation. Of course, we should not forget the tremendous amount of learning which has taken place during the year. Throughout all of these activities our students have demonstrated great character!

Kenston Intermediate 5th Grade Field Day took place last Wednesday, May 21st. Even though it rained, we were still able to make it a fun day. We started our morning going through stations with Mrs. Robertson's class. The kid competed in minature golf, pin the tail, hula hoop contest and more. Mother Nature was kind to us in the afternoon. We watched the tug of war and were treated to ice cream. Thanks to Mr. Hall and the parent volunteers for putting this together.

More good news for the kids last week! The fishing trip that was originally scheduled for Wednesday, May 21st and conflicted with our field day was moved to Thursday, May 22nd due to the rain. The Rotary Club organized a wonderful day and the volunteers were amazing! They all worked so well with our students and it was a big success!

Today, we watched the KIS Talent Show at the High School and saw a lot of songs from the movie Frozen! The students were engaged the whole time and sat very nice. I was very proud of them. We finished the day with an end of the year party. The kids danced and hung out with their friends. A fun time was had by all!!!

All five of my students have been together since first grade. Each one is going to have an amazing transition to middle school and I am going to miss all of them. I also am so lucky to have had such wonderful support from my lovely parents. Have a great summer!

Here are some good websites to practice their IEP goals with this summer.

http://www.raz-kids.com/

This is a great resource for summer reading. I have entered all of the students and under class enter: GeaugaAchieve

Your child's name will be first name and first and last initial of last name. Just click on it and start reading! <p>http://www.brainnook.com/

It is also on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/math-single-double-digit-addition/id359556883?mt=8

The kids can practice 2 digit addition with or without regrouping

Weekly Newsletter 5.16.14

With less than a week to go in the school year, we are staying motivated and focused on our academics. As you already know, the ending of the school year is just as busy as the beginning of the Fall.

KIS Achieve participated in Right to Read Week and enjoyed each morning listening to the student readers share the biography of Dr. Benson Bonyo. Dr. Bonyo is a physician in the Akron area and believes in education. He will be visiting KIS this week and we will sing a song for him.

This year's student program, Career Fair at KIS, is well under way this week. So far, the students have seen WEWS Channel 5 News Anchor Macie Jepson. Macie’s kids attend Kenston and she was so excited to talk to the students. The lesson we learned from her was to follow your dreams and never give up. She also told the kids to never let someone put you down or make you feel bad about yourself. Guest speakers will be visiting KIS on May 19, 22, and 23. Students will be selecting sessions based on their interests.

The kids also wrapped up their Nature Scopes Binoculars program with a field trip to The Rookery. Nature Scopes is a comprehensive, year-long program aligned with Ohio Science Education Content Standards. It reached 90 percent of county fifth-graders this year, with a goal of reaching 100 percent by the 2015-16 school year.

Weekly Newsletter 5.9.14

This week, our students studied realistic fiction by reading Cleaning My Room (Level F) It is the story of one little boy and his very messy room. After his mom instructs him to clean up the mess, the boy asks for the reader’s help to locate and sort various objects in his room. Lively illustrations and engaging text support emerging readers. Students will have the opportunity to identify story elements including characters, plot, and setting in this humorous story.

In math, all students continue to work on identifying coins and telling the value of each coin. Each student is working at a different level, but all students are encouraged to practice counting coins regularly. They can count coins when you are at the store or earn some for doing chores. Count enough coins to buy a special treat at the grocery store. These are easy ways to practice coins at home.

Some students stil need to continue to count the coins with the touch points on them. We are using the original Touch Money program where coins are counted by 5s. You can see, in the visual below, how the coins appear to your child when we count them. First, we line up the coins from greatest amount to smallest (Q, D, N, P), then say (while pointing to the silver coins) “Count by 5s, STOP, then count by ones” (while pointing to the pennies). The plan is to eventually remove the touch points (just like with addition and subtraction) and have student remember where they are placed. If you have further questions about this method, please feel free to contact me or look at some of the sites posted below.

Counting Coins with Touch Math and Brain Pop Jr.- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXIK1gS0TXE

Touch Coins for Counting Money- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ROMZ7U9po

We are continuing Social Studies learning about Democracy and Monarchy. The students will learn that around the world, countries and people are governed by a variety of different types of governments, such as democracies, dictatorships and monarchies.

The students went to Preston's Hope this past Friday and had a wonderful time. They visited with their friends from Timmons and enjoyed the sunshine.

Thank yor for the wonderful cards and gifts for Teacher's Appreciation week. I am so grateful to have wonderful parents like you :)

Important Dates to Remember:

5.16: KIS 5th Grade trip Nature Scope Binocular Blitz Graduation

5.21: KIS 5th Grade Field Day

Weekly Newsletter 5.2.14

This week, our students read Spring is Here i introduces readers to the signs of spring in different outdoor settings, such as the garden, pond, and mountains. The text includes a table of contents and glossary of content vocabulary words. The text includes a table of contents and glossary of content vocabulary words. We continued to use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text.

We are continuing working on our individual goals and have finished up our unit on Fractions and will be moving into measurement. We will look closely at the different systems of measurement and engage in measurement experiments!

This week in Science, we also continued talking about the season of spring and what happens to plants outside. We named the parts of a plant (roots, leaves, stem, and flower) and then talked about the life cycle.

We are continuing Social Studies learning about Democracy and Monarchy. The students will learn that around the world, countries and people are governed by a variety of different types of governments, such as democracies, dictatorships and monarchies.

High Frequency Words: days, from, soon

Vocab Words: buds, bulbs, dandelion, gophers, shoots, water lily Important Dates to Remember:

5.9.14: APE Trip to Prestons Hope

5.16.14: KIS 5th Grade trip Nature Scope Binocular Blitz Graduation

Weekly Newsletter 4.25.14

Our class transitioned quite beautifully back from Spring Break. I hope everyone has a restful, wonderful vacation. I know I was anxious to see the kids again. On Friday, we had a cereal party to celebrate with Mrs. Robertson's class for winning the box tops contest.

We also had a send off for our Superintendent Dr. Lee. All the students in KIS wore masks with his face on it. Check it out!

Over the past two weeks we have been talking about fractions. We talked about fractions being parts of something that are equal or the same size. They enjoyed doing this and it really helped them see that cutting something into halves means there are two pieces that are the same in size. They were able to put both pieces of their drawing together to see that they fit together and were the same size. We have been working on identifying equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. The students have used manipulatives to develop a concrete understanding of these skills and will start looking at this idea more abstractly next week.

The students will learn to write a "How To" paragraph. They are very short paragraphs, but they are still paragraphs, none the less! Students will write a paragraph on how to build a snowman. Some of you are wondering why I am bringing you back to this terrible winter, but most of your kids have applied this and they will be able to visualize.

Students will continue to read expository texts as well as Fiction texts to answer the essential questions, “What causes different kinds of weather? and "Why is understanding how weather forms important to our lives?" This will tie into our May unit of weather.

The students are reading How is the Weather Today?(Level F)The book introduces the students to different types of weather that occur during each season. The text describes typical activities and appropriate clothes to wear for each season. The target reading strategy is visualization.

In Social Studies, the students will be exposed to the relationship between those in power and individual citizens in a democracy, a dictatorship and a monarchy.

In Science, the students will put together a constellation chart to prepare us for our Nature Scope field trip on May 16th with Mrs. Robertson's class. Here is some important information about the field trip, buses will leave KIS at 9:00 am. They will return at 2:00 pm. Students will need to dress for the weather and for outdoors. They will also need their field guides, binoculars, and a brown, bag lunch. i sent home binoculars a few months ago when they came to KIS. If you can find those and send them back for the trip, that would be great. If not, I can see if we have extra.

High Frequency Words: how, know, want, will

Vocab: icy, seasons, stormy, weather, windy

Important Dates to Remember:

5.1.14: Timmons 3rd graders coming to visit

5.9.14: APE Trip to Prestons Hope

5.16.14: KIS 5th Grade trip Nature Scope Binocular Blitz Graduation

Weekly Newsletter 4.4.14

This week in math, we continued working on fractions, shading pieces and naming them fraction. The students really seem to be getting the hang of it. We completed a fractions sort sheet in class and completed a game on the Smartboard. Some students will be moving forward being introduced to numerator and denominator, while others will keep working on beginning fractions with many visuals until mastered.

Last week, KIS participated in Right to Read Week from March 24th-28. The students enjoyed listening to Mr. DiCello's morning announcements that emphasized the importance of literacy as well as the student readers. Even though Right to Read is officially over, KIS is still continuing it's focus on biographies. Mr. DiCello is holding a “Principal’s  Biography  Challenge." KIS ACHIEVE is already finished. The students learned a biography is a nonfiction book that tells all about someone's life. I explained that a biography of a famous person includes many facts. We completed a graphic organizer using "describing words" about each other. We studied baseball great Sammy Sosa. The students read a biography on him and were surprised to learn that Sammy Sosa was quite the humanitarian. Other than being a great baseball player, Sammy also donated money to charities. During the 1998 season, Hurricane George hit his own country and left 100,000 homeless. Sammy sent 30,000 pounds of rice and beans. He also sent several barrels of pure water. Sosa helped rebuild the homes of many people in the Dominican Republic. His charity donated $700,000 to victims of the hurricane. As you can see, Sammy Sosa helped many poor people in his home country.

Even though we picked Sammy Sosa for our biography, Mrs. Marshall grew up on the westside of Cleveland and will always have loyalty to our beloved Tribe.

This week we reviewed:

Word Wall Fry Words: means, old, any, same, tell

Math: math journal, fractions

CVC Words: at, am, as, sat, sam, man, mat

Writing: Biography

Dates to Remember:

4.11 Field Trip to Fun and Stuff and Bob Evans

4.11 Spring Break Begins!

4.22 Welcome Back to School!

4.25 Twins Day at KIS

Weekly Newsletter 3.29.14

We are family! The KIS ACHIEVE students began our Family unit. We are will be hitting our 5th grade standards in Social Studies and Science. We will be completing a timeline for Social Studies and Science will be foundational knowledge of the structures and functions of ecosystems. We study the family this time of year as a celebration of what family is, why it is important, and especially the wants and needs of families. The students enjoy learning about the different traditions, cultures, celebrations. Learning about the differences in our families helps us appreciate our friends and relationships.

In Language Arts, we are reading Families(Reading A-Z, Level I). The vocabulary words we made flashcards on were: family, relative, family tree, parent, maternal, and paternal. I loved seeing the family tree's that you completed with your children and some of the students named everyone! Check out the students diligently working!

This week we reviewed:

Word Wall Fry Words: much, before, line, right, too

Math: Math Journal, fractions

CVC Words: at, am, as, sat, sam, man, mat

Writing: Family Tree

Dates to Remember:

4.11 Field Trip to Fun and Stuff and Bob Evans