Chao Fall and Winter 2021
The fall and winter months were full of learning here at Prairie’s fifth grade classroom. The students have been industrious by reading, writing, making inferences, drawing conclusions from science experiments, being competitive with each other, putting together Native American research reports with tangible dwellings and fun artifacts, practicing those pesky subjects and predicates, continued practice of that so much needed arithmetic and so many other skills needed for continued growth.
We all know reading and math are critical skills in everything we do. Students in the fifth grade need to have a strong foundation in these subjects in order to continue thriving in the upper grades. I have to say my class made me cry (in a good way!) Seeing my students’ growth from their math and reading district assessments was a treat for me. From my past experiences in these assessments, 5th graders usually make growth in the end-of-the-year spring benchmark. For some reason, we are not as lucky in the winter benchmark - that is why I do not particularly enjoy studying the data during this time of the year – Oh the joy, my class gave me a sweet surprise. These kids made incredible growth! I do not know if they were “showing me,” or if my comment, “Please do a good job as I do not want to retain you next year,” instilled some fear in their souls and decided to show me what they were capable of. Oh was I pleased about their results! – I kept telling anyone who would listen and kept bragging about them. I also kept wondering when the next teacher would tell me, “enough already Long!”
I rewarded my fifth grade darlings by baking my family’s Tres Leches and having a mini-party. A student asked me when I would bake them a chocolate cake…I told them if they make growth in the spring, I would do so…the students replied, “Ok deal.”
Thank you for supporting your child every day by letting him/her read aloud to you. I appreciate you, wonderful parent and guardian, for taking the time to listen to my students read aloud and for helping them complete those take-home read alouds. As students move up through the grades, we shower them with more and more nonfiction. In science, social studies, math, and health, we assign readings from textbooks, magazines, newspapers, the Internet – all nonfiction, with which students in the primary grades have limited experience. Nevertheless, we expect our upper grade students to dive right in, reading up on all sorts of topics and retaining relevant information, often with very little help from us. Reading nonfiction is much different from reading fiction, and our students can benefit from some explicit teaching on how to approach this genre. The skills my fifth graders will gain by completing these read alouds are: recognizing print conventions particular to nonfiction texts, determining unfamiliar word meanings, comparing and contrasting information, and inferring information. Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting your child with these read alouds!
I enjoy this group of kids – they are pleasers, they love to create manual labor (oh how they love hands-on projects), they enjoy researching and are not bashful when it comes to public speaking, they are competitive to the point of getting into heated arguments, and they all raise their hands to read in the classroom (nothing brings me more joy than the latter). Thank you for your support and have a happy, healthy, and blessed new 2022 year.
Mrs. Long
