Daily Schedule

8:10 -- First Bell 

8:15 -- Morning Check-In: Attendance, Lunch Count, HW turn in

8:15-8:45 -- Band/Orchestra

8:45-9:00 -- Breakfast/Read Aloud

9:00-9:45 -- Specials

9:45-10:45 -- Math

10:45-11:15 -- WIN 

11:15-12:15 -- ELA

12:15-1:00 -- Recess/Lunch

1:00-1:45 -- Unit Studies *This will be a 3-week rotation.

1:45-2:00 -- Recess

2:00-2:50 -- Writing and Read to Self

2:55 -- Dismissal

Curriculum Corner 

 DOL: Daily Oral Language

  Monday-Thursday Handouts

• Identify parts of speech
• Solve analogies
• Synonym/antonym practice
• Suffix/prefix practice
• Root words
• Proofreading sentences and identifying and correcting errors

 Math: Ready Math and iReady

We do a math lesson from our unit EVERDAY! Your child will also be bringing homework home weekly (Sent home Thursday and due on the FOLLOWING Friday).

We practice example problems in our math workbooks daily, so sometimes these will come home too, in order to serve as examples to help with homework.

If you find your child is struggling, please encourage him/her to bring the workbook home nightly to serve as a reference.

Students will complete 30-40 minutes in iReady per week. You should be familiar with this, as kids have been doing it since Grade 1. This program compliments our curriculum and reviews essential skills. This is an adaptive program, meaning that as kids answer questions correctly, material gradually gets more challenging, creating a learning "path" for them.

ELA/Reading

We will be using the ReadyGEN curriculum this year, which consists of short stories and novels. Ready GEN compliments the Daily 5 model. We will have whole class lessons, as well as small group lessons, read to self, reading with partners, listening to stories that model reading fluency, and word work (vocabulary and DOL).

 Reading and writing journals will be used to help students practice essential reading comprehension and vocabulary and convention skills.

 Students should be reading at least 100 minutes per week, which is about 20 minutes per night (during a school week). All 5th graders participate in the 40 Book Challenge. We are encouraging kids to read several books from a variety of genres. We will celebrate our count together as a whole class!

Students will also complete 50 minutes per week in the ELA and Reading sections of our online program Exact Path. Students will learn essential skills and take a 5-question quiz. This is an adaptive system, so as students answer correctly, skills will get progressively more difficult.

Unit Studies: Social Studies, Science, and Story Works

Unit Studies will be on a 3-week rotation among all 5th grade teachers. We are each teaching a subject area.

We will be doing in-class reading and discussions of material.

Students will also complete comprehension questions and vocabulary aligning with the reading and discussions.

Work students miss will be caught up on Thursdays during WIN time.

Writer’s Workshop 

 We will practice writing throughout the week in journals, responses to stories, readings, etc…  

We will also focus on three main aspects of writing this year:

• Writing to inform and explain
• Narrative writing
• Opinion/writing to persuade 

These types of writing will be extensive projects done mostly in class over the course of the year.

 Assessment and Grades

 Assessment in the classroom is an ongoing process, so observations and records of the students’ progress constantly guide my instruction. MCPS report cards are linked to the National Standards for student achievement and provide both letter grades and proficiency reporting. While almost every assignment will receive teacher review, they will not all be recorded in the on-line grading program, Q. Report card grades will reflect your child’s growth and progress in each content area, and will correlate closely with proficiency standards. This is not always the same as a traditional grade point average, but will provide all of us with accurate information at each grading point.

A very popular alternative to an overall letter grade is a scale that uses descriptors: advanced, proficient, nearing proficient, and novice. Our third grade team will be using numbers for each descriptor to assess our students. In addition, we will also have students self-assess on how they feel they are doing with meeting a particular learning target goal within a standard or content area. Below, I will explain each descriptor.

Advanced: score of 4 

• Students go beyond what was presented in class. They provide detailed explanations using examples and diagrams/drawings from their text/lesson. These students have presented me with a more complex learning target goal.

Proficient: score of 3 

• Students exhibit no errors relative to the simple and complex ideas, details, and processes of understanding the content/lesson. Thus, they have met the learning target goal(s).

 Nearing Proficient: 2 

• Students require simplification of their learning target goals. They experience partial success, but there are some major errors or omissions of content/lesson understanding.
• Students need assistance to complete work to meet the learning target goals.

Novice: score of 1 

• Students, even with help, are only exhibiting partial success, or in some cases, no success.