HIGH-FIVE CONDUCT

High-5 is my classroom management strategy, but it’s also much more.  It is a way of living.  Students that practice High-5 are practicing life skills.

I have a special place in my room devoted to High-5.  It lists all our pillars of good character (Respect and Responsibilty, Caring, Fairness, Trustworthiness, and Citizenship.)  It is also our “quiet signal” - when I raise my hand, the students are expected to also raise their hand and to wait for directions. Next to the High-5 hand I have a poster that also lists some ways to go above and beyond the normal rules (using kind words, being quick to forgive, listen, share, encourage others, take turns, think before acting, and talk it over.) 

When I see a student exhibiting these behaviors and/or going above and beyond high-five spies will  write their name on a small paper that I keep in a box.  On Fridays I pull out the names.  These students earn a high-5 certificate.  I keep track of how many High-5’s the students earn, and we have developed a positive consequence system.

The class as a whole also has the opportunity to receive High-5’s. The class and I have gone over the ways that they can earn their High-5’s.  Each time they earn one I will put up a letter.  We try to earn 10 a day so that we can spell out “High-Five!”   The class has decided together on what our positive consequence will be for when we earn 100!  The amount will continue to increase as the year goes on, so we’ll work harder and harder to show our High-5 Conduct!

Life is full of choices.  There are consequences for every choice that a person makes.  That is what happens in my classroom as well.  There is a saying on my wall:  “Make choices today that will lead to consequences you can live with tomorrow.”  Students can earn either positive or negative consequences depending on the choices that they make.  When students make the choice to follow high-5, they earn positive consequences in return.  The consequences are posted in the room so that all students know exactly what to expect.

The students and I discuss that High-5 is not just a way to get through my class.  It is a way of life.  The concepts in High-5 are LIFE SKILLS.  Without these core life skills it really doesn’t matter how much we know about History, Science, Math, English, or Reading – because without them we will not be successful.  But if we take the time to learn how to treat one another we all can make a difference.

DISCIPLINE POLICY

The first couple weeks of school we will spend time getting to know each other and learning the routine of school. We will spend a good amount of time discussing behavior and what is expected of each student. The most important concepts that we want to instill in our students are RESPECT and RESPONSIBILITY. We do not allow any disrespectful or destructive behavior in our classrooms.  We want all students to feel safe and comfortable sharing their ideas freely and to create a secure learning environment where no one is put down. Students are expected to behave in an appropriate manner and to respect teachers, as well as their classmates. In going along with the district values, students are held accountable for their decisions and their behavior through consequences. There are both positive and negative consequences to their actions and we have thoroughly discussed both.  Open lines of communication are very important when dealing with behavior issues, so we have developed a four-step discipline plan: 

1^st step- verbal warnings

2^nd step- green slip (between teacher and student)

3^rd step- yellow slip (between teacher, student, parents)

4^th step- red slip (between teacher, student, principal, parents)

HOMEWORK POLICY

The fifth grade team believes that homework is a chance for students to revisit the concepts that have been covered in class.  Most of us cannot remember a concept after hearing it just once.  Homework is practice and a way to touch-base with a concept one more time.

If a student comes to class unprepared they must go to Friday Focus.  10% is taken off for each outstanding assignment.  (ie.  If a student earned an 83% on the assignment and it was late, their final grade on that assignment would be a 73%.)  All late work due to excused absences will be accepted within a reasonable amount of time. 

If your child comes unprepared to class, a “Late Homework Slip” will be sent home for each assignment.  The warning slip is to be read and signed by the parents and sent back to school the next day stapled to the completed assignment.  If the slip is not returned you may be receiving a phone call home from your child during the day to make sure that it is understood that the student has been unprepared that day or more than one time in a week. 

Your child will be receiving regular grade print outs that show his or her grades in each subject.  If they have any missing assignments on their print out that they were unaware of, or didn’t remember to turn in with their warning slips, they have until the Friday of the week of THAT print out to complete it.  After that, they WILL NOT be allowed to make the assignment up – N0 EXCEPTIONS.

We require students to use an assignment book. This book will teach students to be more responsible about their homework. If a student begins to make a habit of choosing not to do their homework, we may ask that parents begin checking and signing homework each night.  As part of High – 5 Conduct, there are both positive and negative consequences for homework as well.   

The fifth grade team feels that parents are the key to making homework a positive experience. Please make it a priority, set a daily time, and provide support. Please be sure to contact your child’s teacher if you see any problems or if your child is struggling with a concept.  We are here before and after school and can be available at other times throughout the day if your child needs some help.  We will be sure to contact you as well if we are noticing any problems at school.   

FUN/FOCUS

The Fifth Grade team will be having a Focus Group on Fridays for students who have any late work from that week or behavior indiscretions as determined by the teacher.  During this thinking time, students will discuss, as a group, why they are there and what could be done next time to avoid attending the Focus Group.  They will be required to complete a Think Sheet and set a goal for the upcoming week which will need to be returned to school with your signature the following day, or they will be required to attend another Focus Group for “late” work. 

Students who have turned in all assignments on time and have exhibited good behavior attend a Friday Fun Time Activity of their choice.  This is a reward for working hard all week.  In addition, classes will be working as “teams” throughout the month to earn other positive consequences to be decided upon by each classroom and classroom teacher. 

We hope that with this policy in place, students will learn that conducting themselves with the Pillar of Character and completing homework on time are a vital part of their learning process. 

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN HOME AND SCHOOL

Parents and teachers need to communicate- especially when issues may arise.  We will be sending home newsletters to let you know what we have covered in class.  We are currently working toward a paperless newsletter, and hope to have that up and running sometime soon this school year.  Until then, you will be receiving a paper copy each Friday.   It will also include any classroom issues, and any important upcoming dates.  When you sign and return it, there is a spot for you to jot down any comments or questions you may have.  This is a great way to give us a “heads-up” for issues.  Email is another great way to keep in touch, as, we are able to access that a lot more readily than we are able to get to the phone throughout the day.  Addressing your concerns or questions is very important to us and we always respond as quickly as possible.  Of course you are always welcome to call us at any time as well, and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

TAKE HOME FOLDER / ENVELOPE

Each student has been issued an envelope they will take home with them each Friday.  I have found these Friday folders are a great way to touch base with your child.  Please go through all of the contents of the folder with your child.  Make sure to sign and date the signature sheet which indicates you have gone through the folder’s contents.  .  After you have had the opportunity to go through your child’s work, return it to the envelope (with all work intact) and have your child bring it back to school on Monday.  ALL graded work should come back to school on Monday so that your child’s teacher can begin teaching organization skills with them.  On some graded work, you may find that it has been stamped with a bee. “Bee- stamped” papers will be placed in the students’ portfolios for end-of-the-trimester self-assessment and are something your child certainly will want here at school.  Don’t lose them, keep them, or recycle them- make sure that they are placed with the other graded work in the Friday Folder and returned.

Every other Friday, you will also find your child’s grade report in the Friday Folder.  Beneficial conversations emerge from reviewing the child’s work along with the grade report since it’s easier to see the correlation between daily work and overall grades.  Please take the time to sit down with your child, his/her grade report and the latest assignments to discuss his/her progress thus far in the trimester.  After reviewing the grade report, send it back signed along with the graded work on Monday.  The missing assignments report is for the child to keep until the work is completed.  It must be completed by the Thursday of the following week, or their grades on those assignments become zeros.   If you have any questions about your child’s progress or their grades, the grade report is a GREAT place to write them to your child’s teacher.  

Finally, other items that you will find in the Friday folders are any flyers from PTO, the School, etc. unless you are in the SIGN program.  We STRONGLY encourage families to sign up for electronic notification/ online access to all the information from school. 

ORGANIZATION

As you know, it is a top priority to prepare your child for middle school.  Moving from class to class requires a student to have  well-developed organizational skills.  This year it’s important for you to be helping them at home to maintain the same organizational system they are using here in class.  Students are allowed to use whatever method works best for them.  However, it is encouraged that students have a system that can go home and come back to school each day.  This way, students will always have what they need whether they are at home or at school.  We require them to utilize their assignment notebook, and you should be seeing them actually use it at home as a follow up to what was written in it during class.  We spend the last 10-15 minutes of class each day organizing ourselves for homework and to go home.  If you find that your child is struggling with organization, please be sure to contact your teacher right away.

BOOK ORDERS

Periodically (usually once a month) I will be sending home book orders. This is an inexpensive way to purchase some quality reading material for your children. I am looking into the option where parents can purchase the items they’d like to order right on the website.  However, until I have that set up,  please send book orders with a check made out to the specific book club. I cannot accept cash or a check made out to anyone other than the specific book club, sorry! 

ALL ABOUT ME BOOKS

Throughout the whole year students will be working on an on-going project called All About Me Books.  These books will contain the year’s worth of holiday activities, writing activities, reflections from important events, and (most importantly) will be a true reflection of your child and his/her work during this incredible period of growth in their lives.  At the end of May we will be binding these book pages together, and your child will be taking the books home on the last day of school.  We really hope that you will love the finished product as much as we loved helping your children to create them!

2009-2010 FIFTH GRADE CURRICULUM:

MATH

By fifth grade, all addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts should be mastered. However, as a district, we are currently implementing the “Mastering Math Facts” program to help students review, strengthen, and speed up their recall of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.  Students will be setting individual goals based on how quickly they are physically able to write and a baseline timed test.  We will practice a method of fact memorization in partners each day, followed by a small timed test over those facts.  Students who pass, move onto the next level.  Students who do not pass will need to spend TIME AT HOME reviewing the facts they didn’t know, and will stay on the same level until they do pass.  Please be sure to look for math timed tests that come home so that you can help your child move through the levels. 

This year, we will continue using the Real Math series.  The lessons are challenging.  Every lesson in the series is structured in the same way.  The Mental Math portion is used as a five-minute warm-up at the beginning of each lesson, as well as to provide cumulative review.  The Develop portion is the heart of the lesson where lesson concepts are introduced, and students participate in guided discussion, skill-building activities to develop their understanding of new concepts.  The Student Practice portion is designed to give students some time to work on the skills they’ve just learned and allow them some time to get some one-on-one teacher help, if needed.  Finally, each lesson concludes with the Reflect portion of the lesson.  This is a vital part to the lesson that offers ways to help students summarize, reflect, and expand on their understanding of the lesson concepts.

Chapters in Real Math are longer, so to ensure retention of information, we give daily quizzes, mid-chapter reviews, end-of-the chapter reviews, in addition to the final chapter exam.  Students will need to use their self-advocacy skills right away when they are having trouble with a concept, as each lesson builds on the next, and concepts spiral (so they will be seen again in future chapters).

Finally, in order to encourage risk-taking in mathematics, challenge activities are offered to each student to try, and not taken as a grade.  Instead, students are given extra credit points toward their math grade, based on effort.

LANGUAGE ARTS & READING

We believe that one of the most important things we can do for our students is to help them become good readers!  Our Reading and Language Arts program is designed to provide instruction in reading and writing to meet the specific needs of your child.  Although we will be using various instruction methods throughout the year, the 5^th grade team will spend most of reading instruction time in guided reading (or small group instruction.)  This will allow teachers more one-on-one time with your child and enable the identification of key concepts and strategies that the student will need to focus on strengthening.  The following are the key reading strategies we want all students to be able to do by the end of the year:  Finding main ideas, recalling facts and details, understanding sequence, recognizing cause and effect, comparing and contrasting, making predictions, finding word meaning in context, drawing conclusions and making inferences, distinguishing between fact and opinion, identifying the author’s purpose, interpreting figurative language, and summarizing.

Students are also encouraged to practice reading skills independently through our independent reading projects.  A small portion of their overall reading grade will be from their Independent Reading Projects that they will complete each trimester.  Students must read two novels of their choice a trimester (genres determined by teacher).  Those will be the books on which they base their chosen project.  Beyond that, students will be able to choose any books they’d like to read to earn a certain amount of pages for the whole trimester.  We have devised this method to help keep kids motivated, but also help each and every student to be successful.  If your child needs modifications based on special needs, we will be sure to work with the student so that they will not become overwhelmed.  We think this is a great opportunity to give students an incentive to practice their reading skills, as well as practice long-term project planning and organizing. An example of how pages are determined is below:

Example Expectations:

*Page approximations do not include weekends or days off!!!

SOCIAL STUDIES

We will be focusing on the history of The United States. Here are some of the concepts we will be covering: map skills, the Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, and the forming of United States government. Beyond reading the text, we will be actively involving the students by doing simulations, tying in the concepts to other areas and projects, and through special days such as Revolutionary War Day.

SCIENCE

This year we will cover the following units in science:  The Scientific Method, Weather, Animal Adaptations, Lorado Taft Preparations, Force & Motion, and Human Health and Development.  We will be integrating hands-on activities and lessons along-side of the textbook wherever it is appropriate.  The information in the textbook can be a challenge to read for our 5^th graders, but we feel that by reading the text students will be gaining much more background information to make the hands-on portion of our science program much more meaningful.  Students are responsible for learning not only the text information but also to be able to put it together with what they learn during lab.  They will receive lab grades as well as quiz, test, and activity grades.

OUTDOOR EDUCATION

In fifth grade students have the opportunity to participate in our Outdoor Education program at Lorado Taft.  We are scheduled for February 24^th -26^th .  Most students consider this the highlight of 5th grade.  We will have a parent information night in January, in the Seth Paine Gym.  We will be doing some fundraising activities throughout the school year to help raise money to lower the cost of the trip.  We will let you know how you can help!

CHARACTER EDUCATION

We feel that one of the most important things that we can teach our children is how to be responsible, respectful citizens.  In the character education program, we emphasize values that enhance a person’s life, as well as those around them. In addition to practicing our High-Five Conduct, we will also be discussing integrity, respect, responsibility, flexibility, perseverance, organization, sense of humor, effort, courage, common sense, patience, friendship, curiosity, cooperation, caring and kindness, conflict resolution, and problem solving.  Students will participate in many activities throughout the year that will help strengthen these values.

TRIMESTER GRADING SYSTEM

Your child will be receiving 3 report cards throughout the year. These will be issued in November, February, and June.  The fifth grade grading scale is as follows: 

97-100 A+             87-89 B+               77-79 C+               67-69 D+              59 and Below U     

93-96 A                83-86 B                73-76C                 63-66   D      

90-92 A-               80-82  B-             70-72 C-               60-62 D-

Your child will also receive grade report print-outs every other week.  You will always know where your child stands, what areas they should be working in, and what they are doing well in.  Please remember that if you notice your child struggling with something at home to contact me and let me know. 

THANK YOU!

In closing, we would like to thank all of you for your support.  The education of your child is a three-way partnership involving the teacher, the parents, and the student.  Please encourage your child to take responsibility for his/her learning.  We look forward to a fun year and successful year and hope it will be a rewarding one for your child.  Please contact your child’s teacher at school if you have any questions or concerns. 

Sincerely,

The Fifth Grade Team

Mrs. Karen Lodewyck                 Mrs. Suzanne Lyons                   Ms. Kristan Wagner        

Phone:  540-4784                      Phone:  540-4780                      Phone: 540-4783