Classroom Update Letter

Hello Grade 5A Families! This is an update of what we focused on in Social Studies and Language Arts in grade 5A last week and a glimpse of this upcoming week in 5A.

This last week we retested Fountas and Pinnell for half of our class, watched a progressive documentary about Canada (check it out on my website: www.hessionsession.ca), began a workbook for Language Arts (Zombie themed for October), had our first quiz covering Part 1 of Wonder, signed up for another round of PenPalSchools, and created a spelling/vocab list for Part 1 of Wonder (our group novel study book). The spelling/vocab list is in your student's agenda. It contains 18 words of varying difficulty. I will be sending home Fountas & Pinnell results once the whole class has tested.

This coming week will bring: more Wonder, more spelling/vocab mastery, a new Art assignment, bigger discussions and bookwork about the Geography of Canada, and another swing at the "Friendly Letter". 

We are also implementing FreshGrade, an online digital portfolio for you to connect to your student's day or week. I realize that our agenda use may not be what you are used to, as we use them for morning writing warmups and homework/events... not really a synopsis of our day. FreshGrade is a strong new tool to link us together so you will see what your student is doing and be able to talk about it with them during your evenings and weekends. If you haven't responded to my FreshGrade invite, please do it now, as we are rolling it out starting tomorrow.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Thanks for taking the time to read this class update.

Barbara Ann Hession
Grade 5 Teacher 
Canyon School