th
Vol.
5 Grade News
Upcoming Events:
April 20~Wednesday
Ponderosa’s First Field Day
April 28
Students attending:
Bill Reed Middle School
Visitation Day 9-1
Lucile Erwin Middle School
Visitation Day 9-12
May 6th~ Friday
Museum Night
*Japan Fundraiser
May 12th ~Thursday
Water Festival
May 13th ~ Friday
Maturation Film
May 17th ~Tuesday
Possible Field Trip~TBD
Upcoming:
5th Grade Graduation
Celebration
4/12/11
Dear Parents,
Can you believe how quickly time is passing? Before you know it, this school
year will be over. There is officially five weeks of elementary school left for
your fifth grader. We realize this can be a time full of excitement or anxiety or a
whole lot of both. Mr. Caro and the fifth grade team and have dialoged with the
fifth graders about how we want their year to end on a positive note. We shared
expectations and expressed the importance of students continuing to make
positive choices both academically and behaviorally as we finish up the school
year. It is our desire that everyone will be able to enjoy these last days of
elementary school and be included in all the great activities that are yet to come.
I have dates listed to the left for many of these events that are coming up that
I’m currently aware of. Several of these events will require permission slips so
please be on the lookout to sign those and get them returned to school as soon as
possible.
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JAPAN
Your children have HUGE hearts! They are absorbing so much information and
new learning around the recent earthquake and tsunami in the country of Japan. We have
decided as a fifth grade that we want to be involved in helping this country and take an
active role in raising funds that will aid these people in their survival of this natural
disaster. One way we will do this is to sell products that we create at our Museum Night
on the evening of May 6, 2011. Normally fifth graders would apply our learning from our
previous unit, Mixtures and Solutions in combining chemicals while observing/studying the results
of mixing these components together through tye-dying t-shirts, but this year, the students have
opted to donate a specially dyed shirt that displays a large red dot in the center of our shirts with
a Japanese character of their choosing painted in the middle. We will also be selling pottery,
Japanese rice bowls/cups that the students made and hemp bracelets that have a “red dot” theme.
During Museum night the fifth grade will display information about Japan’s Natural
Disaster, the implications of this event and the impact it has had across age groups, the
world and the effects on our environment. The students are very aware of the depth and
breadth of the circumstances surrounding Japan and its people and the students will be
available to dialog that evening and bring awareness to our service project. An origami
station will also featured and hosted by our fifth graders on this evening. This project
naturally integrates curriculums from our Science unit~Taking Care of Our Earth, Social
Studies cultural aspects, humanity, economics, critical thinking and empathy.
A final piece to our humanitarian project is to open it up school wide so that ALL
students may have the opportunity to participate. The week of Museum Night, May 2-6,
Ponderosa’s Student Council will be selling Japanese Flags to our student body for a
dollar a piece. This school wide participation will be a positive addition leading up to
Museum Night. Each flag purchased will be displayed in our hallway. A big THANKS
goes out to our Student Council for having the same vision and desire to reaching out to
Japan in this time of need.
Literacy Research reports. Each student is responsible for creating their own research
on a country of their choice.
Math :We are currently working on Growth Patterns while continuing our study of graphs,
decimals, geometry and measurement.