Technology Demo by Students

Please let me know if your son or daughter is able to attend the technology demo for tomorrow night's (Wednesday, December 5th) meeting with the School Board and Financial Advisory Committee.  Any students involved in Chorus will NOT be able to attend as it is the same time as the concert.

The meeting begins at 6:30, so students should try to get to SMS around 6:15 in order to set up. We should be done around 7:00.   Thanks!

5V News

IXL:
We just began using the online math program called IXL in the classroom and students should have logged in from home at least once.  We began on Thursday and already our class has completed over 5,000 math problems!  I encourage you to log in under your child's name to check out their progress.

Here is a student's blog post that has a great description of IXL from the student's perspective:

We started IXL math, and it’s more fun than you think. You get your own log in and password, after you log in you can do many things, like math or games! If you practice 5 minutes or more, you get awards. The awards can be icons or new fun games! I practiced on IXL 5th grade level and I got tons of awards, and I won games! The levels go from preschool to 8th grade, and you can pick any level, not just your grade level.I think IXL is a fun way to practice math, not like xtra math.com which keeps on doing the same math problems over and over again. IXL lets do what ever you want, and you can go onto higher levels when ever you want, you don’t have to pass a special test. Lastly, it lets you create your own user name icon, so that is always fun!

We are learning about:

• Geometry
• The circulatory system
• Personal narrative
• Inferring

Some activities we did this week:

• Practiced measuring angles
• Learned about adjacent and opposite angles 
• Created "a movie behind our eyelids" during writing
• Experimented with three different leads for our personal narratives 
• Put "said to bed" and came up with more effective words for said
• Began Zach's Lie as our new read aloud  
• Practiced inferring using magazine articles
• Inferred character traits based on evidence and our schema
• Watched a Bill Nye video on the heart

Notes and reminders:

• Student helpers needed this Wednesday, December 5th at 6:15
• Chorus concert this Wednesday, December 5th at 6:30 
• It was great to see so many of you at the Book Fair.  Thanks for all of your help!

5V News

Innovation Day:
We had a successful first Innovation Day!  I'm hoping your child has told you all about it!  Check out Flickr for photos and videos from the day.  We are currently drafting blog posts that will be published Monday or Tuesday and we hope to get several comments!  It was an awesome day and it was amazing to see how engaged and excited the students were about the day and what they were learning.  Thank you for all of your support in helping your child prepare for this day!

Report cards:
First quarter report cards, conference notes and NECAP science results are being sent home today.  Please sign and return the envelope on Monday.

Parent conferences:
It was great to meet with all of you and learn and share more about your child!  As always, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns at any time.

Photo and work permissions:
Thank you to those of you that have filled out this form.  If you have not filled it out please take a moment to answer three questions here: Photo and work permissions
Thank you!

Upcoming:

• No school next week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday- Happy Thanksgiving!  
• SMS book fair is the week of November 27th and we are looking for parent volunteers!