Voyagers’ Weekly Memo
September 8-12, 2014
September 8-12, 2014
General Announcements:
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This
week promises to be another busy week at Brock’s Gap!
We are continuing see hard work and overall good behavior choices from
our students! We truly have had a great first month of school. Speaking
of……Can you believe it is time for Progress Reports? Progress Reports
will come home this Wednesday, September 10th.
You will receive two copies. Please sign one copy and return it the
following day to your homeroom teacher. Please note that the first nine
weeks, at this point, will not have as many grades as the future nine weeks
will have. So much of the first three weeks of school is learning rules/routines. You
have probably noticed this if you have checked iNow. We are slower the first nine
weeks to enter grades in iNow, but this will become more consistent over the
remainder of this nine weeks and throughout the
year. Please let us know if you have questions!
- Our first set of graded papers
came home Friday. Please return these by tomorrow-Tuesday. The next
set of graded papers will come home the week of Sept. 22. Please note,
however, that you can always check iNow for grades before graded papers
come home.
- We are SO VERY PROUD of
all of our students who ran for election! It took a great deal of
confidence to deliver a speech in front of 400 + 5th graders on Thursday,
and they should all be very proud of themselves. We had our Homeroom Representative elections this morning. Our representatives are:
The first SCA meeting will be Tuesday, September 9th at
7:30 a.m. in Ms. Lollar’s room.
- If your child is
interested in the Earth Saver’s Club or Lego Robotics Club, applications
for both clubs are being accepted now. These clubs meet after school.
- First Priority meets on Wednesday mornings at 7:30 in the
choir room.
- Hearing and
Vision Screening for 5th grade will be this Thursday, September 11th.
- Thursdays are
Spirit Days in support of the Bumpus Middle Schools Bucs. This week, the
BUCS will play Liberty Park at 5:00 (7th grade) and 6:45 (8th grade) at
Vestavia Hills High School on Thursday. Hoover High School plays
Oak Mountain High School on Friday. Please remember that the Brock’s
Gap Activity Card will get your child into the games! GO
BUCS!
- Please continue to support our
school by selling magazines!!! Magazine
Order turns in days are on Wednesdays, and prize days are on Fridays. This
is our only big fundraiser, and we appreciate your support of our school
so very much!!
- Please see the following link
to see copies of Brock’s Gap eNews: Brock's Gap eNews
Coming up this week:
Math: Topics
of Study- We are beginning our study of multiplication strategies this
week (refer to your child’s Student Math Handbook pages 30-32). Students are
also learning prime factorization of numbers using “Factor Trees.”
In addition, this will be the first week of our IXL contract.
We will continue our Number Talks and daily Problem Solving. I am
very proud of the incredible mathematicians that I am seeing them become!
Important Dates- Math Computation Homework is due Wednesday; Test will be
on Friday. Students will have some type of Math practice for homework every
night (Math Computation, IXL, Activity Book pages).
Science:
Topics
of Study
–We have learned about the spheres of the earth-
atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere/lithosphere. Students have
taken a closer look at the biosphere and know the difference between biotic and
abiotic factors. This week we will continue our study of Ecosystems
through discussions about Food Webs and Food Chains. We will be
dissecting “Owl Pellets,” which is usually a favorite Science lab activity of 5th
grade. Vocabulary- Ecosystem, abiotic,
biotic, organism, habitat, population, community, producers, consumers, and
decomposers. It is our plan to build our own ecosystems at
school next week !
It
is not too late to send in supplies. We could use any of the following
items: potting soil, gravel, grass and mustard seeds (or seeds of any kind).
Thank you so much!!!!!
Important
Dates- Quiz
TOMORROW- Abiotic and Biotic factors; Spheres of
the Earth, organism, population, community, habitat, ecosystem.
Language Arts:
Topics of Study – Our reading week from last week
will continue until mid-week due to “Too Cool for Drugs” and going to the
computer lab for Global Scholar testing. We will end our discussion of the text
from last week and will take our Vocabulary/Comprehension test on Wednesday. We
will pick up from there with our Argumentative Writing Unit. We will begin
writing paragraphs in our essays. In Grammar, we will continue our focus on
Verbs.
Homework:
Reading log (complete nightly)
Vocabulary test (Wednesday)
Spelling Homework (contract due on Thursday)
Spelling test (Thursday)
Grammar test (Friday)
Important Dates – Reading Log nightly, Vocab.
Test on Wednesday, Spelling test on Thursday, Grammar test on Friday
Social Studies:
Topics of Study – We will be working on our
non-fiction reading skills while learning about the tools that explorers used
to explore the early Americas. We will specifically work on using
“boxes and bullets” to find main ideas and supporting details. There
will be no tests or quizzes, but daily grades will be taken on some of our
work done in class. Important Dates- No tests or quizzes.
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We hope
everyone has a great week!
