Fifth Grade and Math and Science

Kim Zvara • 1-262-377-4659 x120 • kim.zvara@splgrafton.org

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Fifth Grade Weekly Update... Jan 6-10, 2025

5th Grade Families,

I wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!   ~Mrs. Zvara

Happy New Year & Welcome Back!  I hope you all had an awesome Christmas break! Now it is time to get back to a LONG STRETCH of learning.  We now have 11 weeks until spring break!  That means a BIG opportunity for a LOT of academic growth. This is a GREAT TIME to have conversations at home about continuing good habits or improving systems for organization OR discussing behaviors that have not been successful for your fifth grader this year. Set some goals. Please continue to encourage your child and help him/her to see how their daily choices affect their success in school and in life through conversation at home. We will be meeting soon so that your child can tell you how their second semester is going so far.  

Please see the updates below…

IMPORTANT DATES:

  📅 COMING SOON / PUT THIS ON YOUR CALENDAR:

  • Dec 23-Jan 3: Christmas Break
  • Jan 6: Classes Resume & Eaton’s Pizza Dec Calendar is Due!
  • Jan 8-15: MAP testing
  • Jan 18: First Day of Semester 2 Classes: Art / Computers

📅 Right Around the Corner

  • Jan 23: Student-Led Parent-Teacher Conferences, 3:30 - 7pm
  • Jan 24: NO SCHOOL Student-Led Parent-Teacher Conferences, 12 - 2pm
  • Jan 26-30: National Lutheran Schools Week
  • Jan 28:   Even Odds Fundraiser 
  • Feb 14-15: 16-team Basketball Tournament (such a great fundraiser for our school’s athletic department -- we’ll need lots of hands! 
  • Feb 21: ½ Day 11:40am Dismissal
  • Feb 24: NO SCHOOL
  • Feb 28: Trimester 2 Ends

INFORMATION/UPDATES:

🍕📚Eaton’s Pizza Reading Challenge: Eatons Pizza is offering a free personal pizza to 5th grade students who read 400 minutes in the month of December. Calendars are available outside of Mrs. Wulfkuhle’s classroom. To earn a pizza, students need to document the number of minutes they read each day. At the end of the month, calendars will need a parent signature. Due date is Tuesday, January 7. 

🧑‍🤝‍🧑🤝Student-Led conferences:  Time to start reflecting on the successes and challenges of the 1st trimester and thinking about goals for the 2nd trimester. Students will begin preparing for student-led conferences (held in January) this month.

Quick Links

Fast Direct Grades
Church & School Calendar
Google Classroom
Math Website & Daily Assignments
Science Website & Daily Assignments
Music & Choir

Writing

When we return from break, we will edit/revise our mystery stories. Final drafts will be due Wednesday 1/8 at 8:15am. Drafts must be “turned in” on Google Classroom to be considered turned in.

Health

Math

MATH BLOCKS: TUESDAY, THURSDAY     We will continue our 6th unit on Multiplying Decimals. This week, we will use the 3 multiplication strategies we learned in UNIT 5 with whole numbers and extend our learning… connecting those strategies to our work with decimals from earlier this year.   We are planning a unit test late this week or early next week, depending on how much review we need to do upon our return. As always, I will send an email when we get closer.

Music

School-Wide Notes… Details on Ms Bremer's music page Classes singing in Worship… (keep watch for changes) 
  • Sun, Sept. 8 - Gr. K-8 - 11am Outdoor Worship - bring chairs & blankets to sit on!
  • Sun., Oct. 27, 9:30am Gr. 4-5 sing in Worship (Reformation)
Choir/JuBellate Notes… * Groups & Schedules  ** Extracurricular Handbook  
  1. JiVE (Gr. 5-8) - Rehearsals start Wed, Sept 11 & first sing for worship, Sun. Oct. 13, meet 7:40am
  2. JuBellate (Gr. 5-8) - Rehearsals start Mon, Sept 16 & first play for worship, Sat. Nov 2, meet 4:30pm
Eligibility checked every 2 weeks (Gr. 5-8) for students in extracurricular Music Groups  General Music Class… 
  • Gr. 5 - Ms Valerie Bremer, teacher
  • Bands - Mrs. Heide Young, teacher

PE

Please have your inside shoes, pe uniform shirt, and athletic shorts ready to go.  Also, be sure to review grading for Mr. Fischer's pe class which is available on my webpage links. 

Reading

We will be starting our next class novel this week, Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan. This novel does have some more mature concepts in it, but we read these sections together as a class, and I lead the conversations around them. There are also some sections that we skip over. My goal is to always push empathy and compassion for all people, regardless of the challenges they deal with. I encourage you to see more here: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/becoming-naomi-leon. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to me.
On Monday, an assignment will be assigned: What’s in a Name? This assignment will challenge students to research their first, middle, and last names (both online and through conversations with family). These will be due Wednesday 1/8 so that students have time to talk with you. This will be completed on the Reading Google Classroom.
Since we will be reading a novel, we will be completing stop-and-jots as we go through the story. A reminder that your child will need post-it’s for this. Each stop-and-jot should have a Detail (what happened in the story) and a Thought (what did it make you think?) These ensure that students are reading actively and engaging in the story.

Religion

5th Religion This week we are discussing Bounce BAck in Friendzy and learning about Quail and Manna and God’s Staff.     Memory Quiz #16 - Jan. 10th Exodus 13:21 ~ By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.

Science

SCIENCE BLOCKS: TUESDAY, THURSDAY   When we return, we will wrap up our Unit on Properties of matter & begin our next mini-unit. We will take a short detour and work on learning how to WRITE like a scientist so that we can improve our technical writing in science.  We will learn a writing format called “C.E.R.” which stands for Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning. Students will take notes on the format and see many examples of this writing format. Students will be given a checklist, sentence starters and a rubric to help them structure their written responses for science. 

Social Studies

5th grade will continue writing in our journals this week, probably finishing journals 5-8.

Vocab

We will begin unit 7 this week! 
  • Homework: Pg. 72-74 (due Thursday, at least 1 page in cursive) 
  • Quiz: Friday 
  • Resources: Unit words can be found on Google Classroom and the sidebar of Mrs. Wulfkuhle’s webpage.

Quarter Class

Each week, we are asking that you sit down together (mom/dad and child) to have a family meeting. Check grades on Fast Direct, look at homework on the webpage, and talk about what you have going on for the week. Parent NEEDS to sign the assignment notebook.  That states that you had your meeting and I give your child 10 points. Thank you for taking this valuable time – 10 minutes can set the tone for the whole week!