Welcome 5th Grade 2016-17

Hello!  Welcome to 5th grade, it is going to be an amazing year.  I am looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you. Please take a moment to complete the questionnaires below.  Be sure to answer all the questions by hitting the tab button to go to the next question.  You can also use the scroll bar to see all of the form.  In addition you must click on the SUBMIT button so that I will receive your information.  If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me: gigantej@guilderlandschools.net. 

Updates!

     Wow, it is already October and we have been so very busy!  We are getting into a routine and continue to work on developing good work habits.  Please check & sign your child's assignment pad each night and encourage them to utilize the assignment pad, homework folder and binder to keep themselves organized.  In addition students may use the Google calendar (found in the HW and Assignments tab) to help them keep track of their assignments. 

Important Dates to Remember: 
Picture Day: Tuesday October 6th
Go Home Early Drill: Friday October 9th
Columbus Day: No School: Monday October 12th
Bingo Night & Book Fair: Friday October 16th

Individual photos and class picture day will be on  Tuesday October 6th.  Please make sure your child comes with picture money and a fabulous smile!  If you have any questions, please let me know.

I have been trying out a new way to communicate with parents via text messaging with the Remind App. Remind is a free, safe, and simple messaging tool that helps teachers share important updates and reminders with students & parents. I am able to send individual text messages directly to parents communicating how a child's day is going or letting a parent know immediately if there is a problem.
If you haven't signed up please do so.  You can subscribe by text, email or using the Remind App.  All personal information is kept private.

• To receive messages via text, text @mrsgigante to 81010. 
• Or, text @mrsgigante to (518)213-5295
• Or to receive messages via email, send an email to:  mrsgigante@mail.remind.com

Welcome Back!

Welcome back!  I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with you and your child this year.  I look forward to seeing you tonight at our fifth grade open house on Thursday, September 17th.  We will have a chance to explore the curriculum and other fifth grade information more specifically during our open house. 

Please browse the pages on my blog at mrsgigante.blogspot.com to gather information about our specials schedule, lessons, books orders, etc. Please read through the information and send any questions to me via your child or through email at:gigantej@guilderlandschools.net.  Also, if you would like to receive an email notification when a new post is made, you can submit your email in the "Follow By Mail" box in the top right-hand corner of the blog. 

In addition, I am trying out a new way to communicate with you via text messaging with the Remind App.  Remind is a free, safe, and simple messaging tool that helps teachers share important updates and reminders with students & parents.  Subscribe by text, email or using the Remind App.  All personal information is kept private.

• To receive messages via text, text @mrsgigante to 81010. 
• Or, text @mrsgigante to (518)213-5295
• Or to receive messages via email, send an email to:  mrsgigante@mail.remind.com

I have enjoyed getting to know your children this week and look forward to a successful 5th grade year.  I look forward to discussing goals for your child at our parent-teacher conferences.  Thank you for completing the parent questionnaires, your input is so essential in helping me teach your child.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with your thoughts or concerns, working together; we will help your child reach their truest potential. 

  

Welcome 5th Grade 2015-2016

Hello!  Welcome to 5th grade, it is going to be an amazing year.  I am looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you. Please take a moment to complete the questionnaires below.  Be sure to answer all the questions by hitting the tab button to go to the next question.  You can also use the scroll bar to see all of the form.  In addition you must click on the SUBMIT button so that I will receive your information.  If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me: gigantej@guilderlandschools.net. 

Heritage Project

Our Heritage Celebration will be this week, Thursday, November 20th, from 8:30 - 10:00am. Be sure you use the checklists and rubric to make sure you've completed your project correctly.

• Poster – (Due: Tuesday, November 18th) Student will create a poster that illustrates their research.  
• Speech - (Due: Tuesday, November 18th) – Student will write a short 2-3-minute presentation highlighting their research.  
• Costume - (Due: Thursday, November 20th) – Student will wear traditional dress of their country or a costume that represents some aspect of life in their country.  *It is not necessary to rent or purchase costumes.  Be creative and use materials found in home.
• Food - (Due: Thursday, November 20th) – Student will prepare a food item (an dessert, hors d’oeuvre, or appetizer item) to share with their class along with a copy of the recipe.  Please only make small taste tester portions of your food item.  Bring food with serving utensils!

Remember to:

• Practice, practice, practice your speech.
• Sing "We're Coming to America!"

Reading Timelines

Each student has created a Reading Timeline blog using Blogger. They wrote a book review of their independent book and then posted it to their blog.  In addition to adding more book reviews, each student will make comments to other students' blog posts.  By clicking on a student's picture below, you'll open up a link to their blog. You can also go to their blogs and follow by email so that you'll be notified when they make a new post. Please take a look at the book reviews and post a comment! 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Newsletter

Hello!
Thank you for coming to Open House.  I enjoyed getting to meet each of you and look forward to a fabulous year!  Below you will find some information about what we've been working on so far this year.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Important Dates:
Go Home Early Drill:  Friday October 10th
No School: Columbus Day:  Monday October 13th
Parent Teacher Conferences:  Thursday October 23rd & Monday 27th Dismissal at11:30 

We have been working hard in Social Studies and began our unit on Canada with a review of geography.  It is important that your child understand the world and the geographic location of the country we are studying before we can dive into more in-depth information. 

We also began our study of Canada with a geography activity locating the provinces and territories.  Your child took a quiz on the location of those provinces, territories, major bodies or water and neighboring countries.  

We have been reading a True Book about Canada which gives a basic overview of the entire country.  As we read, students are highlighting important information and then writing down the key ideas.  They have taken a quiz on that information.  

We will continue to read a more in-depth book about Canada called Wow, Canada Vivien Bowers.  Then we will utilize a new strategy called Golden Lines to pull out key ideas from the text.   We will learn how to pull out important information and focus on the key ideas we can learn about each province and territory.  Please check your child's Assignment pad for future quiz dates on the provinces and territories.

In Writer's Workshop we have continued to develop strategies to create writer's notebook entries.  We discussed unforgettable stories and how what is memorable to one person might be less so for another.   We are all individuals and that is often reflected in our writer's notebooks.  

We read the hilarious story: 17 Things I am not Allowed to Do Anymore by Jenny Offill and discussed how to model our writing after an author.  We noticed the patterns of the author, style of writing and made attempts to write entries inspired by the story. We will also look at our entries and try to develop individual goals to improve our writing.  Each week your child will receive an assessment of their writing in the form of a rubric.  Please encourage your child to focus on their goals and make an effort to improve.

Writer's Notebook

3 full page entries a week

After a review of the writing process, we began our personal narrative unit.  We discussed several strategies to help generate ideas for personal narrative stories.  One strategy was to list a person and then describe moments with that person.  Another strategy was to list an emotion and then describe a time when we felt that emotion.  (These same strategies could be utilized to help your child generate writer's notebook entries.)We will plan, draft, edit, revise and finally publish our personal narratives using Google Docs. 

In Reader's Workshop we have been working on ways to generate a written reading response.  We have read some really great books to help spark our reading responses.  We talked about how we can connect our lives to characters and their actions.  We discussed author's message and themes of books. We also talked about just stopping and writing down what we are thinking while we are reading.  Then we went back and looked over what we had written and tried to find a spark to write off of.

Here are a few of the books we've read and discussed:

This is a wonderful story about a young girl and her twin brother who is Autistic.  We  discussed the different ways people can communicate their feelings and how that isn't always with words.  

This is a great story about Friendship, War, The Holocaust and it generated great discussion about regret. Specifically how we sometimes say things we wish we could take back.

We also worked on developing our own book reviews for our independent books.  Your child worked with a partner to develop a book review of a picture book.  Then they presented their picture book review to the class.  

Fireflies byJulie Brinckloe

The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts

Please ask your child to utilize some of the strategies we've learned in Reader's Workshop in their Homework Reading Log entries.  Our main goal is for your child to use details from the text to support their written reading responses. We also read a powerful historical fiction book called Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki to help develop ideas for our Homework Reading Log.

Click on the book icon below to access a copy of the Homework Reading Log Expectations. 

Go Math!

We have been working on taking notes and reviewing some basic skills.  Our first few lessons have been on place value patterns, properties of operations, powers of 10, exponents and multiplication patterns.   WOW!  We've been working really hard.  You can continue to support your child by helping them improve their fact fluency.  Please utilize the Math Reflex website to assist your child in increasing their fact recall.  

We've also started our weekly math quizzes and everyone has done a fine job.  Most of the errors students are making are careless. Remind your child of the importance of checking over all of their work. 

Blogging

What are most excited about 5th grade?

Welcome Back!

Welcome back!  I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with you and your child this year.  I look forward to seeing you at our fifth grade open house on Thursday, September 18th.  We will have a chance to explore the curriculum and other fifth grade information more specifically during our open house. 

Please browse the pages on my blog at mrsgigante.blogspot.com to gather information about our specials schedule, lessons, books orders, etc. Please read through the information and send any questions to me via your child or through email at:gigantej@guilderlandschools.net.  Also, if you would like to receive an email notification when a new post is made, you can submit your email in the "Follow By Mail" box in the top right-hand corner of the blog. 

I have enjoyed getting to know your children this week and look forward to a successful 5th grade year.  I look forward to discussing goals for your child at our parent-teacher conferences.  Thank you for completing the parent questionnaires, your input is so essential in helping me teach your child.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with your thoughts or concerns, working together; we will help your child reach their truest potential. 

  

Welcome 5th Grade 2014-2015

Hello!  Welcome to 5th grade, it is going to be an amazing year.  I am looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you. Please take a moment to complete the questionnaires below.  Be sure to answer all the questions by hitting the tab button to go to the next question.  You can also use the scroll bar to see all of the form.  In addition you must click on the SUBMIT button so that I will receive your information.  If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me: gigantej@guilderlandschools.net.

Character Traits

       

                

You've just finished reading a Social Issue Book Club book, choose a character from your book and describe two personality traits of that character.  Be sure to include two specific details from the text to support your thinking. Remember: Character traits are all the aspects of a character’s behavior and attitudes that make up that character’s personality. Every character has character traits, both good and bad. Think deeply about your character and brainstorm personality traits for your character.  

In your post be sure to include:

• Title and author of book
• Character trait
• Examples from text to support thinking

Example:

In the book Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea one of the main characters in Alexia.   One of her character traits is that she is mean because she bullies others.  For example, she says hateful things to others, when she is working on the project with  Danielle she tells her that she should be in charge of the food because she is so fat.  Another example is when she tells the new girl Jessica that Danielle was making fun of her so she could create a girl war.  

I love to READ!

I love to read!  I just read The Land of Stories: The Wishing Well by Chris Colfer and fell in love with the interesting storyline. I am now on to the next book in the series:  The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns and so far, I can't put the book down, it is so wonderful.   I also reread The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate and have such deep affection for the main character Ivan. I think it is still one of the best books I've ever read.

I also am a big fan of picture books because they have so much to offer.  My new favorite historical fiction is These Hands by Margaret H. Mason.  It is an amazing story about African Americans who worked in the Wonder Bread factory in 1950s & 1960s and were not treated fairly.  I also love, love, love The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt because it is hysterical.  We just read Freedom on the Menu by Carole Boston Weatherford which is a powerful historical fiction story about the Greensboro Sit-ins.

Please make a post of your TOP 3 BOOKS of all time!  Make a list of the 3 books that you loved so much you wanted to read them again.  List a book you wished there was more to the story so you could spend more time with the characters.  In your post be sure to list the title and author of each book.

Continent Project

We are excited to announce our next independent project: Create your own Continent. Each student was given a checklist to follow (click the map icon below to view a PDF of the checklist), a draft is due on Thursday March 7th and the final project is due on Monday March 31st. Students are encouraged to make sure they use their creativity when developing their map.  It must include the correctly drawn geographic features, be written neatly and free of spelling errors.  If you have any questions about the project, please contact me.

Newsletter

Hello!  I cannot believe how fast the year is flying by.  I am amazed at how much the students have changed since the beginning of the year.  We have been working so hard and  learning so much.  I am very proud of the academic progress your children have made. 
We have just begun our final fundraiser for the Bronx Zoo field trip.  In the fundraising packet you will find three catalogs with items from Grandma's Pies, Saratoga Sweets and flower bulbs.  Our sale ends on Friday March 7th when all orders and money are due. You will be able to pick up orders on Thursday April 10th, the same night as the Spring Concert.  If you have any questions, please let me know. 

In Math we completed Unit 6 and worked on how to add and subtract fractions. We focused on how to find the least common denominator and add/subtract with mixed numbers.  Please remind your child to follow the strategies they've been taught to set up their problems correctly. They should always make sure to simplify their answers when adding or subtracting fractions. They know how to solve problems but are encouraged to slow down and make an effort to double check their work for careless errors.  We are currently on Unit 7 and learning how to multiply and divide fractions.  

In Writer's Workshop we worked on our non-fiction unit.  We started by looking at several unique nonfiction texts and studied the style of the writing.  We focused on how the author tried to pull the reader in and make the factual information more interesting.    

      

We read the following books:

        

Each student chose a topic to research and tried to draft out their research using a creative style.  We then learned how to use Pages on the i-pads to publish our nonfiction articles.  We continue to focus on adding more relevant details to support our thinking in our writing.  They chose a topic that was engaging to them and wrote about many interesting things, such as; Mythology, Stars, The Sun, Endangered Species and Hurricanes.  

Then we did a mini unit on figures of speech, with a focus on simile and metaphor.  We read many engaging books and watched some Youtube videos.  We listened to several popular songs and identified the similes and metaphors.  We watched a great kid friendly music video created by The Bazillions about Metaphor Man and Simile Girl.  Click on the picture below to watch the video.

We then read My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks by Hanoch Piven and then tried to model his writing. Each student created their own similes and metaphors about a family member.

Alena wrote the following about her friend:

LILI

Lili is as cute as a new born puppy.

She is as sweet as chocolate ice cream on a hot summer day.

She is as quiet as a mouse.

She is as pretty as a dozen red roses.

She is an angel that fell from the heavens.

Grace wrote the following about her sister Maggie:

Maggie is as annoying as a siren in the middle of the night.

She is as bossy as a ringmaster in a circus.

She is as flexible as play-do.

She screams as loud as a howler monkey.

She is the tight rope I walk on.

We are continuing to write 2 entries each week in Writer's Notebooks.  Please check with your child to make sure they are writing entries out side of school.

During read aloud we are almost finished with Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea.  It is a wonderful story told from the perspective of several students in the class.  We have had important discussions about two major themes in the story: bullying and regret.  We will also work on identifying the author's message or purpose for writing the story when we are done with the book.  We have continued to work on making inferences and discussing character motives.  We've had great discussions about what a character does and what they might be feeling or thinking that isn't stated specifically in the text. It is an engaging story that has a big twist toward the end.  I encourage you to read it and have a book talk with your child.  

 

In Social Studies we finished our unit on Government.  We began with a review of the causes of the Revolutionary War and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  We use a new strategy to collect important information from non-fiction text called Golden Lines.  With Golden Lines a student will pull out the important fact, write a response or connection to the fact and lastly draw a picture to help remember the fact. 

For example:

Golden Lines	Connections	Visual Representation
The Stamp Act of 1765 was a tax on paper goods like a newspaper or a deck of cards.	I would hate having to suddenly pay a tax on something.

The goal is that when they are finished reading the text they will have a sheet with the Golden Lines (Important Information) to study from.  They will be able to look at the visual representation and hopefully that will help them recall the factual information.  Also, making the connection to the fact helps make it important to them so they'll remember it more. Our study focused on the federal level of the United States government.  

Our current unit is the United States and Geography.  We studied geographic terms and made Keynote presentations on the i-pads.  Each group had to create a slide that defined the word and included a picture that illustrated the geographic term.  We discussed the importance of editing our work carefully and making sure we knew how to pronounce all the words before presenting. For our next project we are will create physical maps of states.  

We will begin our Create a Continent project next week so look for the Project Checklist in your child's backpack.  We will also begin our study of the states and capitals.  Each student will be required to identify and label states and capitals.  We will begin the week with a study of a region of the United States and end the week with a quiz.  Please remind your child to study.

In Science we have been working on the Nervous system.  We have learned a lot of amazing facts about the brain.  We read a very interesting magazine called Brain by Kids Discover.  We will create brain hats to help us learn about the parts of the brain.  Your child should be able to explain which parts of the brain are responsible for physical movement, thinking and autonomic processes.  

In Reader's Workshop we read an amazing historical fiction book called, Nory Ryan's Song by Patricia Reilly Giff.  We discussed how a character changes over the course of a story and what causes those changes.  We continued to focus on Deep Thinking when stopping and jotting.  We also used a new strategy called, leaning in; which is where you chose a line from the story and make an inference about what the character may be thinking or feeling.  

We we have just started our Social Issue Book Clubs. We read picture books to practice determining the themes and discussed a variety of social issues.  We also discussed what the author's message of each book was.  Each Book Club will be responsible for identifying the themes of the story and the author's message. We will also work on how to interact effectively with each other during book discussions. Once they are finished reading their books they will create a presentation using Google Apps. They are going to focus on the themes, author's message and character motives.