Science Fair Update

Have you done your experiment yet? You still have a few more days off, so you could take data and be careful about doing your project. We are going to start typing up our results and working on our display boards in January so that we will be ready to ROCK the judges!

If you need a reminder about some of the important information, you can go to this blog entry.

If you hate what you initially proposed and/or are having trouble working with your group and want to try something that uses the ENGINEERING guidelines (see picture below), you could look at some of these ideas.

Keep up the good work!

Science Fair

Parent Letter - click here

Science Fair Rubric - click here

What NOT to do - click here

Science Buddies (aka the most amazing set of resources ever) - click here

Expectations - click here

Some projects may be suitable for submission to the NASA Kids in Micro-g contest. For more details, click here

Week of November 30

The spelling list is up on Spelling City. It is List 10- Mariah Keeps Cool.

Progress reports are printed on the back of this week's homework slip.

Students are starting to earn their reward activity for December..... This is a "no missing work" reward. :)

Student Teacher

We are getting a student teacher! Her name is Libbianne Nelson and she is a teacher candidate at Westminster College. She will be with us from January 4 through March 12.

MIssing Work

We are going to be having an earned activity for students who have all their Term 2 work turned in. This activity will be held on December 23, so all students have adequate time to get any missing work turned in.

Students in Mrs. Buttars' class have short notes on their homework sheets with any work that was missing from last week. I will have complete reports ready by Wednesday.

I typically do not make extra copies of assignments. If your child cannot find an assignment, you are welcome to come in before or after school to make copies. It is simply too time-consuming for me to put together missing work packets for the 12-15 students who have lost their work.

I have had students report that they have taken assignments home and that their parents have recycled them. Mistakes happen. Please write me a note in this case. I will excuse the work on the first occasion. After that, I would ask that you come make a replacement copy.

For your information, work that comes home with a score, check mark, or star on it has been recorded. Any other work has not, and should be returned to school.

Thanks for your support!

Wednesday 10/18

READING WORKSHOP:
This time is largely filled with our Guided Reading groups. Some of the boys are reading one of my favorite books, Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. It is a book about a boy named Brian whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. We have just gotten to the part where Brian has figured out how to make fire. I am hoping to secure the other three books in the Hatchet series so that we can continue to read about Brian.

For independent work this week, the students have a cursive sheet, the lake mini-book, a vocab packet, their spelling/grammar packets, and a Thanksgiving assignment.

MATH:
We are working on long division and expressing remainders in the form of a fraction. Once the students are quite solid with this, we will introduce three and four-digit dividends (the number being divided).

Please help your child learn skip counting and/or their division facts. This will make a huge difference as we expand our knowledge of division into big numbers and then begin working with fractions.

SCIENCE:
We took our final quiz on the Earth's surface/erosion unit today and turned in our journals for this unit. Tomorrow we will pre-test on magnetism.

The Process

"If we praise intelligence, then the first time students hit the wall, they question the definition. Praise process." ~Unknown

End of Term 1

Term 1 is coming to an end. I'm excited to meet with you all this week and go over report cards and how the students are doing.

Keep up the great work!

been busy and under the weather

I have to confess - I have not followed Grandma's Wisdom and taken care of myself - hence, I have had the same low-grade cold for a couple of weeks. I hope to get it all slept off over the upcoming weekend. :)

Thankfully, I have managed to avoid (so far, knock on wood) the really bad illness that has swept through our room.

Because I have had so many students out on so many days I have changed my make-up policy for the time being. I am simply excusing students from most of the work that the miss, unless there is a critical assignment. And I've been trying to have anything critical going on with so many kids out!

We are continuously looking at ways to improve our 5th grade program. Starting this week we are having "intervention time" from 2-2:30. This is a time when some of our students are being pulled by the reading aides. We could really use some parent volunteers to help students pass off their math facts for the 36 club and work on other individualized interventions. This is for both students who struggle and students who excel. If you have a special ability or interest and would like to share that with some top students, please consider giving us a half hour a week.

Halloween notes went home on Monday with details about the parade and party.

I am hoping to hit a good routine shortly after conferences so that I can get the blog updated more regularly. In the meantime I've just been happy to get links up on the side that are designed to help your child build his/her basics.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE AVAILABLE MON-THURS @ 2PM TO VOLUNTEER!

Week of October 9

Please leave a comment telling me at least three things that you learned or enjoyed at school this week. You can also tell me something that you wish went better.

Remember to only use your initials to identify yourself. Use the "anonymous" option.

Thanks!
JB

Shot Heard Round the World

Tuesday, 10/6

Reading Workshop: We have new guided reading books this week. Most groups are working on comprehension strategies, so I have given them text that is on the easy side so that they can really focus on deep understanding. Our books are about the colonial period in American history.

Reading Minutes for October: Since there are 4 full weeks in October, there will be 400 minutes of home reading in order to earn the October activity. For grading purposes I give a maximum of 120 minutes of credit per week. Feel free to read and record more than that. :)

Math: We are working on decimal subtraction and estimation this week. Please download and print the decimal cards and have your child teach you decimal double subtraction for some of your math homework. Today's assignment was Subtract Decimals 1. On half of the problems the students estimated the answer, on the other half the students calculated an exact answer.

Spelling/Writing: We are in Week 5 for spelling. The words are up on Spelling City. In writing we are continuing to work on writing paragraphs with strong topic sentences.

Science: We have left Matter behind and are starting our study of the Earth's Surface. Today was a pre-test.

Decimal Learning Games

I have uploaded the game cards and directions for the decimal games we have learned (and will learn this week) in class. The link is here and also on the sidebar.

Week of Sept. 21

Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes - they were much appreciated!

I enjoyed the opportunity to watch President Obama's speech with the students. I think it is important for them to have the opportunity to hear our President talk, especially when it is a message that is geared to them and on their level.

This week we will be taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). This is a national, standardized test that is given to 3rd and 5th grade students in order to evaluate our students compared to the rest of the nation. We will be giving the test during the morning. Please help your child by having him/her to school on time, well-fed, and well-rested.

Spelling for the week is online at SpellingCity.

During math we will learn two new games to build our understanding of addition of decimals. I will sit down with my scanner in the next few days and get those directions and materials up on the blog for you to use at home.

In science we will be learning about chemical changes in matter. You can follow the sci-ber text link over on the right to find some of the things we'll be doing.

For writing we are continuing to work on writing paragraphs, and outlining text. We will also focus on proper nouns, abbreviations, subjects and predicates.

Have a great day!

Save Fred!

This is a guest post by T, J, and P - students of Mrs.Buttars.
We took a gummy worm and tried to put a gummy life-saver on it. We couldn't touch the gummy worm except with the paperclips. It was very hard, but we managed.

Week of Sept. 14

PROGRESS REPORTS went home today. I am certain there are mistakes. Please let me know if you have questions or think there are errors. I take late work and re-do's until one week before Parent Teacher Conferences, so there is plenty of time. Late work gets a max grade of #2. Re-do's will raise the grade by one value.

In READING WORKSHOP we are finishing up our first books. We will be doing some writing activities to solidify our comprehension. The students will continue with at least one more nonfiction book about matter before we break for some historical fiction.

We will continue of study of decimals in MATH: understanding decimal representations, ordering decimals on a number line, and then adding and subtracting. Later this week I will be teaching a decimal game. I will put directions up online and also a copy of the cards for you print at home. In the homework packet there was also a discussion of how to build estimation skills for adding or subtracting decimals. Please work with your child at home.

SPELLING List 3 is up on Spelling City.

Your child (hopefully) will be telling you tonight about the experiment s/he did in SCIENCE to determine if mixing salt and water is a chemical change or a physical change. Later this week we will start with some chemical changes. Because chemical changes often give off heat or other chemicals, we will certainly use our safety goggles!

Quick and Easy Place Value Activity for Decimals

We have been working on decimal numbers to the thousandths place for the past several days. About half the class is rocking it, the other half, not so much. Here is a quick and easy activity you can do for part of your 15 minutes/4x a week to help build understanding of those decimal numbers.

For starters we talk about making the following associations:
Ones place = dollars
Tenths place = dimes
Hundredths place = pennies

Grab a bunch of pennies and dimes. Make sure you have more than 10 of each, so that your child can see that connection when we have more than 10 of something that "belongs" in one place. Place out random amounts of each coin. Count the money and then (this is the powerful part) WRITE the decimal number.

For example,
three dimes and 7 pennies = .37 or 0.37
fifteen dimes and no pennies = 1.5 or 1.50

I find that the more students can visualize or understand pennies as hundredths and dimes and tenths, the better they do with decimal numbers in general.

Have fun!

Week of Sept. 8

I can't believe it's already the third week of school! Things are going well so far. The students are settling into a nice routine. I am only messing up about a third of their names. hehe

SPELLING for this week can be found by clicking here. Since there was no school on Monday, students can choose between ABC order and cursive for Tuesday night. Wednesday will be sentences and Thursday the practice test.

MATH is an area where I am noticing a big spread in abilities. Right now I am inclined to think that some of the students do not have ideal work and study habits. I will start putting a note in student's planners who are not completing or turning in their work.

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP is the buzz word for being safe, responsible and involved online. This month you can go to Brainpop.com and watch their technology videos for free. I will be showing some in class, too. Speaking of which, if your child hasn't already logged in to 5thisfun.pbworks.com, please consider helping them with that in the next day or so. We will be using the computer lab on Friday and I would love to have as many posts as possible to review.

PARENT HELPERS are needed for the following: monitoring and tracking the Mustang Award, come in and help during math time (around 11:45 is when we are typically doing independent work).

As always, please let me know if you have comments/questions/concerns.
Have a great day!

Homework has begun...

....don't be alarmed. :)

Spelling homework was outlined in the previous post. The students will bring their list home as part of their homework packet that is passed out on the first day of the week. There will also be 2 pieces of paper for spelling homework.

Reading slips are pink and should be filled out for a minimum of 100 home reading minutes per week. Ideally this is done in five, 20 minute sessions, but students are graded on the 100 minute weekly total.

Math slips are blue and represent one hour of time spent on math activities such as memorizing basic facts (Ms. Webb's 36 Club), the monthly Math At Home packet, or some of the other math-based games I have linked here on my blog. If you have other games or resources at home that you would like to use, let me know, I'm open.

There will usually also be a reading passage with some questions on the back. This is a good comprehension check and fluency practice activity. It CAN count towards your child's 20 minutes of reading.

The regular homework packet is due back to the homebase teacher on the first morning of the week.

In addition, students who do not complete their work in class will need to finish it at home. Occasionally we will have longer or more in-depth projects which will also need to be worked on at home. These will be IN ADDITION to the homework packet.

Parents of resource students, I will work with you and your child to make sure that homework expectations are realistic for your unique situation. Ok, I'll actually do this for all of you. Just let me know if you have comments and/or suggestions pertaining to your child.

Thanks!

Spelling List 1

Hi Parents and Students!

We are beginning with spelling on Monday, August 31. All of the students in my PM class will have the same list. It is 20 words and can be found by clicking here.

In class we will work on learning the spelling rules that apply to the weekly list, at home, you can help your child practice the words AND their penmanship at the same time. :)

Homework is the same each week:
Monday: Write words in cursive 3x each
Tuesday: Write words in ABC order 3x each
Wednesday: Write a great sentence for each word*
Thursday: Take a practice test, get it signed by a parent/adult/older sibling

Homework alternatives and extra credit options:
Go to www.SpellingCity.com and then click on "Find a List". Enter my last name, "Buttars" and then click on my name when it comes up. Once you click on the list for the week, you will have the option to play several games, have the words read and defined for you, and even take a practice test. Log how much time you spend doing activities on Spelling City in your planner. Have a parent/adult/older sibling initial your minutes to verify. You will get extra credit (max 20 points) applied to your weekly spelling test.

*What do I mean by "great"? Well, from reading the sentence it is obvious that you know what the word means. Your sentences are creative and original and you have used the word properly.

Place Value Go Fish

This week we have learned a game called Place Value Go Fish. It is played like regular go fish, but with the number cards you can print by clicking here.

Instead of a book of pairs or four of a kind, this game has books of three: standard form, word form, and expanded form.

Have fun!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to 5th grade! I am so excited to be teaching at Bell View. Many of you may know me as "Michael and Christian's Mom" and now you'll get to know me as "Mrs. Buttars". I have been teaching at Columbia in West Jordan for the past 8 years and taught special education at Sandy Elementary before that (with Mr. Hunter, by the way).

As the school year starts and progresses I hope that you will find this blog to be helpful to you. My intention is to use the blog as a means to keep everyone up-to-date on what is going on in the classroom. Feel free to ask questions, make comments, start a discussion....