School Calendar

There was a question this morning in class about the school calendar. Please see the school website http://www.uni.edu/iowa-rds/ and click "Calendar" to see the official school calendar in a pdf.

Mr. N

The Season Begins!

Happy Thanksgiving! The students have been working hard on partial quotients division the past few days. Some are very comfortable with this method and others are not so much. These next couple of days we will continue to work on this skill.

As the Holiday Season gets fully wound up please remember to check with your child regarding homework and their responsibilities.

Have a great Thanksgiving week!

Mr. N

Thank You Notes

Each week your child will be writing a note to a person they choose to thank. They may choose a family member, neighbor, teacher, or friend as their focus of their thank you notes. They will be writing the thank you note with two goals in mind; 1) Obviously, to use written words to say thank you and 2) to become aware of those people which they need to thank.

You can help this process in two ways; 1) pointing out individuals they could choose to write and 2) donating thank you cards to the class.

I am hopeful that this process will encourage our students to continue to be thankful.

Mr. N

Fall Conferences are Here!

The students have been working hard and are looking forward to showing parents their data notebooks. Student led conferences are something new for these students and we are anxious to see how the process progresses. If you have any comments or suggestions please send and email to Mr. Nielsen at curt.nielsen@uni.edu.

Living History Farms Field trip Friday, October 21

The Grassroots Café is proud to sponsor the Living History Farms field trip. We believe our students need to connect with the earth, our food source. Living History Farms provides a wonderful framework in which to do this. The funding for this field trip was granted by the Wellmark Foundation.

Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa, utilizes “living history” techniques to tell a story. “Living history” includes sights, sounds, smells, and interactions that bring history to life. Our 5th and 6th grade classes are taking a trip together to experience what life was like on a farm in 1850 (6th grade) and 1900 (5th grade). This program focuses on farm life and routines of the year 1850 and 1900. Each student will experience three hours participating in various activities. The major components of the program are food preparation (cooking), food production (crops and livestock), and domestic tasks and chores.

Dress: This program occurs both indoors and outside. Please make certain that your child is properly dressed for an OUTDOOR farm experience. This means boots, coats, hats and gloves. Dressing in layers is vital, as a person can always remove a coat or a sweater, if they have it! Also, keep in mind that the farms are often muddy and cold! Since farm work will be done, clothing can get dirty!

We will leave the school promptly at 7:00 am on Friday, October 21st. The early departure will get the students to the farm by 9:00 am.

Students will need to bring a sack lunch which will be eaten at Living History Farms. We will depart at 12:30, after lunch, and should arrive back at the school around 2:30.

IXL Up and Running

IXL the app. for math practice is now up and running. The fifth graders know their IXL usernames and addresses. As you are probably aware IXL can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet. I get a report each week on the time student's spend on IXL and the kinds of problems they do. This will be something that the students keep track of at school.

Mr. Nielsen

Spelling Test on Thursday (9/15)

Since we do not have school this Friday (9/16) we will be having our weekly spelling test on Thursday (9/14)

Swimming on Thursday and NO school Friday

Reminder: Swimming tomorrow. Don't forget a swimming suit and towel!

On Friday (9/16) there is a teacher inservice day so there will be no school.

School Pictures!

School pictures will be on Wednesday, September 21. Get those combs and brushes ready!

Checkout Wonderopolis!

Wonderopolis! check the link at the right.

Math Terms and Transfer

We have begun our math work this year with arrays. This topic has brought up a lot of terms for your child to review/remember. These include factors, products, prime numbers, composite numbers, whole numbers, divisibility and more. Check your child on these terms. They may not be able to tell you what these terms mean simply because they have not been able to transfer their knowledge from one context to another (school to home). This does not necessarily mean they don't know the term. However, if you ask them and review these terms at home it may improve their overall math knowledge. It couldn't hurt!

Mr. Nielsen

Friday Folders

This year we will send home a folder with your child that will contain everything from classroom work to notes and announcements. Please sign the inside cover of the folder and return it with your child, empty, on the following Monday. I would like to have the folder signed so that I know that parents have viewed the information in the folder.

Thanks,

Mr. Nielsen

The Leader in Me

The Leader in Me is a book written by Steven Covey that accounts the incorporation of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in schools all a cross the United States. Price Lab faculty are using the book to assist them with implementation of the Seven Habits in lessons and activities of the school. This is NOT a program, "The Leader in Me equips students with the self-confidence and skills they need to thrive in the 21st century economy"(TheLeaderinMe.org). Check out The Leader in Me at the following web page http://www.theleaderinme.org/

Welcome to Fifth Grade!

WELCOME TO FIFTH GRADE! We are off to a great start to the school year. The students are learning the routines, schedules and expectations for the year as well as getting use to Mr. Nielsen's strange humor. Our schedule is busy yet should be pretty easy to follow. The special area schedule is as follows; Art- Tuesday's at 9:45, Guidance- Thursday's at 10:05, Music- T,Th at 11:35, Spanish- M,W,F at 2:20, Band / Orchestra- T,Th at 2:20 and P.E.- M-F 1:45. Swimming day is Thursday. As you can see there is some consistency to our schedule, which is a nice feature of the fifth grade year. We will also have UNI Math Methods students with us on Wednesday’s from 9:00-10:45. These students will be partnered with our fifth graders and will present math lessons that coincide with fifth grade math topics. This has been a win-win positive experience for all of our students at Northern University. I am looking forward to a great school year with the NU High class of 2019!