Yearbook Order Form

Yearbook orders are due May 16!  Find the form on Edmodo or let Mrs. O'Kelly know you need a paper copy.

Fifth Grade Slide Show

Thanks to Mrs. Lytle for her hard work on the fifth grade slide show!  I could recognize the sweet little baby faces of 5-4 right away. :)  View the slideshow here.

Fifth Grade Musical

The fifth grade musical is Wednesday, April 30th.  Please remind your child to wear dark pants and his/her Dryden fifth grade t-shirt to school tomorrow. For the evening performance, doors open at 6:30 and fifth graders need to be here by 6:45. The show will begin at 7:00.

See you there!

Student Reflection 4/11/14

 On Wednesday at our school assembly the talented acrobatic Chicago Boyz came to perform and teach us a life lesson about safety and how their company started out. They showed us some cool gymnastics tricks that could be dangerous for not just kids but teachers. Some of these tricks included backflips, front flips,  jump rope tricks, and many trampoline tricks. They picked volunteers to flip/jump/superman over.  

In social studies we are learning about the harsh westward expansion. We are in four groups or wagon trains and we get to pick a person to be  the Wagon Master. There are some obstacles that we have to over come. We have to pick supplies for are families but we have to be careful and not pick items that aren't useful for our wagons because we only can have 1,000 BWU's or pounds in our wagon. We are so excited to
"go to" Oregon!



Bloggers: Lexi and Ava.
With help from Alex and Audrey.

News From 5-4 4/11/14

Hello 5-4 Parents,

What a beautiful day! Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful too. I hope you all get a chance to get outside and play around with your kids.  Despite the fact that spring is in the air and the fifth graders are excited to be outside, they are doing a great job of staying on task and doing some amazing learning in the classroom!  (Let's hope this behavior continues through April and May!)  These last two months of fifth grade are going to be packed with special events and excitement!

Dates to Remember:


4/16-  Visit to South
4/18-  No School
4/21-  In School Field Trip Robert Crown
4/24-  Math MAP test morning
4/25-  World of Work Field Trip
4/28-  Reading MAP test afternoon
4/30-  5th Grade Musical
5/30-  Field Day

Here's what is happening in the classroom:

Reading- During shared reading time, we have been reading the informational text Children of the Wild West by Russell Freedman.  This aligns nicely with our unit on westward expansion and gives the kids a glimpse into what life was really like for children as they traveled with their families in a wagon train. This book provides the opportunity for us to work on "close reading" as we reread passages and dig into the text to find answers to questions.  The students are becoming experts at finding and accurately quoting text evidence, but we are still working on including our interpretations of the text.

During guided reading time, the groups are reading leveled non-fiction books that go into depth about different aspects of westward expansion.  We are using iPads during guided reading to explore these books on Trueflix, a subscription of online informational text and media.  We work in guided reading to reinforce vocabulary, comprehension, and discussion skills.

The students are also partner reading historical fiction novels set in the time of westward expansion.  They worked with a partner to map out a schedule for reading their books. Each day, the students meet with their partner, while not meeting with me in guided reading group, to share signposts they found while reading and add to the Google doc they created to document signposts.

Social Studies- Although our History Alive chapter 16 test was today, our adventure in westward expansion has just begun. The students have assumed pioneer identities, formed wagon trains, and loaded their wagons with supplies. Be sure to ask your child about the successes, struggles, and obstacles his/her wagon train is facing in the next few weeks. Will everyone survive the long trip west to more land, riches, and a better life?  Will the wagon masters be able to successfully lead their train?

As always, please contact me with any questions or concerns!

:) Kelly

Student Reflection- 3/14/14

This week, we started our PSI research. We took time to write our open questions about a topic we are interested in. We each created our own website to record our notes and reflect on our research process.

WE learned that our government has three branches. Ask your child how using three pencils to lift up a book a helped us understand the three branches.

Student Reflection 3/7/14

 After researching the human body systems in groups,we all voted on the most and least important systems in the body. The whole 5th grade got together to have a human body tiki torch ceremony, Survivor style. After a long discussion we all agreed that you could not live without all of your systems.







Here the Nervous System poses for a victory picture after they has won a great victory. The Skeletal System sadly got voted the least important system.