| The Parents' Page |
The
Daily News
Vocabulary
Everyday Math Info for
Parents
About me Spelling - glossaries, FAQ's, family letters, help with Study Links
Homework Home Page Class Rules
Dear Parents,
Welcome to Room 121's website! I believe that parent-teacher communication is essential to your child's success in school and it is my hope that this website will help to further the communication between us. In addition to contacting me by calling the school (508-587-7009) or sending a note with your child, I can also be reached via email at smark@avon.k12.ma.us. Because we do not have telephones in our classrooms, email is usually the best way for us to communicate initially.
In
addition to providing another method of communication, another one of my goals
for mrsmark.com is that it will keep you up-to-date on what we're
learning in the classroom. Each week, the students'
spelling and vocabulary words will be posted,
and a listing of daily homework assignments as well as long term project
assignments and test dates can be found on the homework
page. The student handbook states that grade five students should be
receiving approximately one hour of homework per night. If your child is
taking much longer than that, please contact me. If your child does not
understand a homework assignment, write a note next to the problem he/she does
not understand and we will review it. Students usually receive math
reinforcement homework assignment every night, as well as a reading assignment,
vocabulary, and spelling work. Science and social studies homework will be
assigned as needed. If you want a more detailed look at what we're learning in the
classroom, you can visit The Daily
News, a page
filled with student-written articles about what is taking place in Room 121.
The following table will give you a brief idea of what our curriculum contains this year:
| Subject | Topics to be covered |
| Science (Mrs. Mark) |
Scientific Method, Weather and Climate, Oceans & the Water Cycle, Energy (heat, magnetic, light, sound, energy transfers, etc), Ecosystems & Adaptations, Heredity & Genetics, Food Chains & Webs, Simple & Complex Machines, Materials & Engineering Design. Great Body Shop: Nutrition, Safety, Puberty, Blood/HIV & AIDS, Smoking and your lungs, Drugs, Being a Good Consumer, Physical Fitness |
| Math (Mrs. Mark) |
Number Sense & Operations (whole numbers, decimals, fractions, percentages, prime and composite numbers, divisibility rules), Geometry (polygons, transformations of two-dimensional shapes, Cartesian plane, congruent shapes, three dimensional shapes), Measurement (angles, perimeter), Patterns/Relations/Algebra (exploring visual patterns, solving number sentences with single variables), Data & Probability (mean, median, mode, maximum, range) |
| Social Studies (Ms. Fraser) |
Vikings, Early European Explorers (Age of Exploration), 13 colonies, establishment and abolishment of slavery, colonial governments, French & Indian Wars, Declaration of Independence, Revolutionary War, Constitutional Convention, responsibilities of government, basic principles of American Democracy, features of the Constitution, Louisiana Purchase, expedition of Lewis & Clark, War of 1812, pioneers of the west, Civil War, map & globe skills |
| Writing (Mrs. Shaw) |
Using the John Collins writing program, Students will focus on developing stories containing the basic elements of fiction, write poetry using figurative language, write brief research reports, revise writing to improve the level of detail and elaboration in their writing, use correct mechanics, organize the information in their writing and self-assess using a rubric. |
| Reading (Mrs. Mark) |
My classroom utilizes a variety of reading methods to teach reading skills and strategies, including Scott Foresman basal reading, reader's workshop, guided reading and literature circles. Students goals include: to be able to analyze the author's craft, analyze the main idea and supporting details, understand and explain the characteristics of various genres (fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, mystery, historical fiction, realistic fiction, biography/autobiography, etc), identify and analyze story elements (characters, setting, conflict, theme, climax, rising and falling action, plot, resolution, point of view, etc), analyze the figurative elements in poetry (metaphor, simile, idioms, etc), and identify and apply the structure of nonfiction text. Click here to learn more about room 121's reading program and to see our weekly reading calendar. |
| Language (Mrs. Shaw) |
Students will learn 7 of the parts of speech (noun, verb, adverb, adjective, conjunction, pronoun and preposition), learn to determine the meaning of unknown words using context clues, suffixes, roots, and prefixes, use a dictionary and thesaurus to determine meanings and find alternative word choices, identify simple and complex sentences, and identify and use correct mechanics and sentence structure. |
Again, welcome to Room 121's home on the Web. For more information about the classroom, please visit the links on the home page. Enjoy the site!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Stacy Mark