What a trip!

Thanks to Jennifer Packard, and the folks at Jesse's Restaurant the fifth graders got to see one local company's effort to reduce its carbon footprint.  Through local gardens (on the Jesse's lawn), and a huge compost pile, Jesse's is reducing, reusing and recycling.

With the impending frost, the fifth graders got to harvest the entire garden.  We found carrots, eggplant, peppers, lettuce, green beans, broccoli and lots of tomatoes.  Then we were treated to a buffet lunch complete with an ice cream sundae.  YUM!  The Vielleux Crew learned about the word "etiquette" in a Daily Language Review assignment, and transformed our new knowledge into a discussion of restaurant etiquette, and more specifically buffet etiquette.  There are some of the rules for this special occasion that we came up with.

• Don't YUCK my YUM (Thanks, Jessica)!
• Take only what you're going to eat.
• If you have to sneeze or cough, do it away from the food.
• Say please and thank you.
• Use your utensils appropriately.
• USE UTENSILS.
• Chew with your mouth closed.
• Use a napkin.

Here are some other photos of our day:

Wanted: Math Fact Masters-- $10 Reward

 

Wanted:  Students who learn their math facts.

Many students have already tried out www.xtramath.org which is a no-frills website designed to help students master their math facts.  Students begin with multiplication and move onto division.  Kids complete a prescribed set of activities and eventually pass.  Each night that they practice, I am sent a notification.  Please make sure they practice for one whole session.  They will be compensated for their work by being given $1VCB for every night they practice.  Once they have completed multiplication mastery, they will receive a $10 bonus!  Flyers will come home on Monday to tell you how to register.  

Preamble Duet

As I greeted the students this morning, a couple of students were eager to show me how hard they had worked on their memorization of the Preamble to the Constitution.  This one was especially energetic!




Of course, everyone else wanted in on the action as well...

Hot Off the Press! September 12th Newsletter

Please click on this link to view the newsletter.

We the People...

Vielleux Crew News-- Hot off the Press!

Click here to see the newsletter

It's THAT Time of Year Again!

It's that time of year again.  BACK TO SCHOOL.  This blog is a way for the kids and parents of The Vielleux Crew to communicate throughout the year.  We'll show you what we're doing in class and I will post documents and other items that the kids might need here.  This blog will evolve and change through the year, but it should always be useful and interesting.


The first thing I would recommend is reading through the Vielleux Crew Handbook, which will help parents and students understand how things work in fifth grade.  The last page should be filled out and returned to me as soon as possible.


A popular question is:  What does my child need on the first day of school?  Comfortable clothes (dressed for the weather), shoes, a snack and a lunch or lunch money.  We do have a snack time every day.  Fifth graders eat lunch at 12:45-- by that time we're ravenous-- and so we stop around 10 to have a snack and refuel our brains.

Exciting New Science Unit Beginning

This past week marked the beginning of our Interdependence in Ecosystems unit.  Part of this unit requires us to examine part of a food chain closely, and to do this we are studying decomposers... more specifically RED WORMS. In fact we have a thousand of them arriving early next week.


To learn about them, we spent some time on a webquest using a website about Herman the worm!  http://urbanext.illinois.edu/worms/anatomy/index.html  WHAT FUN!

We are really hoping to start a worm farm composting system in the school cafeteria.  We shall see how well fifth grade teachers are at worm babysitting over the summer though...


We began the week by learning about the source of energy for any food chain-- producers.  Producers are organisms that can make their own food.  We learned that plants are producers and get their energy from the sun.

Calendar Starting to Fill?

Please mark your calendar for the following important fifth grade dates:

Fifth Grade Calendar

Proud Mommy Moment

So sorry!  Just had to share!