Dear parents and students,

Welcome to 5th grade! I hope you enjoyed your summer. I am excited to be your teacher this year and have an exciting year planned for you. I pride myself on making my classroom a safe, fun, and structured environment for students to learn. My goal is to have this be one of your best school years yet. Students are expected to come to school ready to learn while respecting others, being safe and responsible. 

About the teacher- Mrs. Paveljack has been teaching for the Buffalo Schools for 21 years. You can reach me by email at jpaveljack@buffaloschools.org Our room number is #111. You can call me in the classroom from 8:30- 4:10 at 816-4603 X 1111.

Homework- students will have homework Monday thru Thursday in both spelling and math. Homework not done at home will be done during freetime. 

Reading- The Journeys Reading Program will focus on the 5 areas of reading. These are, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and phonemic awareness. Reading will be both large and small group. Large group will be teacher led and small group will be student led. We will cover one story from the Journeys Reader every ten days. Each story will also focus on a skill such as theme, inferences, character traits, authors purpose, drawing conclusions and main idea, compare and contrast.   We will end the story with a comprehension, vocabulary and spelling test. 

Response To Intervention- (RTI) using data points, students will be grouped according to reading needs. Interventions will include Write In Reader, Corrective Reading (B-1 or B-2), Orton Gillingham. Students will have opportunities to work in a small group with the teacher and have independent "bin" activities to do. 

Writing- Step Up To Writing- a color coded system to help students organize writing. Students will use a graphic organizer and highlighters. Green is Go or topic sentence. ( what are you writing about) A starter idea is in yellow (restate the questions) and the sentence is finished with a supporting detail in red.( text evidence from the story) The last sentence is a go back in green to include a summary of the writing. All of these pieces are than put together into a paragraph. Students will work on over time to increase their thoughts, details, and supporting details as well as develop a conclusion. For short answer questions students will use RAP which is restate the question, answer, prove you are right or RADD which is restate, answer, detail, detail. Active Reading Prompts are used for upwrapping a question such as 1- Read the prompt carefully, Box the question asked, 3- Circle the key direction verbs, 4- Underline important information, 5- Restate the prompt as a topic sentence.

Math- Math will follow the Common Core State Standards which will include 6 modules. Module 1- place value to the one thousandths place, writing and reading numbers as a decimal, fraction, standard, expanded, and written forms. Module 2- Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimal numbers. Module 3- Adding and subtracting fractions with alike and unlike denominators. Module 4- multiplying and dividing fractions. Module 5- volume and area of prisms. Module 6- graphing coordinate planes. Math word problems will be unwrapped using CUBS ( Circle the facts, underline the question, box the helping word and solve) .

AIS- academic intervention services- this is a block of time for students to work on developing math fact fluency which is the basis of all math computation. This will be done using math sprints, use of math maniputalives, flash cards, Moby Max, Zearn, Extra Math, Near pod, and class games such as quiz quiz trade and Kahoot. 

Science- Elevate is the science program. The students will have a consumable workbook and complete Quest labs. 5th grade science includes 3 units and 9 topics.  Unit 1 - Physical Science -Topic 1- properties of matter. Topic 2- Changes in matter. 

Unit 2- Earth and Space Science- Topic 3- Earth's Systems. Topic 4 Earth's Water. Topic 5- Human Impact On Earth's Systems. Topic 6- Solar System. Topic 7- Patterns In Space. Unit 3- Life Sciences - Topic 8- Energy and Food, Topic 9- Ecosystems

Social Studies- The Western Hemisphere- to include geography, map skills, world history, economics, climate, and culture. Students will have a consumable workbook. We will learn about Canada, United States ( Nothern Hemisphere), Brazil, Cuba, Peru, Argentina, and Columbia ( South America). We will explore and learn through videos, drawings, timelines, KWL charts, labeling flags, posters, and making books.

Grading- Math- Homework- 25%, Participation- 25%, quizzes -25%, and Module tests 25%

               Reading/Language Arts- Spelling 25% ( includes homework), Vocabulary tests- 25%, and Comprehension Tests- 25%, classwork- 25%

               Science/Social Studies- participation- 25%, workbook- 25%, labs- 25%, projects- 25%

Behavior Expectations- I will be using CHAMPS to ensure a more structured classroom and expectations. "C" is conversation ( voice levels, 0=no talking, 1=whisper, 2=talking, 3=outside voice), "H" is help, ( raise hand, ask a partner), "A" is activity ( whole groups, small groups, partners, independent), "M" is movement ( no movement, permission to move, free movement ) , "P" is participation ( engagement such as listening, answering questions, group talk, working quietly)"S" is for SUCCESS! Before each lesson I will move  clothes pins which will be colored for each group and place it on the behavioral expectation. Champions earn a treat at the end of the day!. Students with daily reports earn CHAMPS points and 27 out of 30 earns a treat. Students will have incentive pads on their desk. They have 25 blocks to fill. I am always looking for good choices. Be a problem solver not a problem creator. Once the pad is full this is a ticket into a treasure box.