Grading Guidelines: Report card grades for 5th graders are averaged counting major evaluations at 60% of the grade and daily grades as 40% of the grade.

Beginning of the Day: All students are expected to be in their seats with sharpened pencils and quietly working at 7:45 a.m. Warm-Up will be checked at 8:00.

Homework: Parents should expect between 45-50 minutes of homework per night. This will include reading minutes, math, language arts, and studying for integrated tests.

Assignment Planners: Every child must fill out the assignment planner. The teacher will use an overhead transparency planner and walk the students through every homework assignment in every subject on Monday. Every box of the planner will be filled in on Monday for the entire week. If there is no homework in a subject, have the students write “NONE.”

Reading Records: The 100 Minute Reading Record is required of every student, along with one summary and one reflection per week. They’ll bring in their signed records to us on Monday mornings. We will put stickers, stamps, or smiley faces beside parent signatures. If a child doesn’t bring in reading minutes, we’ll make notes of this on blue cards.

Blue Cards: Teachers will record the infraction in ink and initial. We stamp these and write a positive comment on each on Friday morning. They go home over the weekend to be signed by parents. Teachers check on Monday morning.

Birthdays: Birthday treats can be shared with the homeroom class after 2:15.

Each week a daily oral language (D.O.L.) review sheet is completed in class. This is a comprehensive grammar review that is completed daily and orally discusses together. Every Friday a quiz is given as a summative review of the skills covered that week.
For writing practice, each six weeks a specific genre of writing is spotlighted. This could be a personal narrative, persuasive, informative, compare and contrast, or other piece of writing. In addition to the formal writing that will be taken to publishing each six weeks, daily journal entries are made to practice informal writing as well as relate writing to a certain topic given that day.

A spelling list is given each week. Throughout the week there are various assignments to practice the words. Then on Friday there is a spelling test given in which cursive, neat work is expected as well as accurate spelling of the week’s words.

*Differentiated spelling lists are used as enrichment for those who qualify.
A part of our spelling lists consists of vocabulary words for the week as well which are taken directly from the story read in our reading book that week. The students are not only expected to be able to spell these words correctly, but they are also required to define them, use them appropriately in context, and an assessment is given each Friday over the week’s words. These correlate directly with story, so the children are able to see them and use them repeatedly throughout the week.

Weekly reading skills are spotlighted as well. These range anywhere from context clues to making inferences. Each skill practiced in the 5th grade correlates directly with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills as set up by the state.

The fifth grade integrated curriculum is based on 6 overarching ideas (or OI’s). They are:

• The Ins and Outs of Communication
• How Parts Interact to Make a Whole
• In Sync with Systems
• It’s a Balancing Act
• How Variables Cause Change
• Diversity; Strength or Strife

Each OI is a combined instructional sequence involving science and social studies. You can access information about the integrated curriculum from the web at http://k-12.pisd.edu, and clicking on curriculum center.

Please send comments or suggestions to Mona Lisee
Updated August 2007

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