Debate Topic: Commercializing Schools

The students this week read about school districts that are allowing companies to advertise their products/services in the buildings and on busses in exchange for needed funding/revenue. We had companies like Walmart and Culvers advertise in our own classroom for a couple of days. We even began to generate our own revenue by selling the naming rights to classroom equipment. More on that later...

Students were asked: Should school districts allow commercial companies to advertise their products/services in exchange for needed funding/revenue? Here are the results:

YES: 18%

NO: 82%

Supporting Commentary:

-The schools could use the money to buy s new technology and supplies.

-We'll save more jobs for teachers.

-It's no big deal-we see ads all the time. It will help us because the supplies and technology we can buy will improve our learning.

-We're going to see advertising more and more as we get older, so this is okay for us.

Rejecting Commentary:

-It's not fair because we are then forced to see the ads. At home we can turn off the TV if we don't like commercials.

-It takes advantage of kids. It's like they know they can get what they want from us and make us buy things.

-The schools are desperate for money and this is a cheap way to get it.

-This could lead to kids forcing their parents to buy things and maybe even unhealthy foods. The companies know kids are easily influenced.

Bathroom Bill Still at Stalemate

5V-Bathroom Bill HR #2 appears to be going nowhere. After President Vaid's veto of the bill two weeks ago, the house showed overwhelming support for the President in a surprising turn of events. Most thought that the bill would easily get the necessary 2/3 votes in the house to override the veto. After some campaigning by President Vaid this week, house members must have got the message. "I don't know if they liked the Senate's amended version to begin with." President Vaid said. It was anticipated that if the House got the 2/3 votes to override the bill that the Senate would have no issue passing it. More debate will continue. Citizens can expect an amended version to come out of the House this week. "This was surprising." one Senator said, "We thought we'd get the 2/3 we needed with no problem." Stay tuned for continuing coverage later this week.

Curricular Update (Week of 10/31-11/4 and important reminders

Hi 5V Families! Here is what the 5th graders are up to this week in 5V.

Reading:

• The kids are will study and practice a non-fiction reading strategy called "Scan and Run" as we read a biography of Roberto Clemente this week.
• The kids will also continue to study strategies to get meaning out of vocabulary words.
• We're going to practice vocabulary in context with our skits this week.
• We're also practicing the science and art of good writing by responding to questions and learning how to construct a good response.
• TFK Tuesday-the kids will read non-fiction, practice good reading habits and learn content.
• As always, I'll be modeling good reading habits through our read aloud and other texts.

Writing:

• The 5th graders will be studying how to organize their thoughts when writing an expository essay using a 4 square organizer.
• The kids will also study how to look closely at a writing prompt question and study how to answer it.
• Each day the kids will have their choice time writing and we'll go through the writing process to publish our own student constructed writing pieces.
• Our 5V newspaper is going to start next week.
• We'll continue to journal our thoughts each day in our reflection journals.

Social Studies:

• What fun the kids are having creating their own colonies which are now evolving into their own countries.
• The students are creating their own governments this week.
• They are studying how a country can evolve through its self government and most colonies I anticipate will secede from their mother country.
• The kids will present their colony-country projects on Friday.

Math:

• Regular math will be studying division, division with decimals, and estimation strategies.
• Accelerated math will continue to study graph trends, rates, division, and story problems involving variables.
• Quiz this Friday

Citizenship:

• We will have discussions regarding bullying and its impact on schools/kids.

President Vetoes Bill

5V-In an unexpected move Wednesday evening, President Vaid vetoed the "Bathroom Break" bill, HR # 2 just hours after it passed legislation in Congress. The move comes as a surprise to some who had expected a swift and smooth legislation. After nearly two weeks of debate, including amendments from the Senate, it appears that Congress is back at square one. "I've clearly stated my objections and hope that the Congress and I can come to a compromise over bathroom policy. We're setting a dangerous precedent with a law that could be mistreated and that's not the purpose of a law." the President said earlier this evening. The original bill received little support inititally but House Members who supported the President's vision got it to pass, only to be shot down in the Senate. President Vaid is expected to send the bill back to the House within the next 10 days. Congress still has the opportunity to override the President's veto with 2/3 approval in both chambers but will be on recess till next Monday.

House Set to Vote on Amended Bathroom Bill

5V-Last Friday, the 5V House of Representatives passed HR #2 Bathroom Break bill. They eclipsed the necessary 6 votes by getting 8 votes to pass legislature in the House only to have the senate unanimously kill the bill. However, the bill was amended in the Senate and the House is set to vote on it at 9:15am Tuesday morning. The original bill issued by three representatives found little support in its original form, never making it past the House in early October. It called for an mandatory bathroom break after specials with out the opportunity to use the the following reading period for individual bathroom breaks. "We need to pass this bill and we're here to support Mr. Vaid and his vision." said one representative. However, amendments to the bill call for a bathroom break after specials and in addition to that, using the last 15 minutes of reading as individual bathroom break time where two boys and two girls can use the bathroom as opposed to one boy and one girl which is the current law. "It's a distraction when kids get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of class when we're trying to read." said one Representative who opposes the bill. Supporters meanwhile say that the bathroom break is too early in the day and kids who are immersed in their books won't have a problem with it. If the bill passes in both houses, it will then go to President Vaid's desk for approval or veto.

Curricular Update (Week of 10/17-10/21 and important reminders

Greetings 5V Families, here's what the 5th graders are up to this week:

Reading:

1. The kids are going study character traits and use strategies to identify personalities of characters and real people in our reading.
2. The students will also practice vocabulary in context via their skits.
3. Through our awesome new read aloud "Wonder Struck"we are going to make so many inferences and predictions.
4. I'll model to the kids fluency and comprehension strategies as usual using two different texts.
5. The kids will practice writing professional like essays in a short answer response format.
6. We'll also practice inferring and note taking with our super cool genre reading and work.

Writing:

1. Thanks so much for helping your kids with the memoirs. They really will benefit from your interaction.
2. This week we wrap up writing the memoirs in parts (opening scene, middle, and final thought)
3. The kids will write their own pieces of writing too. This is self selected writing that we will pre-write, rough draft, edit, and revise in efforts to publish a final draft.
4. The kids are also loving the scary story contest and they are writing that too.
5. I'm hoping by the end of this week we can write another debate topic.

Math:

1. Students in 5th grade regular math are studying geometry. This includes measuring angles, studying different kinds of angles, studying triangles, congruency, polygons, tessellation's, and measuring angles in regular and irregular polygons.
2. Students in Accelerated math will have taken the test by Tuesday, and then a pre-test on Wednesday. They are doing lots of problem solving, writing, and even some work with math essays this week.

Social Studies:

1. Very cool project and application of knowledge this week and next! The kids are creating their own colony and they have to do a LOT of work, thinking, and decision making with this. They are imagining that they have been given a charter or permission to settle anywhere on Earth that they choose. Part of the deal involves them paying back the money the King gave them as part of the charter to go settle and colonize a location. They will have to create an economy, infer and make observations/predictions about their settlement, decide how they want to interact with the natives, and more! We'll study atlases, decision making skills, math, and economy relevant ideas.

Citizenship:

1. Mr. Raczak visits 5V to talk about bullying with the students Tuesday!! He's visiting all the classrooms to get their opinions, ideas, and interpretations on the idea of bullying.

Important Reminders:

Tuesday 10/18:

1. Vaid Helpers AM

2. Before school Mr. Vaid small group help

3. Enrichment

Wednesday: 10/19:

1. Late start 9:05

2. Conference notes go home.

3. After school Mr. Vaid small group help

4. Vaid helpers PM

Thursday 10/20:

1. Enrichment

Friday 10/21:

1. Spelling Test

2. 1st quarter ends

3. Vaid Helpers AM

Curricular Update (Week of 10/11-10/14 and important reminders

Hi 5V Families! Here is an update for what the 5th graders will we be up to during this abridged week of school. :)

Special Note: FAMILY READING NIGHT IS THIS TUESDAY NIGHT @ 6:15. ALL THE 5TH GRADE TEACHERS WILL BE PRESENT. IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO SIGN UP AND ATTEND! HOPE YOU CAN COME!

Reading:

1. Through their new work with the non-fiction genre project, the kids will learn how to collect information with note taking, infer what facts and knowledge mean, all with the purpose of publishing this information through some medium afterwards.
2. We will study more comprehension strategies to do before and during reading and test taking strategies as part of our typical reading week. We'll use our read aloud story, silent reading book, and Time for Kids magazines to accomplish this.
3. The kids will also study some figurative language like idioms and later in writing class we will use figurative language in our poetry.
4. We'll also study some new vocabulary words like pungent, essential, and more that relate to our study of prefixes and suffixes. (Last week we studied -ic, -sub, and -ous)

Writing:

1. There are three major components to our writing this week: Writing memoirs, writing poetry, and students developing their own self selected writing. The last component will always remain a pillar of our writing this year.
2. Memoirs: We have done a lot of immersion and will continue more this week. Students will pick the memory they will write about on Monday and on Tuesday through Thursday we will do some close readings with writing skills and literary skills. Then on Friday we write our first draft!
3. Poetry: On Friday we went outside and wrote fall poetry. We will continue that this week and apply figurative language, appropriate word choice, and poetic techniques to our poems.
4. Self Selected Writing: The kids are so excited to begin their rough drafts of their own self selected writing. We have finished studying the pre-writing process and now they write rough drafts this week after another mini lesson on pre-writing.

Math:

1. Students in regular 5th grade math will be studying geometry. This includes measuring angles, studying triangles, identifying polygons and even doing a little data study with the American Tour lessons.
2. Students in accel math will be wrapping up unit 2 and will finish up with the study of division and interpreting remainder values. There will be three days of math this week. A test will be next week.

Social Studies:

1. We make our way to the colony of Roanoke in Virginia on Tuesday. We will study the early colonization of North America and its settlers.
2. While we study, we will read selected headings from our book, learn from videos, secondary sources, including other texts.
3. Some of our work will include poetry and journaling.

Citizenship:

1. The students are studying the problem solving steps.
2. We used a democratic model of voting similar to how our Congress passes a bill as a way to vote on classroom interests such as a bathroom break after specials or not. We'll continue to this model. The boys are members of the House and the girls are Senators. We studied how many votes are needed in each house to pass the bill and what happens when one house does not pass the bill. I'll post the voting results/records later. The kids REALLY ENJOYED this!
3. This week we'll also bond as a class by having some lunch outside together in this nice fall weather.

Reminders for this week:

Monday 10/10:

• No School

Tuesday 10/11:

• Enrichment
• Family Reading Night

Wednesday 10/12:

• Half day of School (12:15pm dismissal)

Thursday 10/13:

• Enrichment

Friday 10/14:

• One week before 1st quarter ends