Important Dates
February 8th & 13th - Student-Led Parent/Teacher Conferences
February 16th & 19th - No School
Student Led Conferences
Please sign up for a conference time with your child’s homeroom teacher if you haven’t yet. An email was sent out by Mr. Albers on February 1st- check there for details.
Reminder- your 5th grader has an electronic portfolio to share with you showcasing what he/she has been learning, strengths, and any areas that need improvement for each class. At least the Core Classes need to be shared with you before your scheduled (Zoom) conference. It would also be helpful if you were able to check PowerSchool for progress on learning standards and learner behaviors.
Yearbooks
Don’t forget to order a DMS yearbook! To order, students can take $20 (cash or check) to the DMS office. The deadline to order is February 23rd. Get yours today!
CLASSROOM NEWS
Math with Mrs. Halweg
Hybrid Math- This week in math we started our unit on multiplying and dividing fractions and mixed numbers. We’ll continue to practice these skills next week as well.
Math 5- In math this week we wrapped up our unit on adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers with unlike denominators. Your student was assessed over their knowledge of these skills on Thursday. They’ll be bringing home these assessments to share with you next week.
Language with Mr. Amundson
In Language class the past few weeks students have been working on sequential writing. Our unit focused on using How It’s Made videos, taking notes on that video of choice, and writing a paper on the process of how the object is made. The students include headings, and details, along with a sidebar with additional information connected to the topic of their paper. We are planning on finishing up with this activity early next week and do a few sharing days where students share information from their sidebar with their peers.
Reading with Mrs. Nowack
We wrapped up our unit on natural disasters and students are excited to show you how they have been interacting with the texts. Students have been practicing their summarizing skills. Today we celebrated the 100th day of 5th grade (which is also approximately the 1000th day of school for 5th graders)!
Reminder: Students are expected to read from their IR book daily (it should travel from home to school each day).
Science with Mr. Peterson
We are now in the final stage of our engineering project. In this stage, students use all they have learned to design and build cars that they will enter into contests: Heavy Haulern (hauling the most pennies 1 meter), Speed (fastest over 5 meters), Turtle Car (longest continuous runtime), Distance (farthest.) The designs are looking good! Students will share a car design with you during student-led conferences.
What’s happening outside right now? I’ll post some videos that Larry Reis from Winneshiek County Conservation made over the last several years. Each video highlights some organisms you might be able to see outside at this time of the year. This episode features female and male common redpolls and smoke morph eastern wild turkeys.
Social Studies with Mr. Fromm
What we did: Doing a serious Document Based Inquiry – the students will show you the outcome of this for Student Led Conferences
Where we are going: Headed towards The Revolution!
Questions/Prompts for your student: Why is asking sourcing questions important for understanding information?
Additional Information
Below is a Spanish copy of this newsletter as rendered by Google Translate.
February 8th & 13th - Student-Led Parent/Teacher Conferences
February 16th & 19th - No School
Student Led Conferences
Please sign up for a conference time with your child’s homeroom teacher if you haven’t yet. An email was sent out by Mr. Albers on February 1st- check there for details.
Reminder- your 5th grader has an electronic portfolio to share with you showcasing what he/she has been learning, strengths, and any areas that need improvement for each class. At least the Core Classes need to be shared with you before your scheduled (Zoom) conference. It would also be helpful if you were able to check PowerSchool for progress on learning standards and learner behaviors.
Yearbooks
Don’t forget to order a DMS yearbook! To order, students can take $20 (cash or check) to the DMS office. The deadline to order is February 23rd. Get yours today!
CLASSROOM NEWS
Math with Mrs. Halweg
Hybrid Math- This week in math we started our unit on multiplying and dividing fractions and mixed numbers. We’ll continue to practice these skills next week as well.
Math 5- In math this week we wrapped up our unit on adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers with unlike denominators. Your student was assessed over their knowledge of these skills on Thursday. They’ll be bringing home these assessments to share with you next week.
Language with Mr. Amundson
In Language class the past few weeks students have been working on sequential writing. Our unit focused on using How It’s Made videos, taking notes on that video of choice, and writing a paper on the process of how the object is made. The students include headings, and details, along with a sidebar with additional information connected to the topic of their paper. We are planning on finishing up with this activity early next week and do a few sharing days where students share information from their sidebar with their peers.
Reading with Mrs. Nowack
We wrapped up our unit on natural disasters and students are excited to show you how they have been interacting with the texts. Students have been practicing their summarizing skills. Today we celebrated the 100th day of 5th grade (which is also approximately the 1000th day of school for 5th graders)!
Reminder: Students are expected to read from their IR book daily (it should travel from home to school each day).
Science with Mr. Peterson
We are now in the final stage of our engineering project. In this stage, students use all they have learned to design and build cars that they will enter into contests: Heavy Haulern (hauling the most pennies 1 meter), Speed (fastest over 5 meters), Turtle Car (longest continuous runtime), Distance (farthest.) The designs are looking good! Students will share a car design with you during student-led conferences.
What’s happening outside right now? I’ll post some videos that Larry Reis from Winneshiek County Conservation made over the last several years. Each video highlights some organisms you might be able to see outside at this time of the year. This episode features female and male common redpolls and smoke morph eastern wild turkeys.
Social Studies with Mr. Fromm
What we did: Doing a serious Document Based Inquiry – the students will show you the outcome of this for Student Led Conferences
Where we are going: Headed towards The Revolution!
Questions/Prompts for your student: Why is asking sourcing questions important for understanding information?
Additional Information
Below is a Spanish copy of this newsletter as rendered by Google Translate.