Off to a Super New Year!

Hello!

I am so SUPER excited for this new year to begin!  It has been a fun summer, although busy!  We are listing our home to sell as I type, so I may have some big changes before I know it!  I love teaching 5th grade at Westridge, and look forward to meeting a whole new group of kiddos.  Our theme for the year will be SUPERHERO's, so be thinking about things that make people extra wonderful.  Some of my first thoughts are about people who serve in the military. What can you think of?

We will have a fantastic year filled with loads of learning; reading, math, science, history, my fun stories, and much more. :) 5th grade is a time when most students work and learn harder than ever before.  There is so much to think deeply about and to discover.  I look forward to getting to know each of you and your families.

Mrs. Fuller :)

Hello,
     I am so excited about our state reports on Thursday, March 5th!  The students have put so much work into their research and have displayed so much creativity.  Please stop by if you get a chance between 12:30 (we will start setting up then) and 3:00.  Feel free to ask questions about their state and what the favorite things are that they have learned about.  We will have in-class presentations the following week.
     Another great thing in our classroom is the incubator full of duck eggs.  We have 20 eggs, and have seen the veins and hearts through the shells when we candle the eggs in the dark.  Please ask your child about this!  It is part of our unit on heredity and traits.  We will be having a drawing for ducklings right before Spring Break.  It will require a signed permission slip for a student to be able to put their name in.  We will send those after the ducks hatch. QUACK! QUACK!
     In math, we are just coming out of the decimal unit and heading into the fraction unit.  This is usually a challenging time of year in math for 5th graders.  In reading, the students have just started another round of book clubs with some amazing chapter books from our UVU reading study.  It is very helpful to have some great literature to share with the kiddos.
     Ask your student to share some of their assignments with you from their Google Drive account so you can see what they are doing!  I recommend their camouflage slide shows!  These kids keep amazing me!
Keep READING,
Mrs. Fuller

Great Day!

Today, we had a class meeting, which we call "Circle Time" (because we sit in a circle on our chairs).  As part of this meeting, I teach the children how to give (and receive) a meaningful compliment, such as: "I would like to compliment __________.  I noticed that he/she included kids at recess that looked lonely."  After we went one round about the circle, complimenting the person who sat at our left, several piped up about how much fun they had and asked if we could go another round.  We did, and I heard students comment about how nice it felt to have someone say something nice about them, and also how nice it felt to say something nice.  We realized that a compliment could be given to a different gender person and it didn't mean that they were getting married! :) (~ big stuff for 5th grade!!!)
I about cried at how sweet and genuine the children were.  What a dynamic group!  Bravo Parents for raising children who enjoy being kind.  

On an unrelated note, remember that it is Fall Break and we have NO SCHOOL on Thursday, Friday, or Monday!  Please encourage your kiddos to read a good book or two.  Have a wonderful holiday!
Mrs. Fuller