February 1 - 5, 2010 

Bayshore Book Battle Coming !!!!!
       Our school now has several copies of all 15 books that won Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Award last year!  For the last few years Lee County Schools has sponsored a "Book Battle" among the elementary schools in which teams from each school compete against one another on their knowledge of all 15 books.  
       We have decided to form a team this year.  If you signed a permission form for your child, he or she will get to start reading these books.  For all students who are able to read all 15 by April 1 and receive an 80% or higher on the AR tests, they will then take another comprehensive test on all 15 and the team will then be chosen.  Keeping up with regular classroom expectations and maintaining proper behavior is another prerequisite.
       Click on the link and find a list of the books with brief descriptions of each.  Feel free to take your child to the public library to find copies because we only have a limited supply.  

Spelling City  New!!  Check out the link listed to the left and play games with this week's words.  Then test yourself with a quiz or print out practice sheets. 


Accelerated Reading

All the students now have new goals for the 3rd quarter.  Please help them out by encouraging them to read each night.  The general guideline is that a 5th grade needs to be reading about 45 minutes to an hour a day or about 40 pages a day.  We give them about 20 - 30 minutes in class. 

Great questions to ask your children about their books: 

For a non-fiction book:

Tell me a fact you just learned.
Show me a text feature (map, photo, chart) that was interesting to you.
Read a caption to me in which you found something new.
What is a question you now have about your subject?
Read me a paragraph you found really interesting.

For a fiction book:

Who is the main character and what is his/her problem?
What is the setting? 
Tell me three characteristics about the main character.
Tell me about an event you thought was exciting/scary/funny?
What do you think will happen next?
If you were the main character, what would you do next?
What do you want to happen in the end?
If you could change the ending, what would you change?

Reading

Title:  "Zathura"
Skills: Making Inferences

Vocabulary Words:  robot, defective, meteor, rotated, staggered, reversed, dangling, tokens

Language Arts

Grammar Skill: Irregular verbs
Grammar Quiz:  February 4
Spelling - For a list of the words, click on the "Spelling City"

Spelling Quiz:  February 4

Social Studies

State Report - This week, the students will be presenting their state to the class.

States and Capitols - North central region this week