5th Grade Hawkeyes

Good Afternoon Parents! Just a reminder that 5th/6th grade Bingo Bash is coming up soon! Bingo Bash for the 5th and 6th graders will be on Thursday Oct. 5th from 2:50-3:30 in the Cafeteria. There will be prizes and snacks. Please arrange to pick up your child from school at 3:30 if they are attending that day.

As of now, we are surviving the Heat Wave of 2017!  How lucky we were to start school with such comfortable weather but now we're digging deep to make it through this bout of heat.   Who would've thought that we'd have 90 degree temps at the end of September?!  Honestly, the students are doing a great job.  Thankfully we start the day with comfortable temps in the classroom and by the time it gets really hot outside, our day is almost done.  Regardless, we're all learning how important it is to stay hydrated and be mindful of the heat.  We can do this ... One more day! Math - Last week we started investigating addition and subtraction of mixed numbers with like denominators.  We are continuing that this week but adding another element .... different denominators!  Yikes!  There's certainly a lot of steps involved in these problems. Math RtI - Last week we focused on reviewing several of the multiplication strategies.  This week we are looking into long division.

Just a reminder that tomorrow Team Dransen will be heading to the 5th grade day camp.  We will leave here at 7:30am and return at 5pm. Students should remember to bring: -A sack lunch (unless they ordered one from food service) -Snacks -Water bottle -A small backpack to keep their things in.  They may also want to have an extra pair of socks (if their feet get wet.) Please make sure to watch the weather.  We will be outside for the day (even if there's rain).   The mornings can be a bit chilly so a light jacket or sweatshirt may make the morning more comfortable for them. Let us know what questions you have!

9 days in and we're already getting into the swing of things!  It's been great getting to know the kids and see new friendships begin to develop.  Next week we have our 5th grade trip to day camp and the kids will get more of a chance to know each other outside of the classroom.  A note came home today with some reminders about camp, please make sure to ask your child to share that with you (it should be in their Friday Folder).  Have a fabulous weekend! A few notes on what we've been working on this week:   Math.  Our focus this week has been fractions.  Chapter 1 is all about adding and subtracting fractions.  There's a great deal of review but also the addition of adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators.  Next week we'll continue working on that in class.  One thing that we've all learned is how important it is to know the multiplication facts.  If you know the facts, it's much easier to figure out factors and multiples. Reading.

Hello parents, My name is Mandi Hulst, and I am a senior at Hope College. I will be student teaching in Mrs. Hansen ’ s classroom, until December 15. I am studying Elementary Education, with an emphasis on English Language Arts. After I graduate, I am hoping to be a lower elementary teacher in the West Michigan area. I graduated from Hamilton High School in 2013, and am so excited to be back in my home middle school working with your child(ren)! Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I have worked with children all my life, from babysitting, to being a camp counselor, volunteering at Blue Star, and being in different field placements for my classes at Hope. Some of my hobbies include reading, shopping, watching movies, and anything to do with the Detroit Tigers. In Mrs. Hansen ’ s classroom, I will be working with students one-on-one, in small groups, eventually taking over and teaching the class. My past field placements have been at Eagle Crest Cha

We've created a classroom album called “Team Dransen 2017-18” on the app Homeroom, where we'll be posting photos, videos and more. To join the album and get updates when new things are posted, click on this link:  https://gethomeroom.com/i/ S48XVR27   We're looking forward to giving you a window into the classroom!

Your child has successfully completed their 1st week at the Middle School!  They're most likely a little tired from the early mornings :) This blog is our way of communicating with all of you as to what is happening in the "Dransen" team.  The students voted on creating that team name during one of our collaborating times.  The students will be in their homeroom for language arts and math but all students will do social studies with Mrs. Drenten and science with Mrs. Hansen. The majority of our week was spent doing activities to get to know each other.  We also did some assessing of the students in math to see what skills the students retained from previous years.  On Monday we'll be going over the Chapter 1 pretest (adding and subtracting fractions).  Each day we'll be beginning our day with math in our classes. A couple of notes after Week 1 .... 1.  Snacks.  Each morning we have a snack break at 10:15am.  The students are finding they are quite hungry b