5th Grade Weekly Update

The first month of 2020 has flown by!!!

-We are having more and more students coming to school with their chromebooks not charged. We are really pushing student responsibility. Please check with your student each night about making sure their computers are charged and ready for school the next day. We really appreciate it!

- Please remind your child to leave air pods at home. We have seen students bringing these and wearing them in class. Since we have headphones in the class, we would hate for students to lose their air pods - so please leave these at home. Thanks so much for your support.

- Our grade level will continue to reinforce our refreshed expectations. We are proud of our students and know they are amazing examples for all the other OCT Tigers here at school!

- Taylor Tiger Choir

All 4th and 5th graders are invited to attend!
We meet every Thursday from 2:55-4:00 p.m. in the OCT Music room.

https://www.facebook.com/colleyvillemiddlepta/

https://twitter.com/cmscoltspta?lang=en

https://www.instagram.com/cmscoltspta/?hl=en

You can also find information on our website cmscoltspta.org

In addition to these links the school also has a Facebook account, Twitter, an Instagram. It’s under Colleyville Middle School. The PTA and the school are big on communication, so like both the schools links and the PTAs links.

Jennifer Bargy

CMS PTA President

2019-2020

Forms were sent home Thursday, January 9th for the Six Flags Read to Succeed Program. All 5th graders will be required to participate - this will be taken as a reading grade. All they have to do is read 6 hours between now and April 17 and they will receive a free Six Flags ticket that can be used during the summer of 2020. Parents will log their children's reading time into an online reading log this year. There will be no need to turn in a paper log. The form your child received on Thursday will have your child's class code on it. If you have questions or lost your login code, please feel free to contact Mrs. Fiffik.

Each year, the OC Taylor yearbook features pages with fifth graders' baby photos. It's fun to guess who's who (there is a key provided at the end of the section) and see how far the kids have all come!

How to Submit Photos

a) Digital or scanned photos need to be emailed to tiffany.daggercummin@gcisd.net.

(preferred)

b) Hard copies of photos can be sent in an envelope with your child's name on the back.

Photo Guidelines

• For digital photos, high resolution (300 dpi) is best. Most photos taken with a standard digital camera will be fine, but we will contact you if a photo is too small/low resolution to print.
• If you are scanning a photo, please send it as a JPEG and not a PDF.
• The photo should be of your child aged 0-2. The photo should have a clear view of the face; close-ups work well. The photo should ideally not have other people in it, so we can feature only your child in.
• Be sure to include your child's identification, as described above. Photos without identification will not be printed.

Please email your photo to tiffany.daggercummin@gcisd.net by February 7!

-January 27th - wear RED in honor of Chinese New Year

-January 29th - Geography Bee - 8:30-10 for 4th/5th graders,

-January 29th - yearbook, NEHS meets

-January 30th - choir and talent show dress rehearsal

-January 30th - District Spelling Bee at CTMS

-January 30th - Unit 6 DISTRICT MATH TEST

-January 31st - OCT Talent Show at 8:30 am and again at 6:30 pm

-February 4th - 100th Day of School! Spring Creek Spirit Night!

-February 4th - Units 9-11 DISTRICT SCIENCE TEST

-February 5th - yearbook meets

-February 6th - choir meets

-February 7th - wear red for "GO RED" day, Positive Proof, running club, OCT Sock Hop

-February 12th - TTT meets

-February 13th - choir

-February 14th - Valentine's Day class parties

-February 17th - district staff development - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS!

5th-grade parents - PTA is asking each 5th grader's family to contribute $40. This will take care of all parties through the end of the school year! This contribution goes towards the 5th-grade Continuation Ceremony's decorations and snacks AND the 5th-grade end-of-year party's venue and food.

PTA is asking NOW so they can budget accordingly and so that all can enjoy the rest of the school year and all of the fun things during this final year in elementary school!

Venmo: @channing-borecki

Please make checks out to Channing Borecki

For all questions, please reach out to Channing Borecki, 5th grade GLC at 817-437-4247 or at channingborecki@gmail.com.

Parents, our amazing students grow so much from our daily lessons and we are wanting to provide as much direct instruction to them daily as possible. We are noticing that student absences in the mornings are increasing.

Our daily core instruction begins promptly at 7:40 am and runs to 11:10 am.

While we understand that appointments are needed throughout the year, if at all possible, please try to schedule these during the afternoon hours or after school to help us maximize your student's learning. We just want their sweet, smiling faces in class! Thank you for your support!

All 5th graders have received an O.C.Taylor planner. We are doing a quick daily briefing with the planners in our classes in addition to the larger Monday Meeting where we lay out the week(s). We would encourage you to please check your student's planner daily to help reinforce these helpful management strategies!

We are asking that you please sign your student's planner at least once a week as a way to show that you are in the communication loop! They get prizes for this too!

Here are our expectations for the hour of Tiger Time. We use this time to check-in with students to see that they have completed and submitted all incomplete/missing work for both Humanities and Math/Science in an effort to limit or avoid them having to work on anything at home. This time will still be used by teachers for small-group instruction and remediation or extension as needed. When students are pulled from core instruction for special services, we also utilize Tiger Time to catch them up from instruction they missed earlier in the day.

- Extension activities - We want Tiger Time to be inclusive of all our learners. In addition to having time for completing their regular classwork, the students also have menu choice boards for both Humanities and Math that are meant to supplement our instruction, extend lessons in fun ways, and are great ways to review content past what is covered in class.

- For GT students, we understand that they don't have Tiger Time Mon-Wed. They will have Tiger Time on Thursdays and Fridays to help them reclaim some time to make up or complete anything from class that they might be missing to help them with their workload.

- Telescopers - Mrs. Griffin pulls this group on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays from 10:40-11:10. On Tuesdays/Thursdays, they will have this same time window to work on any unfinished or missing assignments they have from Humanities, Math, or Science to help them with their workload.

- *Students should only be on Prodigy and other online sites after all work has been completed and their teachers have confirmed they are not missing anything. This should also be limited to about 10 minutes as they have the menu choice boards they can be working from as well*

We know that many of you are new to your student receiving numeric grades. We want to make you all aware of our grading policy in 5th grade this year. This policy is also posted in our 5th grade Curriculum Night Slideshow presentation.

We are a no-homework campus. If classwork requires extra time, it will come home as unfinished classwork to be completed at home and returned the next day. Assignments scoring below a 70 can be corrected accurately and returned as soon as possible for up to a 70. Tests under 70 will be revisited in small group with a test at a later date for an improved score. Assignments turned in late will be 10 points off every day until the assignment is turned in.

We encourage both parents and students to check Skyward often to monitor student progress. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

sharon.fiffik@gcisd.net - 5th grade Humanities/Team Leader (Reading/Writing/Social Studies)

@OCTFIFFIK

morgan.epperson@gcisd.net - 5th grade Math/Science

@MsEppersonOCT

amber.fields@gcisd.net - 5th grade Math/Science

@OCTFields

michelle.watkins@gcisd.net - 5th grade Resource - all content

@OCTWatkins

tiffany.daggercummin@gcisd.net - 5th grade Humanities (Reading/Writing/Social Studies)

@OCTDagger

Location: 5300 Pool Road, Colleyville, TX, USA
Phone: 817-305-4870