Last week of School :(

Dear 5^th grade families,

As the year draws to a close, and Mrs. Dohner and I begin to realize we won’t be spending every day with the wonderful children we’ve come to know and love so much this year for much longer, we wanted to officially thank everyone.  I can honestly say, and I believe Mrs. Dohner would agree, 5^th grade this year was awesome, challenging, rewarding, and, at times, frustrating but most of all, never dull! Thanks to all the fabulous children and their amazing families for all the help this year, you have been a bedrock of support and we truly and sincerely appreciate every bit of it. We have worked our hardest to help your children realize success, have a little fun, grow to love (…like?...tolerate?) math and language arts and mostly, to become prepared for the challenges of middle school. It has been our privilege to teach your children, one we don’t take lightly.  Thanks again, for sharing this journey and your beautiful children with us.

So, let’s have a party! After awards on Monday, June 4th (around 11:00) we thought we might order in a little pizza from Angelo’s  and have a great big 5^th grade style lunch and social. We’ll end the day with a kickball game out in the field. Once again, we’ll need some of your help.  Please send in $5.00, to cover the cost of pizza, we need donations of soda or tea (last names A-L), and chips (last names M-Z). Mrs. Dohner and I will supply dessert.  If your child doesn’t like or want pizza, just send them something else, but please fill out the form and return it so we know how much pizza we’ll need. Also, we will require a parent to pick up the pizza for us, as NCS frowns on teachers leaving students to pick up pizza in the middle of the day.  All families are welcome!  

Thanks again,

Mrs. Berner

____________________detach here and return______________________________________

Child’s name _________________________________ # of people  attending ___________

I am enclosing $ ___________ to help pay for pizza.

I will donate _______________________________.

I can pick up the pizza! _________________________ phone # _______________________(we’ll call the first positive response we get)

Week of May 21

Well, folks, here we go! The reading EOG for 5th grade is Monday, May 21st! Please make sure students are well rested and fed a healthy breakfast. This is a very long test (up to 4 hours, and some students will need all 4 hours) We have been preparing for this test all year, and most students are ready to shine! As you may have heard, students buried their testing fears on Friday, so we are full steam ahead.

Math testing will be both Tuesday and Wednesday. We get results Wednesday for math and reading. If a student needs to retake the test, parents will be called Wednesday after school. If I cannot reach a parent, I will leave a message that I called and that your student will need to retest. I will not discuss results in a message.

There will be some students who need to retest. This is not a reason to panic or to be upset. Students are given two attempts for good reason, everyone has an off day once in awhile. We will remediate students who need another pass, and they will retest next week. If your student does not earn a "3" or "4" the second time around, administration,  parents and teachers will discuss the best approach to next year for the student. Decisions regarding next year are always based on what is best for the student. If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail me. Thanks and good luck!

Week of May 7

 This just in!!! Emalee and Jacob G. won Honorable Mention in the Judicial Council of California's 1st Amendment Cartoon Contest!!! There were over 1,000 entries! And our class won 2 of the 5 Honorable Mentions!!!!!!!
During Black History Month, Berner and Brindles classes submitted cartoons based on the 1st amendment right to petition (or protest) our government to The Judicial Council of California 1st Amendment Cartoon Contest. Students drew cartoons in one panel of ways  people displayed the passive resistance we learned about during Black History Month. There were 1010 entries nationwide and, not one, but two, Neuse Charter 5th graders won an Honorable Mention! Way to go Jacob G and Emalee ! Congratulations and well done!!!Check out their work, I posted them on one of the pages! Check them out!

Here's the link to the winning images:
http://www.courtsed.org/firstamendmentcontest2012/Page2.html


I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend. It finally cooled off a bit. I really enjoyed the evening rain on my front porch on Saturday.

I have been posting grades this weekend for the progress reports that go home on Wednesday. Fortunately, for some of you, this is just the progress report and there will be time to improve grades. Week before last, I sent  notes or wrote in agendas stating that child's homework grades, and I asked for parents to sign them. Some returned them, some didn't. I also went over in class, who was missing assignments, what they were and when they could make them up. Only one student took me up on it. There are MANY missing assignments. When students go to 6th grade, it is not likely their teachers will post all missing assignments, give makeup time or work, even take late assignments, write in all students agendas or remind, daily, that students are missing work or homework. At this point in the year, students really should begin taking responsibility for missing work. In life, there are deadlines and when they pass, they are passed. There are consequences for missing them. I am very concerned about the lack of maturity in some students. I want to send all 5th graders to 6th grade ready to be successful. There are at least 16 students who failed to makeup work this rotation, and all were reminded they had work to do. There are 31 students who earned less than 60% on homework. I offered extra credit for homework last week, 6-7 students took me up on it. Please discuss with your student the importance of being academically responsible.

We will continue to work on review and the Native American project this week. We begin writing the essay for the book report in class tomorrow, please make sure student's have their book with them.