5th Grade Forest Program: October 3, 2025

UPCOMING EVENTS AND REMINDERS

*Are you looking for a way to volunteer? As a school, we would love to give you the opportunity to volunteer and supervise our class for lunch. You would arrive at 11:25, take students through the hot lunch line, and then supervise the class as they eat lunch. Students would be dismissed to the playground for recess at 12:05. If you are interested in helping, please check our sign up! Thank you!

* GRANDPARENTS' DAY - We are excited to be welcoming grandparents on October 13 from 1:00-2:15pm. Grandparents please join us in the gym to worship together starting at 1:00pm. Then join your grandchild in their classroom for some activities. We hope to see you then!

Author Field Trip: 5th graders will travel by bus to Calvin University on Tuesday, 10/28 to culminate our reading and writing units. We will meet award-winning author Gary Schmidt and tour campus. We will be reading Schmidt's book, Pay Attention Carter Jones during class. (The class does not know about the book title yet, so please keep that a secret!)

Students who want Dr. Schmidt to personally autograph a book may purchase it ahead of time and bring it along.

Parent chaperones will be needed for this field trip. Please e-mail Mrs. DeZwaan if you are interested.

Curriculum Highlights

CHAPEL GROUPS: This week we met in our chapel groups. Chapels groups are a time where the whole school is split into mixed grade level groups and share time together with an adult to grow as a community and grow deeper in our understanding of scripture, discipleship practices, and our God.

BIBLE: We completed our first unit of study on the start of Jesus' ministry. We began to talk about how Jesus' ministry started to expand. The ripple effect. Also, ask your child about how we used Sprite and cups to demonstrate how God offers us salvation but we need faith to accept it.

MATH: We took our first Math test in 5th grade! It went better with the hum of the air conditioner, the smell of a candle, and a few smarties to of course make us smarter. ;)

READING: We are wrapping up our first reading unit that focused on comprehension strategies.

After learning those comprehension strategies in our first literacy unit, Read with Power, our Reading Workshop lessons will now focus on thinking deeply about the characters in books.

SCIENCE: We continue doing the field work for our investigations. Students are working in groups of 4 to gather data at different sights about macroinvertebrates, water temperature, turbidity, and pH. AND our Wonder Board has changed into a Project Board!

Research tubs were packed with plastic spoons, isolation tubs, clipboards, thermometers, plant guides, and so much more!

We collected data!

Oh, and we found some interesting PawPaw nuts at Rabbit River Preserve that we were curious about. So, we cut them open and took a look at them under a magiscope.

WRITING: We continue to draft our first narrative. We have tried writing different types of leads (action, talking, and setting) to help us determine the best way to hook our readers.