5th Grade Forest Program: December 5, 2025

UPCOMING EVENTS AND REMINDERS

Calling all 5th graders! We need your help!

What: YOU helping shepherd our younger Forest School families through the woods by candlelight reading Luke 2.

When: Friday, December 12 from 6-7:30pm

Where: Forest School cabins/woods

You will be paired with another 5th grader to be leaders so you won't be alone! We will also have hot chocolate for all of our helpers (and everyone else there ).

Parents, if this is something your child is interested in it, and can commit to, please let us know!

Feel free to email your kiddos teacher or audrey.ryckman@gmail.com or if easier, text Audrey at (740)215-1533 and she will reach out with more details. Thank you for helping make this event so special!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! We will be presenting our water quality work during an open house at Pine Ridge on Thursday, December 11 at 8:30 - 9:45 am. We will start in the Media Center for a welcome and instructions and then given time to listen to students present on their investigative questions and data. We would love for you to join us!

Our Pine Ridge annual charity collection will run through Tuesday, 12/16. 5th grade will collect items for Hope Packages. This organization provides “first night” bags for children entering foster care. Last week a green flyer was in your child's Take Home Folder highlighting new items that students can donate. Thank you!

3rd Annual “And Heaven And Nature Sing” Family Fun

We hope you can join us for a special evening in the Forest with your family from 6:00 - 7:30pm on Friday, December 12! As part of this third annual event for FS K-5 families, the FS Parent Board has planned a special craft, a guided nighttime hike through Luke 2, and Christmas caroling together! Kindly RSVP for this event by Friday, December 5.

Book Fair: December 8-10

COME AND SHOP! Every purchase helps us earn new books for our Pine Ridge library!! Please sign up to help us make our school book fair a successful event. Outside of the in person shopping times, you can also order online starting December 5th.

Winter reminders:

-Snow gear should be brought and taken home daily. This helps keep our students warm, dry and the lockers smelling nice.

-Snowballs are only allowed to be thrown at the maroon wall. Students who need more than a few reminders will need to spend time reviewing the expectations before heading out for the following recess.

-No sleds or other snow tools are permitted at school or the playground for the safety of all students.

Be prepared to play outside:

Less than 50 degrees; all students must have a jacket outside and we will go out for the normal duration of outdoor time.
10-0 degrees we will go out for a maximum of 15 minutes.
Less than 0 we will enjoy recess inside.

Curriculum Highlights

BIBLE: This week we looked at the time in history that Jesus was born. Understanding the time period and the land grows our understanding.

MATH: Multiplying fractions has been our focus this week! Not just multiplying them but also simplifying those fractions. This has required some practice!

OUTDOOR LEARNING: We have started to work on some survival skills. In preparation for tarp shelter building next week, we needed to learn how to tie some knots. We practiced a square knot, bowline knot, clove and slip knots, and then a trucker's hitch (our hardest one so far).

READING: We have started studying informational (non-fiction) text. We are looking at Narrative Informational text. Students are reading a book about Colonial America called Eating the Plates. We have been previewing our text looking for text features as well as working on making predictions.

SCIENCE: With the fresh snow we hiked into the woods at Hemlock Crossing and did some work with snow density and the water ratio of the snow that fell over the weekend. We hope to compare that data to snow that falls later in the season.

SOCAL STUDIES: We have recently finished our study out the "Meeting of Three Worlds." North America (Indigenous People Groups), Europeans (explorers), and people groups from Africa. We will now start to look at the colonization and settlement of the east coast.

WRITING: We have published our scientific essays and have worked on writing our scripts in preparation for our Water Quality Presentation on Thursday, December 11 at Pine Ridge.