5th Grade Weekly Newsletter
September 11th, 2026
Parent Night Presentations
Thank you for attending Parent Night on Thursday. IF you were not able to make it or if you want to review the presentations. Please use the attachment below both Mrs. Hallin’s presentation as well as our 5th Grade presentation from Back to School Night.
Conversation Starter
- Find out more about Mrs. Hansen and the History in the Hallway.
- Find out more about nine square during recess.
- Find out more about geography and learn how latitude and longitude help us locate places on Earth.
- Ask about today's spelling and their progress on the final draft of the personal essay.
- Ask about the tape ball.
- Find out more about science and what they are learning about day and night.
- Check in on math and how they are doing. They have a math test on Thursday next week.
- Ask about world languages.
Curriculum Connections
We are slowly adding in curriculum with our community building. It will take a few weeks to fully ramp up with all subjects. This also applies to homework. We will slowly start adding in more homework in the coming weeks.
Religion: This week we learned about God the Creator.
Math: This week we completed the first chapter in our math curriculum. Next week, we will review for the Chapter test on Thursday.
Reading/Writing:Our students are making excellent progress on their personal essays! This week, they continued refining their pieces through the writing process, benefiting from special guest check-ins with Ms. Hallin and Ms. Schletz. This week we also started our ELA homework packets and completed our first spelling test.
Important Upcoming Deadlines & Dates:
- Wednesday, September 16: Final drafts of the personal essay are due.
- Wednesday, September 16: We will officially begin our new novel study on Hello, Universe.
Science: This week we went outside to learn about shadows and the sun. Students had so much fun tracing their shadows, playing shadow tag, and learning about why shadows changes position shape and orientation
Social Studies: Our geography unit is focusing on the continents, oceans, and latitude and longitude. We learned about the major lines such as the Prime Meridian, Equator, Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, along with the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.
Of course languages and specialists are off and running. Ask your students about those classes and their teachers!
Allergy Aware Snack and Water Bottles
We allow students to enjoy a brief snack time every day around 8:50. Students are responsible for bringing their own snacks.
We require an allergy aware healthy protein or fruit/veggie option. We encourage students to bring snacks that will not trigger nut allergies, and definitely do not share snacks if they do not know about the contents.
We love to see apples, oranges, bananas, cheese sticks, yogurt, hummus, pita, applesauce, etc.
Water: (only clear water please)
Students have access to water fountains and fill up stations. They are welcome to bring a water bottle. Please no straws/spill able bottles.
Bring Family Photos
Please print and bring family and student photos for our photo walls.
Every year we create a photo wall in our classroom where student family photos are displayed. It communicates that we all share our room and our classroom community with each other and it emphasizes how important our families are. We are all apart of the team, and there is comfort and joy when we see our families in our classrooms.
We encourage students to bring them this week, but photos are gladly accepted all year.
Shoes and Socks:
- Uniform shoes should be a solid, white, low top athletic shoe.
- Students should also have shoes to change into for Phy Ed, Recess and Extended Day.
- Socks need to be white (not navy, not gray).
- Socks cannot have logos (Nike swoosh, Polo horse and logo, etc)
Monday, September 14 – Base Camp 🧗♀️
- What to wear: Any VIS wear shirt, comfortable shorts, and shoes
- Departure: We will leave VIS at 8:30 a.m.
- Return: We expect to return to VIS around 2:30 p.m.
Visitor Badges:
Related to our morning routine, K–5 students should be walking independently into school each morning. This helps build confidence and allows students to transition smoothly into their school day.
If an adult needs to escort a child into the building, they will need to enter through Door #5 and check in at the front desk using our Raptor security system. For the safety of our students, no visitors or guests will be permitted into the building without a name tag and badge.
We greatly appreciate all families honoring these safety and security procedures and helping us maintain a welcoming environment for our students."
Rotation Days - Specialists schedule update
Mansour:
Blue Day: Art at 8:10, Spanish at 2:00
Red Day: Music at 8:10, library checkouts at 8:50 (first Red Day of the week), French at 2:00
Yellow Day: P.E. at 8:10, Stem at 1:00, Chinese at 2:00
Drake:
Blue Day: Music at 8:10, Chinese at 2:00
Red Day: P.E. at 8:10, library checkouts at 8:50 (first Red Day of the week), Spanish at 2:00
Yellow Day: Stem at 8:10, Art at 1:00, French at 2:00.
For Both Classes:
- Religion will be once or twice a week at 1:30.
- SEL is once a week for each class at 1:30
- Orchestra meets on Tuesdays at 11:30 and Ms. McGuire hosts an ensemble on Fridays at 2:45 regardless of rotation day. Questions: reach out to Jmcguire@vischool.org
- Vistory with Mrs. Hansen twice a month.
Important Dates
September 14-18, Homecoming Week
Monday September 14, Base Camp for 5th Grade
Thursday September 17, Homecoming Pep Rally, 10:10am
Thursday September 17, Homecoming Sport Night, 3pm
Friday September 18, Formal Uniform
Friday September 18, All School Mass and Flag Raising, 9:05am
Thursday October 1, Early Release Day.
Homecoming Theme Days
Monday: Anything but your age (Dress like a baby, dress elderly) Monday: 5th grade Base Camp (Vis wear top, comfortable bottoms & shoes) Tuesday: Class Colors (Class color shirts, Uniform bottoms & shoes) Wednesday: Anything but the occasion (Future job, future self) Thursday: Homecoming Provided Shirts (Uniform bottoms & shoes) Thursday: All School Pep Rally, 10:10am Thursday: PA Sponsored Sport Night Events, 3:00pm Friday: Formal Uniform: Mass and Flag Raising, 9:05am
Daily Schedule
Classrooms open each day at 7:45am
Prayer followed by Morning Meeting each day at 8:00am
All students that arrive after prayer will report to the Front Desk
Dismissal carline begins each afternoon at 2:45pm
We encourage our fifth grade students to arrive at 7:45 so they can help with our morning jobs. We support the school by preparing the dining room and we also help lead morning prayers. Additionally, we ask our students to complete other morning tasks and work before we leave for specialists at 8:10.
Multiplication Squares
Science - Day and Night
