1st day of School

5th Grade - Mrs. Nosky - ¨Minds Grow Here¨

Tenacity, Integrity, and Compassion - Rising to the Challenge to Instill a Growth Mindset

Dear Parents and Students,

Welcome to Mrs. Nosky's 2024-2025, 5th grade class! We have an exciting curriculum this year! Fifth grade will be an adventure of learning and exploring our world through U.S History, foundational skills in math to prepare for future success, Writer's Workshop, Earth & Space, Life, and Physical Science, A.R. reading, spelling for language acquisition, and of course reading across the curriculum.

As a fifth grader your child can expect to develop ownership of their classroom by becoming a member of our compassionate community, participation in group projects, individual projects and reports, class jobs and possible school leadership and classroom opportunities and the development of mindfulness and individual accountability.

Fifth grade is an exciting year, as students are gaining autonomy for learning, all the while instilling the continued development of routines, skills, and structure that will help them reach success in school. By this time you probably know your child as a student, but even more importantly they will begin to know themselves and the differences they can make to increase their own learning outcomes. This year, we will continue to instill an internal focus of control in education and academic behavior across the board through multiple opportunities for positive discipline that include Golden Hawks, a classroom student store, classroom raffle, Nosky Dollars, trimester celebrations, and earned classroom parties, etc.

Important dates

• Friday, August 16th - Back To School Ice Cream Social hosted by the Rio Del Mar Parent Alliance. There will be live music from Dos Bros!, food trucks, and FREE ice cream. All are welcome. Gates open at 4:30pm.

• Back to School Night: Thursday, August 22nd: K-3 5:00-5:30, Principal Message 5:30-6:00 (in the MPR), 4th-6th 6:00-6:30

I look forward to communicating early and often with you this year. The class blog https://noskysfifthgrade.blogspot.com/  will help you with curriculum, homework, projects and materials. You can Subscribe to the blog via email to receive updates.

Also, I will communicate via email. virginia_nosky@pvusd.net. This is where I will send out pictures, information and organize Parent/Teacher Conferences. 

~ Mrs. Nosky

Home

Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! I am so excited to meet my new 5th grade students on the First Day of School Tuesday, August 15th @7:50. School begins at 7:50 and ends at 2:15 for grades K-6.   Student supervision begins at 7:15 
Friday is a restructured day, 7:50-12:15.  

Please join us on Friday, August 18th for our inaugural Back To School Ice Cream Social hosted by the Rio Del Mar Parent Alliance. There will be live music, food trucks and FREE ice cream. Come along to catch up with old friends and meet your new class members. All are welcome. Gates open at 4:30pm.

• First Day of School: Tuesday, 8/15 

• First Day of School Coffee with Parent Alliance: Tuesday, 8/15 from 7:30-8:30am at Rio del Mar Park (blue playground on the base of campus)

• 5th Grade Field Trip to Santa Cruz Shakespeare 

  Tuesday, Aug 22, 2023 9am – 1:30pm

• Back to School Night: Thursday, 9/7

K-3 5:00-5:30

Principal Message 5:30-6:00 (in the MPR)

4th-6th 6:00-6:30

• We will continue to use a variety of platforms to connect with our community. 

• Rio Website 

• Rio Instagram 

• Rio Facebook 

• Youtube Seahawk News: Because our Youtube videos can only be viewed with a link, it is easiest to subscribe now by clicking on our last video from spring that is linked and then clicking on the subscribe button. 

• Parent Alliance Facebook 

• Parent Alliance Instagram  

• Parent Alliance Website - check out the new website!

virginia_nosky@pvusd.net

Mrs. Nosky’s 5th Grade

Optional School Supply List -not required

• 1 dozen sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga #2

• Headphones/earbuds for to use with Chromebooks

• 1 Marble Composition Notebook (please no spirals)

• reusable water bottle-labeled

• Colored sharpies

• Glue sticks 

• Low Odor Dry Erase Markers and a sock for White-boards

• black sharpies

• 4 Color Ballpoint Pen

• Post-It Notes- (assorted sizes)

Donations

Class supplies are always much needed and greatly appreciated.

The Basics

• Kleenex

• Paper towels

• Baby wipes 

• Colorful Duct Tape

• Wipes for cleaning desks

• Reams of printer paper

• Popcorn

• Amazon gift cards 

• Avery labels 5160

• Ziploc bags (assorted sizes)

• Mod Podge 

“How can I help?”

• Donations to our class fund; art projects, science experiments, math activities, etc…

• Room Parent

• Volunteering in the classroom (Sign up at Back to School Night-  September )

• Sharing a skill: art, yoga, PE, science, sewing, woodwork, any creative activity!

• Chaperoning on field trips

My contact information-

Thank you

Virginia Nosky

virginia_nosky@pvusd.net

Seahawks Soar to Success!

School calendar

 

 Sept. 14

Picture Day is this Friday the 16th!
Please have student bring in the flyer forms to order their pics!

"Sometimes the best way to get ahead is to simply pay attention!"

The garden is Growing

 

Welcome Back!

    Every year, the first day of school gets me as excited as when I was a child. I pick out my clothes, get my lunch ready and wake up super early. I remember one year getting new purple knickers to wear on the first day of school. I couldn't wait for the the year to begin. Things haven't changed much since then (except no purple knickers). I'm ready for a wonderful school year and a positive learning environment. 

 I look forward to communicating early and often with you this year. 

First, this blog will help you with curriculum, homework, projects and materials.  You can  Subscribe to the blog vial email to receive updates.   

Second, I’ve started using the Bloomz app to simplify how I communicate with class parents
I’ve created a group for our class to share updates, pictures, announcements and resources, as well as coordinate activities and field trips. You’ll also be able to share photos and interact with other class parents. You can also sign up for volunteering (hopefully coming soon) right in the app. Download the “Bloomz" app from the AppStore/PlayStore and click on "Enter Code". 

If browser, go to bloomz.com and click on "Join Bloomz" followed by "Enter Code" 

2. In the text box, enter TQCBSP

https://app.bloomz.net:443/api/v4/bedda904-daf8-42ae-bdeb-e2351e6badae/posts/rss 

Back to School Night (virtual)

Thursday, August 26 @6:00-6:30pm, more information will follow later.

 Optional School Supplies-not required

• 1 dozen sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils for the class to share
• 1 package of glue sticks (Avery or "jumbo" preferred) 
• reusable water bottle-labeled
• 1 homework folder-labeled front
• 1 marble composition book
• Headphones/ear buds for to use with Chromebook
• College Ruled Binder Paper

 Kind regards,

Virginia Nosky

5th Grade Teacher

Rio del Mar Elementary School

Virginia_Nosky@pvusd.net 

(831) 728-7838

Thank you to all who attended Back to School Night.

It was great to see you again and discuss an overview of the year.

Please feel free to call or email if you would like to discuss more. 

Please see the top tab "Upcoming Projects"

for information on the Landform project that is due Oct. 25th. 

We will host an Author's Party on October 25th.

Here are a few suggestions for studying the weekly spelling words: 

-Write the words in cursive.

-Rainbow roll-n-write the words.

-Write each word 3-5 times each. 

-Write the words in a sentence. 

-Draw a picture with each word. 

A strong foundation in phonics helps with decoding more difficult words. 

In Math, we're continuing with the second half of our module on multiplication and division.

We will continue using the terms Labeled Tape Diagram, Array, Number Bond and Equation.

This helps students develop a deeper understanding of multiplication and division. 

Reading:

 "Just Right" Reading

We have been focusing on how to choose "just right" books and why it is so important to choose

books that we are able to read. Research shows when children are reading independently,

they should be reading books they can read and understand. Reading books that are too

challenging can lead to frustration, inability to understand the story, thus causing reading to no

longer be enjoyable. We want children to love reading, which means it is important they are

reading books they are interested in and on their just right level! 

Research also shows that children are motivated to read when they can choose their own books.

The strategy we will use in class to choose just right books is called IPICK.

You can use the poster to help your child in picking good fit books at home.

This year we will be focusing on applying reading strategies to a variety of literary genre. Our class will learn how to read fiction stories and nonfiction articles carefully. We will learn the basic skills that we will use in our reading throughout the year.  Ask your child what genre we focused on this week. (Hint: It has characters, setting, or events that can not exist in real life, animals have human-like characteristics, and these stories teach a lesson.)

During our reading time we will focus on:

• Ways to talk about their reading with partners and the class.
• Strategies to help pronounce long words.
• Strategies to figure out the meanings of hard words.
• How to find important details in fiction stories and nonfiction articles.

• How to analyze what we read and write about it.

Here are a couple of activities you can do to help your child.

• Read together a fiction story. Discuss what happens in the story and who the characters are.
• Read together a nonfiction book or article. Ask your child what the story is about. Discuss what kinds of photos and images they see. What can they learn from these images?

Writing: Writer's Workshop is well underway and students have been having a lot of fun learning about what writers do to "gather" ideas for writing true stories. Students have gathered ideas by recalling "first times" in their lives, writing about moments they experienced strong emotions such as sadness, happiness, embarrassment, and fear. They also generated ideas based on things they love. This week they will choose two of their ideas to take to a quick write, share those quick writes with partners, and then select one of those ideas to begin drafting their stories. We love the ownership this process gives them in their writing. One student told us that, "I feel like Writer's Workshop is like our own secret club!" It's so wonderful to hear that kids call out, "Yay!" when we announce it's time for writing. They have been so open and willing to share their ideas for writing as well (and boy did we hear about some VERY embarrassing moments). It's really a happy time in our classrooms.

Accelerated Reader 

Each student has been assigned an "AR Goal." The goals were calculated according to each student's performance on the computerized AR star test.  The Accelerated Reader program ("AR") is a computerized program that tests reading comprehension. Students select books on their reading level, read independently, and take an independent comprehension test on a school computer. Each book is worth a certain number of points based on its length and reading level. You can look up a particular book in AR Book Finder. Students get a percentage of these points based on how many of the test questions they get right. The program tracks their progress over the course of the school year. You may track your student’s progress in Home Connect. Here is a link to the Parent's Guide to AR. Accelerated Reader Hopefully, this will answer your questions.