As the new school year begins, I am excited to get to know your child and start a great fifth grade year! With more and more technology becoming available to us, including my smart board, student Chromebooks, and Makerspace in the computer lab, we will have a great year learning in new ways. My goals are to provide a rigorous education and a safe place for learning.
This is my eighteenth year at Sacred Heart. Before coming to Sacred Heart, I worked with seventh and eighth graders at Indian Hills Junior High as the math resource teacher for two years. I truly enjoy working with children and sharing my faith with them as we begin our year.
My teaching partner is Mrs. Battani, a veteran of Sacred Heart, returning for a seventeenth year. We will both work with all fifth grade students each day. Your child will be with Mrs. Battani for social studies and religion for part of each day and with me for math, science, and language arts for the rest of the day. She and I will work together so that we can coordinate activities and avoid conflicts with tests and projects as much as possible.
Sacred Heart School will be focusing on Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. We will continue to encourage our students to take ownership and pride in our school. I will follow the homework expectations of 45 minutes to one hour as set forth in the student handbook. Our assignment notebooks, specifically made for Catholic schools, contain many interesting and helpful pages for various areas of the curriculum. The class uses the last few minutes of each class period and each day to fill in assignments for each subject. Please check to see that your child is properly completing his or her assignment notebook daily.
Your child will enjoy a variety of experiences this year. One intensive program that has really excited the fifth graders during the last several years has been our trip to JA BizTown sponsored by Junior Achievement. The students will be working there running a city for a day in February after spending four weeks preparing for this during social studies, math, and language classes. We are hopeful the students will be able to experience this field trip in February. Many fifth graders also take advantage of the opportunity to join band and/or choir, as well as track in the spring.
Please feel free to contact me at any time during the school year with questions or concerns. As I said before, I am looking forward to spending a great year with your child, and hope to see you soon.