• 5th Grade

    Welcome to 5th grade at A2 STEAM!

    Dear Incoming 5th Grade Families,

    WELCOME BACK! We are so excited to share this year with your students and have been working hard to plan a tremendous fifth-grade year full of great projects and awesome learning!

    For the first weeks of school, we have planned to do some project-based outdoor activities. Students should wear tennis shoes and comfortable clothes. Bring water bottles labeled with student names every day to stay hydrated and bring healthy snacks. Due to the dynamics of fifth grade, we ask that you plan on packing only fruits and vegetables for snacks. This helps to ensure that our classrooms stay food-allergen-free. We would also like students to bring the book that they are currently reading at home to read in class for the first few days as we begin talking about our class libraries.

    During the first weeks, we will conduct formal and informal assessments in reading and math. Students should be able to list the books they read throughout the summer. All students will take reading benchmark tests as they have in the past. Our goal is to meet your student exactly where they are and help them grow and build from there!

    To get an idea of the things fifth grade did in years past, a true team effort. We hope to create a 5th-grade website this year unless students create a different idea they would like to pursue. Please also visit our Chicken and Salmon blog pages from years past:

    Many of the projects and activities this year are designed to provide student input and ownership into our 5th-grade curriculum. Some of the projects from years past that we would like to expand are our Gardens, Healthy Living, and Social Activism. We would like to expand the knowledge we gained last year into the community beyond our school with our students. More on this to come as we dive into our projects this fall.

    The fifth-grade team prides itself on our transparency and extent of parent communication. This will continue throughout the year and incorporate some tech things we have learned in the past years. If your main email is not listed with the school please update it with us as soon as possible in order to receive all communications.

    Amanda Stowe-Blanchard- stowea@aaps.k12.mi.us
    Josh Tumolo- tumoloj@aaps.k12.mi.us
    Vanessa Merritt- merrittv@aaps.k12.mi.us

    We ordered spiral notebooks and organizational materials for the students to use throughout the year. Each student will be provided with pencils, paper, and organizational materials.