Last Week of School!

The Fifth Grade Farewell last week went wonderfully! The kids will definitely have a fun day to look back on. Thank you so much to the parents that organized and volunteered! 

Well, we have 6 days of school left, and a lot to do! :) 

5H Math: 

We'll continue math all week as we finish up the review skills in unit 9 as well as learn about a final new standard. Kids will take an end of the year assessment this week, on all of the standards they've learned. The skills we'll work on this week are: plotting coordinates on an x-y axis, determining volume of rectangular prisms and of combined rectangular prisms (2 put together), and toward the end of the week, kids will learn about the order of operations.

Language Arts:

We'll be finishing up a lot of things this week, including the 4th quarter performance task and our anchor text Maniac Magee. I will talk to students tomorrow about part of the performance task that they will need to complete at home this week. By Friday, kids will need to either create or find an artistic piece (poem, song, piece of art or other item) that represents a personal quality (character trait) they admire. They will have to explain the connection between the character trait and artistic piece. We'll be discussing this and kids will be determining the character trait they admire. The written portion of the performance task will be completed in class. 

Each day this week, I'll be reading a picture book to the class. At the end of the year, I like to read picture books to the kids which have lessons/themes that I want them to remember as they move forward :). 

Science: 

This week in the small life/microscope unit kids will get a chance to look at plant and animal cells through their microscopes. Before this we will learn how to make a wet mount slide and how to determine the range of field of view. We learned about the parts of a microscope last week and what each does. Kids will have a quiz this Wednesday in which they'll need to label the parts of a microscope. Later in the week we'll get to look at three different types of protozoa: Euglena, Amoeba, and Paramecium. Kids will learn about the parts of each and what they do. 

Social Studies:

Kids are finishing presentations on Westward Expansion events on Monday. 

Any time we have left in the week will be devoted to learning about the causes of the Civil War as well as events that occurred during the war. 

May 26-29

As I'm sure you know, the Fifth Grade Farewell is Tuesday! Kids should bring their skates, if they said they were bringing their own. Also, kids do not need to bring a lunch. It should be a fun day! 

For Service Club Members: Wednesday is our last meeting! Kids need to bring their permission slips if they'd like a treat. 

All LMC books are due Friday! Also, if you notice any books at home that say: Happy, Lundgren, Guleserian, or Pederson...they belong in the 5H classroom library. I also get books from the Aurora Public Library, so if you notice any of these laying around that aren't familiar to you, please have your child bring them back in! THANK YOU! 

5H Math: Kids will get their Unit 8 Tests (Part 2) back on Wednesday. We'll then be moving on to Unit 9. The skills for the unit are listed below with the standards in parentheses if you want to learn more about the specific skills. We'll start with volume of rectangular prisms. 

review skills
-multiplying fractions (5.NF.4 and 5.NF.5)
-converting measurements (5.MD.1)
-finding volume of rectangular prisms  (5.MD.3, 5.MD.4, 5.MD.5) 

new skill
-graphing points on coordinate grids (5.G.1 and 5.G.2)

Language Arts:
We'll be focused on our Performance Task as well as reading Maniac Magee. The performance task requires kids to identify a trait they think is important in their life and explain why they believe this. Then they will need to describe a literary character and historical figure who also possess this characteristic/trait. Additionally, kids will need to explain how this trait will help them move forward wisely in their own life.

Kids will have a word study quiz (second list of words with vowel teams) on Thursday. We've been working on these words since last week. 

Social Studies: 
Kids will have a test this Friday about the Constitution. Study topics:

-what the Articles of Confederation were and why they failed

-what changes were made from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution

-the three branches of government (what they do, the leader of each branch)

-checks and balances (what this is, why it’s important, and examples within our government)

-the Bill of Rights (what this is and have knowledge of the rights given to citizens through these amendments)

-how a bill becomes a law

This week we'll also be learning about events that occurred in the early years of our country (Louisiana Purchase, Trail of Tears, Gold Rush, Industrial Revolution, etc.). 

Science:
This week we'll be learning about the parts of a microscope and their function. 

May 18-22

I apologize for the late post. Please contact me if you have any questions. 


5H Math: Tomorrow (Tuesday) kids will get their tests back from last week. This was the first part of the Unit 8 math test. Kids will take the second half of the test this Friday. The second half of the test will include multiplication and division problems involving fractions. This means kids need to really think about whether a problem is using multiplication or division. Also, I continue to push kids to make an estimate so they can determine if their answers are reasonable. 

Kids only need to know how to divide with unit fractions...meaning 1/4 divided by 5 or 6 divided by 1/3. The rest of the week we will work on division with fractions and then spend some time solving mixed multiplication and division problems. 

Language Arts:

This week kids will be writing an informational paper about the Astronomy topic they've been researching over the last couple days. They will be working on organizing information in a logical structure that includes an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. 

The last author we had visit the school was awesome. He was able to speak to the kids in depth about being a writer, and the process he uses and what works for him. He also talked with kids about the structure of stories, and how every story has "3 acts". This was very interesting...we'll take a look at our past anchor texts and see if we agree with him. I'm hoping we can write another narrative before the end of the year! 

We continue to read Maniac and respond to the text! This week I will also begin having the kids think about their last performance task of the year. This task requires kids to think about a trait they possess that they feel is important. Kids will be comparing themselves to a character from one of our texts. 

Word Study- This week we continue to learn about vowel teams. There will be no quiz this week; kids will have a quiz next week. 

Social Studies:
We are finally getting to our learning and presentations about the Bill of Rights. Groups are learning about different amendments and will share on Wednesday. They are explaining what rights are given to citizens and how this is relevant to our lives today. Later in the week we'll learn about Western Expansion and the growth of our country. 

Science: 
Toward the end of the week, we may begin learning about the parts of the microscope as we move into our last science unit of the year. 

May 11-15

I hope everyone enjoyed their Mother's Days! 

We have a few special things happening this week:

Tuesday: Multicultural Night is 6:00 to 8:30. I'll be there; hope to see you! 

Wednesday: 

• We are lucky to have another author coming to visit the fifth graders. He'll be able to talk to kids about the writing process. 
• Marble Party- the kids voted for an outside day again for our marble party. It looks like the best weather for this will probably be Wednesday. So we'll have our celebration in the afternoon.
• Service Club meeting after school. 

Friday: 5H and 5C will be going to the Planetarium at Waubonsie Valley High School. Our trip will take place mid-morning and will cause us to be gone during lunch. Kids will need to bring a cold lunch on Friday. We will eat when we return to school around 1:00. 

5H Math: We will have the Unit 8 (Part 1) test this Wednesday. Kids need to be able to:

• multiply whole numbers by fractions
• multiply fractions by fractions 
• multiply mixed numbers by mixed numbers and fractions
• solve word problems involving all of these types of problems
• simplify their answers and write them as mixed numbers and not improper fractions 

Later in the week we'll begin to divide fractions by whole numbers and whole numbers by fractions. We will only be working with unit fractions (fractions with 1 as the numerator, e.g. 1/4, 1/5). This gets difficult for kids because they have a difficult time determining which word problems are multiplication and which are division. It will be important for kids to visualize the word problem to aid in their understanding. 

Language Arts/Science/Social Studies:

We continue reading Maniac Magee, hopefully your child brought home their copy of the text last week to share with you and tell you a bit about the book. This week we'll continue to look at figurative language as we read to understand the text. We'll also be looking more closely at the relationships Maniac has created and how the people in the book have affected one another. 

Our Astronomy test, as you know, is Monday. The study topics were posted last week. This week kids will have the opportunity to determine a related topic to research and eventually write an informational paper. 

For social studies, we continue to learn about the Constitution and how our government works. Kids will learn about the three branches of the federal government and what checks and balances are and why they're important. Later in the week we'll learn about the Bill of Rights.

Word Study: Our words this week will have "vowel teams," meaning two vowels that work together to create one sound. The vowel teams we'll work with are, "ai," "ay," "ee," "ey," "oe," "oa," "ue". Kids will have a quiz this Friday. 

Astronomy Study Topics

Test Monday! Here are the topics to study:

• How stars are formed and the process of how they die (star life cycle for stars like our sun) 
• Constellations (what they are and why ancient people created them)
• The process all stars use to create energy 
• How long it takes photons to travel from the core of the sun to earth 
• Coronal Mass Ejections (what they are and why they are dangerous to earth)
• Galaxies (what a galaxy is, the types of galaxies, what type of galaxy we live in)