CogAT testing: Wednesday-Friday. Three ten minute tests each day with breaks in between. A note was sent home last week describing the test. Let me know if you have any questions.
Friday: Author visit by Adam Gidwitz, author of A Tale Dark and Grimm. For more information about him, visit his site http://www.adamgidwitz.com/. The authors usually share about their writing process; they're great models for our young writers.
This week our "cool tool" is "I Can Problem Solve". We will talk about problems that come up in fifth grade and the steps to take in working through the problem solving steps. These include cooling off, using an "I statement" (e.g. "I'm frustrated that you're not helping the group," instead of, "YOU'RE not doing anything!") as well as how to respond to someone when they talk to you about a problem they're having.
5H Math: As you know, students got their math tests back today to correct at home, and we'll go over any questions on Tuesday. I will continue to work with students on areas of need. We started with multiplication today and will continue for a couple days, incorporating word problems. Then we will move into addition and subtraction of decimals.
Language Arts: Some of our language arts time will be taken up the CogAT test this week. Students are working on their writer's workshop pieces. Most students are writing a narrative story while a few are choosing to write a non-fiction piece. Today we used our own independent reading books to help us write attention grabbing openings to our pieces. Students will have more time to work on their piece and we will have several more revising and editing lessons. We will make a revising and editing checklist that we will add to throughout the year.
We will also read a Time for Kids this week that speaks a bit about what has been happening with Syria. I also have some background information to share with the students about the country. We will discuss what's happening and write an opinion piece about our involvement in the Syrian Civil War. In writing the opinion piece, the goals are: to clearly state your opinion, give several reasons for your opinion including facts, as well as restate your opinion to close the piece.
As always, we will have independent reading time and I will continue to meet with and conference with students. The students wrote their first reading response letter on Edline last week, and I have written back to most. Right now, most students need to work on sharing their thinking. I will continue to model this for students.
For word study this week, we are learning about homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings "lessen" and "lesson"). We will also practice "marking" multisyllabic words that have closed syllables. We will have a quiz this Friday on closed syllables. Students will be asked to spell words and separate them into syllables as well as mark the short vowels. Students will bring home their word study notebooks on Wednesday and Thursday to show you what they've learned as well as study. As a reminder, kids will not have a list of words to study/memorize. Here are some words that have closed syllables:
Wisconsin
hubcap
bathmath
catfish
tank
athletic
Social Studies: The essential questions we will learn about this week are "How did exploration help European countries become powerful?" and "How did contacts between Europeans and Native Americans change the world?". We will read, watch videos, and discuss these topics. Students will be presenting their inquiry circle work later this week as well.
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