Dec 15-19

Hi everyone! If I don't speak with you, I hope everyone has a great break! Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate! Happy New Year to everyone! You should all know I am so thankful to have your children in my class this year! I am so lucky that I get to tell people all the time what a great class I have. Thank you for your support and for letting me spend so much time with your great kids :)! 

• Wednesday: Hill Field Trip in the morning, no need for special lunches, we'll be back for lunch at the school
• Thursday: Fifth Grade Movie "Day"- please make sure your child brings back their permission slip
• Friday: Holiday Parties in the afternoon

5H Math: Kids got their tests back on Monday. We have started Unit 4: Geometry. We have been working on defining geometry terms as well as listing the attributes of shapes (what makes a shape what it is). For example a square has 4 sides with equal length and 4 right angles. We will not have math on Wednesday, because of the field trip. We will focus on vocabulary the rest of the week through different hands on activities and games. Kids will be working on a geometry project, looking for geometric shapes in real objects to put together a geometry book. Kids will collect images in a Google Document to be printed and combined in a book where they define the geometric terms that are present in their images.  Kids will have time in class, but will also need to work on this for homework. 

Here are the standards for this unit, again, if anyone missed them:

•  5.MD.C.3. Recognize volume as an attribute of solid figures and understand concepts of volume measurement.
•  5.MD.C.4. Measure volumes by counting unit cubes, using cubic cm, cubic in, cubic ft, and improvised units.

•  5.G.B.3. Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category. For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles.
•  5.G.B.4. Classify two-dimensional figures in a hierarchy based on properties.

Language Arts:

We have been working responding to a text by stating our thoughts, quoting from the text to support our thoughts and finally explaining how our quote supports our thought. We are also working on making sure we try and pick the best possible quote to support our thoughts.  I have a couple papers the kids have done on this topic that I will send home as soon as possible! 

Kids should be finishing up their partner books this week. I know a couple groups will not be done, and that is okay, as long as they keep plugging away! When students are finished they are answering a couple questions about their text (writing a short summary, telling about the character with support from the text, and determining what the theme of their book is). 

I introduced the Quarter 2 Performance Task to kids last week- see last post. Most students have chosen a person they think they would like to research. The important thing is that their chosen person must have shown courage in some way. We will get into this project deeper after break. Right now we are working on our opinion writing to help get prepared for the performance task. This week we will be watching a few helpful videos for how to write an opinion piece as well as practicing this by writing an opinion about GMOs (Genetically Modified foods); a topic from our Time for Kids magazine. 

Social Studies:

We have switched back to social studies. This unit is about colonization of America. We will learn about the different countries that set up colonies in North America. Kids will learn what it was like for these colonists, why they came and the challenges they had. We started this week by thinking back to what we learned in the first unit about exploration. Now we will move on to learning about Spain's colony...New Spain. 

Citizenship:

For citizenship this week, students are learning about digital citizenship, appropriate online behavior. 

December 8-12

Not many reminders for this week:
-Chorus Concert Tuesday at 7:00
-Service Club (for those students involved) Wednesday until 4:45

Also, the Service Club will be starting a food drive later this week, more information to come!

5H Math:
Many students still need to complete the Unit 3 math assessment, so kids will do this Monday as well as take a pre-test for Unit 4-Geometry. We will probably not have math Tuesday, because we have an assembly during this time. Then we will spend a couple days working on a math transfer task (multi-step problem that combines multiple skills from unit 3). By Friday, we should be actually starting the unit 4 skills; we will start with geometry vocabulary- there is quite a lot! 

Standards for unit 4:

•  5.MD.C.3. Recognize volume as an attribute of solid figures and understand concepts of volume measurement.
•  5.MD.C.4. Measure volumes by counting unit cubes, using cubic cm, cubic in, cubic ft, and improvised units.

•  5.G.B.3. Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category. For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles.
•  5.G.B.4. Classify two-dimensional figures in a hierarchy based on properties.

Language Arts:
-Last week we worked on quoting from the text to support our answers as well as explaining how our quote supports our answer. This week, we will look at a couple successful student samples and students will revise their written work if necessary. Of course, we continue to read The Liberation of Gabriel King, discuss and respond to questions in writing. 

We are starting some grammar work this week. Kids will be editing sentences (Daily Oral Language= DOL) and we will discuss the skills needed to edit each sentence- the goal is to do this 2-3 times a week. This will be ongoing. 

Please continue to encourage your child to read their partner novel at home; we are trying to finish before winter break begins! 

This week we will start talking about the quarter 2 performance task. This task will involve students researching a person of their choice that they believe has shown courage. I will show kids the components of the task and we will brainstorm a list of possible people, start reading about a variety of people and kids will possibly pick a person they want to research by the end of the week. 

While in the computer lab this week, we will look at the PARCC practice test for English Language Arts. I want to show students the format of the test on the computer, the different features they will be able to use as well as the layout and types of questions. We will look at the practice tests more than once, focusing on different goals each time. I do not want to overwhelm the kids, and I want them to be prepared for when they do take the PARCC, so we will just look at it a little at a time. I encourage you to take a look at the practice test (http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/english/), but please do not have your child spend a lot of time looking at or attempting to take the practice test at home- especially not before we look at it at school. 

Science:
Well, we really will finish the Magnet and Electricity unit this week. Students will have science reading homework a couple nights this week. This week students will learn what a simple circuit is, as well as make one. Students will also learn the difference between series and parallel circuits, and again get to make each type of circuit. Our science test will be Friday. We will go through our notes and class papers and mark areas to study. 

Topics to study: 

• The basic parts of an atom and how they relate to magnetism and electricity
• Properties of magnets
• Circuit electricity: parallel and series circuits (what is a circuit? what are the parts of a circuit? what is the difference between these two types?)   
• The 2 types of electricity (static and current) and their similarities and differences

For citizenship for the next couple weeks, students will be participating in digital citizenship lessons to think about respectful, responsible and safe behavior online/with any technology. 

December 1-5

Happy December, everyone! 

Tomorrow, Tuesday 12/2, kids will take the GATES test. A letter about this assessment came home last week. One session is in the morning and one in the afternoon- each test is about 30 minutes long.

Kids are bringing home information about the Holiday Shop tonight. Our class shopping day is tomorrow- Tuesday. If kids forget/can't bring money/are absent tomorrow, they can shop on Wednesday. 

Kids are bringing home their CogAT scores tonight and most will have at least 1 graded paper (we've had a lot of absences, so some kids may not have something). 

A permission slip was sent home a while ago for a field trip to Hill, please send this back with your child as soon as possible. 

With these 3 weeks of school left before winter break, we will be working hard! Please encourage your child to continue to put their best effort into all they do, every day!

5H Math: Today, most kids got their unit 3 computation quizzes back. We will have the Unit 3 Test on Friday. Since we just took the computation quiz, the test will be mostly word problems. The skills are: 

• add, subtract, multiply and divide decimals 
• most of the division problems will be decimal divided by whole number, one problem will be a decimal divided by a decimal
• divide whole numbers 
• round decimals to any place
• solve problems that involve dividing whole numbers and the answers are in fraction form...for example: 3 pizzas divided by 4 people means each person gets 3/4 a pizza.   

We will work on the last skill from above on Wednesday this week, using the kids' Student Math Journals. To study for the test, kids can use:

• their WINK sheet (What I Need to Know)
• sheets (or quizzes) from the unit that we've written "Unit 3" at the top of, or any pages from SMJ we've done
• notes we've written in our math notebook
• the math tab on the blog...look under "Unit 3"

Language Arts:

Kids continue to read their novels with their partners. Important: Kids need to finish their novel by Winter Break...that means they have 14 more school days. Kids have time every day to read with their partner during school, and they should be reading at home as well. Kids books are of various sizes, so yes, some kids will have more pages to read. Please, check with your child to see that they are keeping up with their books. It's important they are responsible and read the pages they decide upon with their partner. 

Today we started reading a story from our Harcourt books, "Island of the Blue Dolphins," which is actually an excerpt from the novel with the same title. We worked on understanding vocabulary based on context clues and tomorrow we will work on summarizing the most important events of the story. 

We continue to read The Liberation of Gabriel King and work on a variety of standards. This week we will work on: determining the meaning of words based on context clues, understanding the purpose of a paragraph in the structure of the writing (e.g. the purpose of one paragraph could be to describe a character or a setting, while another could be to show the difference between two characters, etc.), and answering questions about the text by providing evidence from the text (text-dependent questions). These skills are ongoing throughout the year! 

Word Study

Today and tomorrow we are finishing up learning about the Greek/Latin root "port". Kids will take a quiz on this root word on Friday. 

I also hope to start a bit more grammar work this week. We'll be learning about different grammar skills, by going back to an old method...anyone remember DOL (Daily Oral Language)? While we may not do this every day, my goal is to work on correcting sentences 2-3 times a week, in the morning as kids come in. These sentences are connected to the Common Core Language Standards and will guide our conversations about accurate grammar. 

Science

This week we need to finish up our magnetism and electricity unit. Today kids learned about magnetic fields, and tomorrow we will learn a bit more about how they are formed. The rest of the week we will work with electricity. Kids will learn what is necessary to make a circuit and what the different types of circuits are (series, parallel). Kids will be able to make these circuits in class as well as an electromagnet- this will show kids how electricity can be used to make a magnet. We will test this unit next week (week of 12/8).

November 17-21

Service Club- Wednesday after school until 4:45


This week:

5H Math: 

On Monday we have our division quiz and then we will start learning how to divide a decimal by a whole number. Then we will work on dividing a whole number by a decimal and finally a decimal by a decimal. We will work on using visuals to understand these operations as well as learning how to use computation skills to solve each type of problem. 

Language Arts:

This week, we will finish up our narratives. The kids have in class time on Monday to finish their rough drafts, and may need to finish them for homework if they don't during class. We will spend the rest of the week revising/editing and typing our final drafts. Narratives are due Friday. 

Kids will start to read a novel with a partner this week. I've paired students up and assigned a book for each partnership to read. The purpose is to have fun reading a book that is an appropriate challenge and work on some of the skills we're learning about in the classroom. Kids need to be responsible, though, and keep up with their reading. Each day when they meet with their partner, they will determine how much they need to read for homework. Every time they read, they will need to record something in their "journal" (we're going to staple a few pieces of paper together). Tomorrow I will explain to the kids the options they have (a prediction they have, a question they have, a word they don't understand, something they want to discuss with their partner, etc.). At the end of each chapter, kids will write a summary of the chapter with their partner. 

I'm hoping the kids will begin to internalize some of the reading skills they practice with their partner, and I hope they enjoy their books! This will be ongoing for at least 2 weeks. 

We continue to read Liberation of Gabriel King, and respond to the text in our reading notebooks. The text talks about desegregation of schools, so I hope to provide students with a bit more background information about this, this week. 

Students gathered information about an element of their choice last week. Early this week kids will write an informational piece explaining about their element. The goal is for students to have an introduction, information that is logically organized and includes facts, and a concluding statement. 


Word Study:

This week we learn two more Greek/Latin roots: script/scribe and port. During the week we will determine the meanings of these roots and learn about words that contain each root. On Friday kids will have a quiz on the 3 roots we've learned about (including "press" from last week). Unlike other word study quizzes, this quiz will require kids to understand the meaning of the words we've studied the last couple weeks. Kids will have to fill in a blank in a sentence with the correct word and tell the meaning of the root words. These will all be words we've studied, and kids already have examples in their notebooks, and will be adding more this week. 

Science:

On Monday, we will use clay to make models of the parts of an atom. This will help us practice using the vocabulary related to an atom's structure: proton, neutron, electron, nucleus. On Tuesday, kids will have a vocabulary quiz. They already have the words and definitions and we have been practicing; they are aware they will have a quiz. 

Next, we will move into magnets...the properties and types of magnets. 

November 10-14

It has been wonderful seeing you all for conferences so far. I enjoy and value the time I get to speak with each of you. The last round of conferences is Monday 4:40-8:00- see many of you tomorrow!

Tuesday- No school- Veterans' Day
Wednesday- Service Club (3:35-4:45) and Math Olympiad

5H Math: 

The kids are doing pretty well with division of whole numbers when dividing by a 1 digit divisor. They had an "exit slip" on Friday. I give the students a few problems, and use these to guide my instruction. I'm going to hand these back to kids tomorrow so they can see how they did and will tell the kids to bring them home and show you, so you can see how your child is progressing. These are not graded. 

Our goals for the week include: solving division word problems as well as understanding what to do with the remainder (round up? write it as a fraction? leave it off the final answer?) and dividing by a double digit divisor. I continue to encourage kids to make an estimate before solving, so they can check their answer for reasonableness. Also, they can use multiplication to check their answer. We will have a division quiz on Friday. This will include computation and word problems, dividing by a single and double digit divisor. 

Remember, there are links in the math tab that are helpful under "Unit 3".

Language Arts:
This week kids will write their rough drafts of their narratives. As a reminder, they are writing historical narratives about Cortes conquering the Aztec people. We've done a lot of research to prepare for this. For their narratives, the focus is to have a clear event sequence including descriptive details. Of course, we will also include facets of our research where able.  

We begin our next anchor text, "The Liberation of Gabriel King". This book is set in Georgia in the 1970s. It is about two kids who are best friends and how they help each other overcome their fears. You can read more about the text here:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Liberation-Gabriel-King-Going/dp/0142407666

I have a plan for students to begin reading a novel with a partner this week. Each partnership will read a novel that is an appropriate challenge for the students (each student will have a copy). The purpose is to practice reading strategies as well as promote discussion of the text. I hope for students to be able to use these same skills when they are reading independently. I am hoping this will get started this week, but I keep finding I plan too much! 

Word Study:
This week we study the Greek and Latin roots: "press" and "script/scribe". We will learn their meanings and study words that contain these roots. Kids will have a quiz on these topics the week of 11/17. 

Social Studies: 
Exploration Assessment Monday. Kids should make sure they bring all of their study materials (social studies book, notebook and reading sheet) back to school. 

Science:
We begin science again this week with our Magnet and Electricity unit. This unit starts by learning about atoms and their structure. There is a lot of vocabulary that goes along with this (atom, nucleus, neutron, proton, electron, electron shell, element, compound). We will be learning about these terms early in the week, so you may want to review these with your child. We will also learn about the Periodic Table and how elements are organized. 

Citizenship:
We continue last week's topics of gossip and inappropriate remarks...what these are and what to do when either one occurs. 

DLT:
I will begin working with many of the students on their multiplication facts this week during DLT. This will be ongoing for a few weeks. 

Study topics for Exploration Quiz

The exploration assessment will be next Monday (11/10).

kids should know:

-several reasons Europeans began exploring during the 1400s and early 1500s
-technological advances that allowed and benefited explorers
-the effects (positive and negative) of European exploration during this time period

Kids will have their notes, social studies textbooks as well as another reading passage to use for studying.

November 3-7

I can't believe it's November already! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend, and kids enjoyed Trick or Treating if they went out! Also, I hope you were able to access student report cards on HAC this weekend. I look forward to seeing you all soon at conferences! 

This week:
Tuesday: no school for students- Parent/Teacher Conferences 8:00-3:00
                 Book Fair begins Tuesday! 
Thursday: Parent/Teacher Conferences 4:30-8:00 (regular school day)

Hopefully, kids are collecting their Boosterthon pledges! Thank you again parents for helping your kids with this. Wednesday is our first "count" day to see how we're doing with collecting pledges. Please encourage your child to get this done sooner than later :). 


5H Math: 

Students will get their NBT2 quizzes back on Monday (multiplying and dividing by powers of 10 including exponents). Then we are finally beginning unit 3 which focuses on division. This week we will review the strategies kids have learned to divide whole numbers before we get into the standard algorithm of division (long division). The purpose of reviewing the other methods is to help students understand what division is and this will help them understand why long division works. We will mostly work this week with single digit divisors. Next week we'll move into double-digit divisors. 

Language Arts/Social Studies:

If your child has not shown you their "Where I'm From" presentation, make them show you! The kids did such a great job presenting their poems this past week; I was very proud! You will be getting the written portions of the performance task home soon, but their presentations are saved on their Google accounts. 

We also finished Becoming Naomi Leon last week, and celebrated by carving soap just like Naomi does- it's harder than it sounds! We are wrapping up the first unit on "Identity" and will be moving into our next unit "Courage" later this week. We will begin this by trying to define what courage is. Courage will be an ongoing theme that will weave throughout the fiction and nonfiction texts we read. 

Kids will spend a couple days this week learning about the Aztec and Cortes in order to help them gather information for their narrative writing pieces. As I said last week, the kids are going to write a narrative (story) from the Aztec perspective similar to a book we read earlier this year called "Encounter". After we gather factual information to include in our stories we will make a plan for the plot of our stories. I hope we will begin rough drafts this week. 

We are also wrapping up our Exploration Social Studies unit this week. Kids will do a short research project on one of the tools that helped explorers in the late 1400s/early 1500s. We are working on taking notes and summarizing these notes in order to write a short paper; many of the kids want to take information right from the source to write their paper, which I'm sure you know leads to just copying information without really understanding it. We will also be learning how to properly cite a source. 

We will have a Social Studies Quiz Monday 11/10. I will post study topics in the next couple days. 

Citizenship: 

This week we'll be discussing friendship groups (what to do when you or someone is being left out) and gossip (what it is and strategies when you're involved in gossip). 

October 27-31

Happy Halloween Week! Lots of fun things happening this week...

Wednesday- Boosterthon Fun Run (during school 10:30-11:30)- come and support the kids if you can!
Friday- Halloween Parade 2:00, then classroom parties 2:30
Friday- report cards become active on the HAC at 4 PM

For those kids involved in Service Club, we have a meeting this Wednesday after school until 4:45.

5H Math: 
We continue with NBT2- understanding exponents and how to use them to show the powers of 10. Then kids will practice multiplying and dividing numbers by powers of 10 that are written as exponents  (14 x 10^2). This will take the first couple days of the week, and then we will move into unit 3 (standards below). We will begin with division. 

Unit 3 Standards 

•  5.NBT.A.4. Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place. (REVIEW)

•  5.NBT.B.6. Find whole-number quotients of whole numbers with up to four-digit dividends and two-digit divisors, using strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models. (NEW)
•  5.NBT.B.7. Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. (dividing decimals- NEW)

•  5.NF.B.3. Interpret a fraction as division of the numerator by the denominator (a/b = a ÷ b). Solve word problems involving division of whole numbers leading to answers in the form of fractions or mixed numbers, e.g., by using visual fraction models or equations to represent the problem. (NEW)

Language Arts/Social Studies:
We will finish our anchor text, "Becoming Naomi Leon" this week. We respond to the text each day by answering questions about the text, writing a summary, or studying vocabulary. After finishing the text, we will think back about the journey Naomi has gone on to help us make conclusions about why the text is entitled "Becoming Naomi Leon". 

The kids' "Where I'm From" poems are just wonderful. I hope you have seen your child's; I think they've done a great job! The kids are presenting their poems on Tuesday and Wednesday this week- they already know which day they will be presenting on. They should make sure they are practicing at home before their presentation to make sure they can fluently read their poem. Later in the week, we will write a "Where I'm From" poem from Naomi's perspective using what we've learned about her throughout the book. 

This week we will learn about the proper usages of commas. We'll do this by looking in the kids' own novels, and trying to determine the "rules" for commas. 

Soon, kids will be writing a narrative (a story). We will begin working towards this, this week. Kids will write a narrative from the point of view of an Aztec person when Cortes and the Spanish came to Tenochtitlan. We are preparing this week by reading about the Aztecs and Cortes through our social studies books and through primary sources and other text/online sources. Kids will model their narrative after the book "Encounter" that we read a couple weeks ago. This book described what it may have been like when Columbus and his crew landed in the Bahamas where the Taino lived. This writing will carry over into next week as well. 

October 20-24

Reminders

-Tuesday is Picture Retake Day

-Boosterthon, a new fundraising program for the school, is starting this week. Kids (and staff) will be learning more about this, this week. There is an assembly on Monday to explain the program.  
-Please return conferences slips as soon as possible. If you cannot make the day/time listed, please list alternate days/times that are better for you- thanks! 

-Friday is the end of the 1st Quarter

5H Math:

Students will get their Unit 2 tests back on Monday and will fill out the unit reflection for homework. This "reflection" is a grid of the questions on the test; it helps students evaluate how they did on the test, and which skills they are doing well with and what they need practice. Students should share this reflection with you. 

Then students will complete the Unit 2 Transfer Task which is a word problem that combines several skills from the unit. Later in the week we will revisit two standards from unit 1: NBT1 and NBT2- 

5.NBT.1. Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.

5.NBT.2. Explain patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, and explain patterns in the placement of the decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10. Use whole-number exponents to denote powers of 10.

Students will take a quiz on these two standards on Friday. We may begin Unit 3 on Friday; unit 3 focuses on division- I will post the standards in next week's message. 

Language Arts 

This week we work on finishing our "Where I'm From" poems and putting together our digital project to accompany the poem. Kids will create a Google slideshow using the program "slides". Students will take the text of their poem and separate the stanzas to include a couple lines on each slide. Students will then incorporate images that help the "audience" understand the poem. 

We have two sessions in the computer lab to work on this, but students may be working on this at home as well. Students' written poems and Google slides are due by Friday. Students will present their slideshows to the class the week of 10/27.

We continue to read Naomi and work on strategies for understanding new vocabulary as well as continue to work on summarizing both fiction and nonfiction. Students will also practice quoting from the text to support their answers to text-dependent questions. 

Social Studies

We will be reading from our social studies texts this week to learn why European explorers ventured west across the Atlantic (their purpose) as well as the effects of this exploration. 

Citizenship

This week we will discuss ways to respond to disrespectful behavior. 

October 14-17

Hi all! I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend. I hope the kids have remembered their responsibility of giving you things from their accordions; last week there were various things sent home (ISAT scores from 13-14, Fall CBM scores, and pictures and "child-safe cards"). 

This week kids will bring home a conference request form with a date and time. Some people have already signed up for a date (at Curriculum Night) so you will receive a letter with the day/time you've chosen; please return the form as a confirmation. If the day/time does not work, please list better days/times when you return the slip- thank you!

5H Math: 

This week we will continue working on multiplying whole numbers by decimals and decimals by decimals. Then we will work with word problems, a combination of multiplying whole numbers and adding/subtracting/multiplying decimal word problems. Kids will need to use their computation skills as well as comprehension skills to determine what type of problem each word problem is. I am planning the Unit 2 test for Friday. I will hold optional study sessions Wednesday after school until 4:15 or Thursday during lunch and/or recess. We will also review rounding decimals throughout the week. 

Language Arts:

I planned entirely too much for last week, so several skills are being carried over to this week. We will work on summarizing both fiction  and nonfiction texts focusing on using only the most important information. 

While reading "Naomi", our anchor text, we will also work on understanding vocabulary by using context clues. 

We are also working on our end of the quarter Performance Task, by brainstorming ideas for our "Where I'm From" poem and beginning our rough drafts. 


Word Study: 
This week we'll focus on correctly using the following homophones:
their, they're and there
its and it's
to, two, and too

Social Studies:
We pick up this week by reading text from Christopher Columbus's own journal. We are comparing his perspective of landing in San Salvador to the Native's perspective. We will use several texts to discuss and write about whether we think Columbus Day should be celebrated. 

Citizenship: 
This week we'll talk about the difference between disrespectful and bully-type behavior. 

October 6-10

Track and Field Day is Monday! I hope the weather works out! Please make sure kids have comfortable clothing and a water bottle for the event. 

Several graded papers will come home Monday, and a couple came home last week as well. 

For those kids interested, Service Club begins this Wednesday after school and ends at 3:45. 

This week:

5H Math: 

The end of last week, kids worked on deepening their understanding of multiplication. Kid worked in small groups to try and explain why the traditional method of multiplication works. The groups started to present to the class on Friday and we will continue this on Monday. Most multiplication quizzes came home last week, but I have a few more to hand back tomorrow. Kids' math fact errors are to blame for a lot of missed problems! Any games you can play at home to work on math facts would be helpful (especially the 7s, 8s, and 9s facts). 

Next, we will be working on adding and subtracting decimals. I had asked students to bring a restaurant menu by Monday, but we probably will not need them until Tuesday. We will practice adding and subtracting decimals using the menus. Later in the week, we may get to multiplication of decimals. 

Language Arts:

With our anchor text this week, "Becoming Naomi Leon", we will learn about foreshadowing as well as pay attention to the author's use of similes and metaphors. We will also practice summarizing chapters using the most important information from the chapter. 

Kids will prepare for writing their own "Where I'm From" poem (which is part of their Quarter 1 Performance Task I spoke about at Curriculum Night) this week by analyzing what types of information the author used in the original poem. Then kids will list similar information about their own lives to use when they write their poems. 

This week we will also look at a nonfiction article together to practice synthesizing. 

Word Study: 

Kids will have a homophone quiz on Tuesday; we talked about this Friday and the kids have the words they need to study in their word study notebooks. 

We are finishing up Open Syllables and so we will probably have a second short quiz on Friday, with words that have open syllables. Kids already have example words in their notebooks, but will have more added on Wednesday. 

Social Studies:

We are beginning our Exploration unit this week. We will begin by discussing what we know about the exploration of North America and Christopher Columbus before reading "Encounter" a literary informational book that will show a different side to exploration. Students will see exploration from the natives' perspective.

September 29-October 3

Tomorrow will be a perfect day for our first marble party, our ice cream party- it's going to be up close to 80 again! 

Hopefully your child already gave you the permission form for ice cream for tomorrow. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

For those kids in Eco Club with Mrs. Covert, Monday is the first meeting (ends at 4:30).
Mrs. Beutler and I sponsor the Service Club, and we passed out applications to interested students this past week. Students can return their forms to either of us by October 6. 

During math class, each 5th grade teacher will be passing out an information sheet about Everyday Math Online which includes a login for each child. This site can be used as a resource to support your child's math learning. This should be coming home early this week with your child. If you do not receive one, please contact your child's math teacher. 

A couple weeks ago, Mrs. May shared a free typing practice web site with each 5th grade class. She also helped each student set up a recording sheet to show their progress using Google Drive. I have been assigning typing practice a couple times a week for homework (10 minutes or so) and then students are supposed to record their level, words per minute, and accuracy in the Google Sheet that they created. When I checked their sheets this weekend, a lot of students had not recorded additional practice since our first time. A few kids shared that they couldn't get logged into Google Drive at home. I will show them how to do this again on Monday. It's important for the kids to practice typing the correct way since technology is such a big part of our lives, also the PARCC (the new "ISAT") assessment will be done on computers, and students will have to type some answers (the questions are not all multiple choice). Please help me by having your kids practice, and please let me know if your child has any problems. 

5H Math: 

We continue multiplying multi-digit whole numbers for the first couple days of the week. We have been working with word problems and computation. We are working on being able to multiply at least a 3 digit by a 2 digit number or a 4 digit by a 2 digit number. As kids are feeling more confident with the standard algorithm, we will discuss why the standard algorithm works, to develop kids understanding of what they are doing when performing the steps of the standard algorithm. There will be a multiplication quiz Wednesday that will include computation and word problems. Later in the week, we will begin adding and subtracting decimals. 

-please notice the note above above the Everyday Math login, as well! 

Language Arts: 

We started our anchor text "Becoming Naomi Leon" that I shared with you at Curriculum Night. We will read from this text everyday and it is the source of much of our instruction. We work with new vocabulary, as well as focus on specific reading and writing standards that tie to the reading. 

Kids will be working on answering "text-dependent questions". This means kids will have to refer to the text to answer the questions, and reference what the author has said as evidence for their answer. We are learning about 3 of the main characters (Naomi, her grandma, and Naomi's brother) and writing about what makes them who they are by referencing specific lines of text.  We will then be writing poems about the main characters, using this information we've recorded. As a class, we talked about how many of us (including myself) don't feel particularly confident writing poetry. We're going to work on this together- and improve together! We tried one last week, that turned out pretty well! The poem will help us summarize the information we've taken from the text, this will also require kids to choose the most important information. 

This week we will also be reading a story from the Harcourt reading books, "Sees Behind Trees". We will be working on comparing and contrasting; comparing the main character from "Sees Behind Trees" to Naomi from our anchor text. 

Word Study:
With CogAT last week, we just did not get to word study! So, the plan will carry over from last week. We'll begin Lesson 4- Open Syllables. Kids will learn or review what this syllable type is (info below), learn a couple exceptions for this type and begin breaking apart some example words. An Open Syllable quiz will happen next week (week of October 6th)

Open Syllable: (op) Open Syllables have one vowel. The vowel is at the end of the syllable. The vowel is long.
o   Examples: me, so, she, I, go

Science
We are finishing up our weather unit this week. Kids will be doing some reading from their science texts about different weather instruments, and then we will review for the test. The test will be this Friday. Kids will have their science notes and the science text book as resources for studying- we don't have many other sheets to study from. I will get students water cycle diagrams back to them so they can use them to study from. 

Topics to study:
-What are the 3 main types of clouds? (be able to describe them and what they tell us about the weather)
-What are the 3 stages of the water cycle, what happens to water in each stage? (detailed explanation including what is needed to form clouds
-What is the atmosphere and what does it have to do with weather?
-What is air pressure? What causes high/low pressure?
-What instruments do meteorologists use to predict the weather? (know the instrument and its purpose)

Citizenship
This week we discuss what Empathy is, why it is needed and what it looks like. 

September 22-26

Some reminders for the week:

Curriculum Night is Monday from 6:30-8:00. The first classroom session is 6:30-6:55 and the second classroom session is 7:35-8:00. Inbetween the classroom sessions is a whole-school session led by Principal LeCrone in the gym from 7:05-7:25. Please remember to sign up for Parent-Teacher Conferences in the multi-purpose room and remember that Curriculum Night is for adults only. I look forward to seeing you all! 

Fifth Grade students will take the CogAT this week. The test is split between three days. Students will take sections of the test on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

Ms. Andrews is looking for parent volunteers to help with Track and Field Day. If you are available October 6th, she'd love your help! Please send her an email if you're interested (terri_andrews@ipsd.org). 

5H Math: Students will be coming home with their unit 1 tests tomorrow. Please take a minute to review their test with them, and celebrate what your child has accomplished and take note of areas your child needs continued support. Because of CogATs, we will not have math on Tuesday, but we will meet every other day this week. We are starting unit 2 this week, please take a look at the standards below. 

Unit 2 Standards

•  5.NBT.A.4. Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place.
•  5.NBT.B.5. Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm.
•  5.NBT.B.7. Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. 

(We will focus on adding and subtracting of decimals and may start to get into multiplication. Multiplication and Division with decimals will come later)

Language Arts
The kids did such an awesome job working to understand the poem, "Where I'm From". We've read it a few times and they are getting a better understanding each time as we go deeper into each line. We will work with the poem a couple more times this week. Kids will write what they believe the meaning of the poem is by referencing lines in the poem and explaining their inferences. Later in the week we will use nonfiction text to talk about the benefits of the text features (introduction, headings, picture captions, etc.) in these texts and how the features work with the text. 

Word Study
We begin lesson 4 this week which is about open syllables. We will not have a quiz this week, because I know we will be short on time because of the CogAT assessment. Kids will learn or review what this syllable type is (info below), learn a couple exceptions for this type and begin breaking apart some example words. 

Open Syllable: (op) Open Syllables have one vowel. The vowel is at the end of the syllable. The vowel is long.

o   Examples: me, so, she, I, go

Science
We've spent a bit longer on the water cycle than expected. We have been working on making sure we have an in-depth explanation. We are almost finished with our organizer. Kids may need to finish it for homework. This will be a helpful tool for reviewing! 

Next, we'll work on understanding air pressure, what causes it and how it changes with elevation. As well as how temperature changes with elevation. This knowledge is important in understanding how and why clouds form. Then we will finally be ready to learn about the different types of clouds :). We will be using our science textbooks this week, which will again be helpful when reviewing for our science test (this will probably be coming up the week of 9/29).  

Community Time/Citizenship
This week we will talk about the all important...MANNERS! 

Letter from 5H Room Parent

Hello parents,

My name is Meg Smith and I am excited to be Mrs. Happy's Room Parent this year.  I will be coordinating volunteers to work both in the classroom and from the home.  These opportunities include hosting 3 separate parties (fall, winter and Valentine's Day), supporting math explorations & science projects, reading to the kids, donating supplies, sharpening pencils and contributing in other ways that may arise throughout the year.

Periodically throughout the year I will be sending an email asking for volunteers for certain classroom activities. The first volunteer opportunity is to sign up for the classroom parties. We will have three parties. They are the Fall party on October 31st, the Winter party Dec 19th and the Valentine's Day party on February 13th. All parties are from 2:30-3:15 p.m.

At the meet and greet there were sign up sheets so we have a few spots already filled. We still need one volunteer for the Winter party and one volunteer for the Valentine's party. Please let me know if you would like to help out at one of those parties.

Because our school is so careful about everyone's privacy, I need to please ask for your e-mail directly.  When you send me your e-mail address, I will add it to my distribution list.  I would appreciate having all e-mail addresses by Monday, September 22nd, as we need to start the fun and get organized!

Thank you in advance for your help.

Meg Smith (Julia's mom)

September 15-19

Finally, our first full week of school! Please read below for information about the week, and let me know if you have any questions. 

5H Math: This week we will finish up Unit 1. Kids have a short quiz Monday (information in previous post) and we will take the unit test Friday. I will offer optional study sessions Wednesday after school until 4:15 and Thursday during lunch and/or recess. Students should use their math notes, math sheets we've done in class or as homework, and the links in the math tab to help them study. 

This week we will do additional decimal rounding practice. Students need to be able to round to any place (ones place, tenths, hundredths, thousandths). We will also spend a few days learning about multiplying by powers of 10. Students will need to be able to multiply whole numbers and decimals by powers of 10 (10, 100, 1,000, etc) as well as the powers of 10 written in exponential form 10^2.  

Language Arts
Thank you so much for talking with your kids last week about your family's culture- most of the kids shared new learning about their background. I called my parents and learned a little bit more as well :). 

Students' digital collages that show their knowledge of their culture are due Tuesday morning; many students are finished, those that are not need to finish at home. We will print their finished collages in school, unless they want to print them at home.

This week we will learn about the different literary and informational genres. We will also read the poem "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon. This is a difficult text to read because of the vocabulary as well as the context. We will read the poem several times this week along with discussion. Students will write in relation to this poem as well. 

We continue our first read aloud of the year, "Because of Mr. Terupt" as well as independent reading time and reading conferences. We are paying particular attention to the characters' attributes, comparing and contrasting each. 
Word Study 
This week we will learn about VCe syllables (vowel, consonant, "e"). For example, the word "save" is a VCe syllable, and the last syllable in the word "accelerate" is a VCe syllable. The vowels in VCe syllables are long. We will have a word study quiz on Friday. Students will need to spell words with VCe syllables and identify the VCe syllables in the words as well as mark long vowels with a line over each. 

Science
On Friday, we made a cloud in a bottle...fun stuff. This week we will try the experiment again by adjusting the variables. We are learning the factors necessary to make a cloud: water vapor, cooling temperatures and a drop in pressure. Next, we will spend a few days learning about the three main types of clouds, what they look like (shape, color), what they tell us about the weather, and at what elevation they occur. 


Community Time/Citizenship
Last week we started talking about problem solving in regards to conflicts. We talked about the importance of "cooling off" before reacting and this week we will talk about the next steps in the process... determining possible solutions as well as how to talk and listen to each other. 

Math Quiz Monday

This Monday kids will take a math quiz over the skills we've learned about so far. I shared this with the kids on Friday; below is a list of the skills that will be on the quiz. 

• writing numbers in standard and written (word) form (millions place to thousandths place)
• writing numbers in expanded form 
• comparing decimals and explaining their reasoning for their answer using place value words 

September 9-12

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Below are the details for the week!

Reminder

-Wednesday is "Picture Day", students brought home their picture order forms last week, and should return them by Wednesday.

5H Math: We continue Unit 1 this week by learning how to represent numbers in expanded form or notation as well as practicing comparing and ordering decimals and rounding decimals. Students should be able to compare and round decimals while explaining their reasoning based on their place value knowledge. Students will have math homework most nights this week. 

I will also start students on a math web site this week, Front Row (www.frontrowed.com). This web site has pre-tests that determine students' needs within Common Core standards. I also like the site because kids can watch a video about the skill if they are having trouble. Kids will try the site out in class on Tuesday and the web site will at times be assigned for homework as well as done in class. 

Language Arts: Last week kids defined and we discussed a number of words related to culture (race, ancestors, ethnicity, etc.). We also talked about what we know about our own cultures. Tomorrow kids will be coming up with questions they have about their cultural backgrounds. If possible, kids will need your help answering questions about your family's cultural background either Tuesday or Wednesday night, so they can come to school Thursday with a bit more knowledge about their background. Students will be putting together a digital collage of images and words that represent their culture. Kids can choose one or more of the cultures that make up their background. The purpose is to think about how each person's culture affects who they are. This will also be a discussion when we analyze fictional and historical people in the texts we read. 

I understand each family has varying levels of knowledge about their ancestor's culture as well as different levels of participation with these facets of your culture; please let this be a time to discuss traditions of your culture whether they are practiced by your family or not. Additionally, American culture and traditions could be discussed, particularly if your family does not feel a strong tie to another culture. 

I am trying out a new (to me) web site for the digital collages. Students will be able to put information they've learned about their culture into the collage in the form of words and images. Students will start working on this in school on Thursday. 

As some of you may know, fifth grade readers have been challenged to a "40 book" challenge the last few years. This will be continued in 5H this year. Students will learn about this, this week! There are several reasons for the challenge, a few of them being...to never stop reading all year long, to begin or nourish a love of reading in all students, to grow students fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and writing abilities and to expose students to a variety of genres. We will be studying different literary and nonfiction genres this week. 

More info to come about this at Curriculum Night. 

Word Study: We continue our lesson on words with closed syllables. We will have our first quiz this Friday (9/12). Students will need to correctly spell words as well as be able to separate the words into syllables and "mark" any closed syllables with "cl".  For those new to our word study program, the students will not receive words to memorize, but we will practice words with the same syllable type in class that will be on their quiz. 

Science: Students will be thinking about the water cycle this week...thinking about the importance of the water cycle, how it really "works", the different states of matter and how clouds are formed. We will then begin to learn about the different forms of clouds and what they can tell us about the weather. 

Community Time: We did not quite get everything in last week as planned, so this week we will start with defining different emotions and discussing how emotions are reactions to events. We will then talk about the difference between comfortable and uncomfortable feelings and later this week begin discussing how to problem solve.