Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and had some time to relax and enjoy family and friends. Hopefully everyone is staying out of the cold!
Events this week:
Representatives from Hill Middle School will be coming this Friday to talk to all fifth graders about scheduling options for next year. Please ask your child to share the information they receive with you.
Kids will be taking CBMs this week.
Friday is the end of second quarter! Students are supposed to present on a current event by Thursday, but kids may present on Friday if they need to. Several students have already done this, but there are MANY that still need to do so. The current event presentation counts as a social studies grade and a speaking and listening grade. Students have a sheet to fill out describing the current event of their choice; there are news web site links in the Social Studies tab, or kids may find an event through a different source.
After adjusting my plans a few times because of the weather, here's the plan for our now shortened week:
5H Math: Before the break, kids had practiced adding and subtracting fractions, as well as simplifying fractions. We'll start this week with a quick review and move into adding and subtracting mixed numbers. Students will follow this process:
1. find a common denominator
2. add or subtract the fractions
3. add or subtract the whole numbers
4. simplify as necessary
On Thursday, kids will work on subtracting mixed numbers where they have to regroup. So, for example in order to subtract 6 1/8 - 2 3/4, kids will need to regroup 6 1/8 after they find the common denominator. Students will need to make turn 6 1/8 into an improper fraction to make the problem easier to solve: 6 1/8 = 5 9/8.
Finally on Friday, kids will practice word problems of both adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers. Kids will have homework on Wednesday and Thursday. The unit 5 test will be the week of the 13th, probably that Friday (1/17).
Language Arts/Social Studies: Kids will continue their inquiries about slavery this week, and will need to spend some time researching at home as well (Wednesday night). One of the major goals for kids is to be able to gather information from multiple sources and demonstrate their new learning by combining the information they've gathered.
This week I will again be modeling for kids how I gain new learning from gathering information about my topic (as well as how my questions drive my research) and we'll start thinking about the best possible way to share what we've learned. I will again model this, by presenting what I've learned in an interesting way (we're trying to move beyond the powerpoint!), and kids will brainstorm with their inquiry groups how to best share what they've learned. Kids will present next week.
Of course, kids will have time for independent reading as well this week and I will meet with kids for conferences.
Word Study: As we continue studying prefixes, I am giving kids a list of words that contain the prefixes we've learned about. Because these words don't contain a particular pattern, other than the prefix, I want the kids to study the specific words this time. Kids will take the quiz on the words below this Friday. They will need to be able to spell them correctly as well as identify the prefix and base-word in each word.
subway
semifinal
postpone
multivitamin
ultraviolet
antidote
counteract
internet
overtime
nonjudgmental
ultraviolet
extraordinary
Citizenship: We will continue some of our Bully Prevention lessons this week, which will include discussions about how to be an "upstander" instead of a bystander in a bully situation, cliques, and gossip.
Science: Students will learn about Maglev Trains beginning this week and will research how these trains work. Then kids will be able to create a Maglev Pencil. It's a really fun experiment, but also challenging to actually get it to work. On Friday, we will begin the transition to learning more about electricity and the connection between magnets and electricity.
Events this week:
Representatives from Hill Middle School will be coming this Friday to talk to all fifth graders about scheduling options for next year. Please ask your child to share the information they receive with you.
Kids will be taking CBMs this week.
Friday is the end of second quarter! Students are supposed to present on a current event by Thursday, but kids may present on Friday if they need to. Several students have already done this, but there are MANY that still need to do so. The current event presentation counts as a social studies grade and a speaking and listening grade. Students have a sheet to fill out describing the current event of their choice; there are news web site links in the Social Studies tab, or kids may find an event through a different source.
After adjusting my plans a few times because of the weather, here's the plan for our now shortened week:
5H Math: Before the break, kids had practiced adding and subtracting fractions, as well as simplifying fractions. We'll start this week with a quick review and move into adding and subtracting mixed numbers. Students will follow this process:
1. find a common denominator
2. add or subtract the fractions
3. add or subtract the whole numbers
4. simplify as necessary
On Thursday, kids will work on subtracting mixed numbers where they have to regroup. So, for example in order to subtract 6 1/8 - 2 3/4, kids will need to regroup 6 1/8 after they find the common denominator. Students will need to make turn 6 1/8 into an improper fraction to make the problem easier to solve: 6 1/8 = 5 9/8.
Finally on Friday, kids will practice word problems of both adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers. Kids will have homework on Wednesday and Thursday. The unit 5 test will be the week of the 13th, probably that Friday (1/17).
Language Arts/Social Studies: Kids will continue their inquiries about slavery this week, and will need to spend some time researching at home as well (Wednesday night). One of the major goals for kids is to be able to gather information from multiple sources and demonstrate their new learning by combining the information they've gathered.
This week I will again be modeling for kids how I gain new learning from gathering information about my topic (as well as how my questions drive my research) and we'll start thinking about the best possible way to share what we've learned. I will again model this, by presenting what I've learned in an interesting way (we're trying to move beyond the powerpoint!), and kids will brainstorm with their inquiry groups how to best share what they've learned. Kids will present next week.
Of course, kids will have time for independent reading as well this week and I will meet with kids for conferences.
Word Study: As we continue studying prefixes, I am giving kids a list of words that contain the prefixes we've learned about. Because these words don't contain a particular pattern, other than the prefix, I want the kids to study the specific words this time. Kids will take the quiz on the words below this Friday. They will need to be able to spell them correctly as well as identify the prefix and base-word in each word.
subway
semifinal
postpone
multivitamin
ultraviolet
antidote
counteract
internet
overtime
nonjudgmental
ultraviolet
extraordinary
Citizenship: We will continue some of our Bully Prevention lessons this week, which will include discussions about how to be an "upstander" instead of a bystander in a bully situation, cliques, and gossip.
Science: Students will learn about Maglev Trains beginning this week and will research how these trains work. Then kids will be able to create a Maglev Pencil. It's a really fun experiment, but also challenging to actually get it to work. On Friday, we will begin the transition to learning more about electricity and the connection between magnets and electricity.
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