February 18-21

Conference notes will come home tomorrow (Tuesday). 

The Invention Convention is this Friday! Kids should bring their inventions to school Friday. Kids will have some time in school Thursday to complete the writing portion that goes along with their invention. They may complete this part at home if they choose, though. 

This week:

5H Math: 

This week we'll continue our study of converting within the standard/customary system. Last week we worked with customary length and liquid volume. This week we'll convert weight measurements. Then we'll work on word problems; kids will come up with steps they use to solve conversion story problems. 

Toward the end of the week, we'll work with line plots. Kids should have some experience with line plots from 4th grade, but this year kids will need to be able to create and interpret a line plot with fractional units. 

We will take the unit test next Tuesday (2/25). 

Language Arts:

We are currently working on a couple writing projects. For narrative writing, we are working on short stories. We've read a few examples, parts of the stories have given us ideas of what to do and parts of some have given us ideas of what not to do. Last week, most kids got their plan written for their story. We will be writing rough drafts this week, after I check in with kids on their plans. 

We will keep referring back to the short stories we've read together to focus on different writing skills. First, we'll look back and see if we can take tips from writers on how they introduce characters and the narrator of the story. In short stories, events happen quickly, but still need to have an ease of flow. Another lesson we'll do this week is determine how authors use dialogue to develop the experiences and events in their stories. 

Kids are also working on a short research project relating to inventions or inventors. Kids will have one more day to research(Tuesday) and will need to finish their research for homework Tuesday night. Kids are working on taking notes by summarizing information and writing brief notes in their own words. Kids are also required to keep track of the sources in which they find their information. Kids need to use at least three sources. 

On Wednesday, we will work together to decide how they should organize their information into a logical sequence, and begin drafting. 

Word Study: I apologize for the delay of the vowel team quiz, but it will be this Wednesday. We will review in class tomorrow. Words are listed on last week's post. 

Social Studies: We are finishing up learning about the American Revolution by reviewing the important people we've come across and what role they played in the events before and during the war. Next, we'll be learning about how our government was formed after the colonies gained independence. We'll start with the Articles of Confederation, the goals of the document and why it wasn't successful.