February 23-25

It's a short week for the kids! 

Reminders/Upcoming Events: 

• Kids have no school Thursday or Friday this week. 
• If I sent home a conference invitation, please have your child return this as soon as possible. Conferences are this Thursday. 
• Please have your child return their Fifth Grade Farewell permission form as soon as possible (if your child plans to attend)- thank you! 
• The PARCC assessments will take place for fifth grade students next week! March certainly has come up quickly. PARCC testing will be taking place all week 3/2-3/6 in the morning.

From Mrs. May:

May Watts Book Fair Luau (February 26, and March 2-7)

On Tuesday and Wednesday our students will be previewing our Spring Book Fair. We will be open for business during conferences from 1:00-8:00 on Thursday, all next week during the school day, then in conjunction with the May Watts Fun Fair on Saturday, March 7th. Our Book Fair is again run through Anderson's Bookfair Company, supporting one of our most valued local businesses.

Your purchases help to provide new and replacement books for our LMC.

Happy Reading!

- Mrs. May

5H Math: 

On Monday we will play a review game to prepare for the unit 5 test which will take place on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we will take a pretest for unit 6 as well as complete the transfer task for unit 5. The transfer tasks are multi-step problems that require students to combine their knowledge of multiple skills they've learned. I'll post unit 6 standards next week. 


Language Arts:

We did not begin our research on the liver last week, so that will happen this week. Kids will read 2 texts about the liver and practice paraphrasing to take notes. Then we will have lessons on: organizing our notes, writing a thesis statement/main idea, and writing an introduction to a research/informational paper. We will compare the structure of the informational paper to that of an opinion paper, which we have had more practice with. The writing of this paper will continue into next week. 

In preparation for the PARCC assessment, students have taken part in a trial run in the classroom as well as a tutorial. We will do 2 more tutorials this week, one for ELA and one for math. The tutorials help kids to understand the technology components of the assessment as well as the types of questions they will be asked. 

Word Study- No new lessons this week.   

Science: 

Kids are finished or just about finished with their digestive system projects. Kids will present their projects Tuesday. This week kids will need to log what they eat for a whole day and then determine what kinds of nutrients they eat, and which they may need more of. On Wednesday kids will have a quiz requiring them to label the parts of the digestive system and the types of teeth and what each type of tooth does.  

February 17-20

Thank you to our party organizers for a great Valentine's party this past Friday! The party turned out wonderfully with lots of fun games. 

Thank you kids and parents for your kindness in all the sweet cards and treats...the kids know I have a thing for sugar :). It was very thoughtful and I'm appreciative of all your kindness! 

This week:

Family Reading Night takes place Tuesday from 6:00-7:45- I hope to see you there!
Service Club meets this Wednesday after school until 4:45
The Robert Crown follow up takes place this Friday (your child received a letter from the school about this last week) 

Tomorrow students will receive conference notes. 
Please return the Fifth Grade Farewell permission slips as soon as possible! 


5H Math: 

This week we will finish up with the skills for this unit. We will have the unit 5 test next week, probably Tuesday the 24th. This week we'll work on solving word problems that require division of whole numbers which lead to answers in the form of fractions (4 divided by 5 = 4/5). Then we will review a few skills from earlier units: rounding and comparing decimals. For those students that do not already know, we will also work on converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. 

Language Arts: 

This week we'll spend some time each day reading from our anchor text Red Kayak. We just barely got started last week. This week we'll look back at the text and get to know the characters better by looking at what the author tells us. 

Kids will also research the liver this week in order to practice our research skills as well as our informational writing skills, and of course to connect to our study of the digestive system. Kids will use multiple sources to take notes by finding important information and paraphrasing it. Then students will organize their information into a paper that includes an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. They will also need to make sure to use appropriate vocabulary in order to inform about the liver.  

The kids and I will go through another PARCC tutorial this week to inform them of the features of the test. 

Word study:

We will study another set of Greek and Latin roots this week: "man/manu" and "ject".  Students will learn the meanings as well as words that use these roots and how they are connect to the meaning of the root. Kids will take a quiz this Friday that will require them to use the words we've studied to "fill in the blanks" of given sentences. This means students will be given the words, so they do not need to necessarily practice their spelling, but do need to recall their meanings. 

Science:

Kids will finish their partner projects about the digestive system this week. We will share our projects this Friday.  This week kids will also learn about the different types of nutrients our bodies need and what foods provide these nutrients. We will do some reading and research and students will make a "nutrient book" to show their learning.  

February 9-13

This week:

Tuesday we have our field trip to Robert Crown. Kids will need to bring a cold lunch. We will eat at school when we return around 1:30, when hot lunch will be unavailable. 


On Friday we are having our Valentine's Day parties. I gave students a class list last week so they can make Valentine cards if they choose. 

This past Friday kids got permission forms for the Fifth Grade Farewell.


5H Math

Kids will get their exit slips back tomorrow which show how they're doing with the skills we've worked on so far in unit 5. On Tuesday we will have a comparing fraction quiz. Then we will spend a couple days working on adding and subtracting fractions by solving word problems. Kids will first have to find a common denominator. We will also work on simplifying our answers. Finally toward the end of the week we will work on word problems that require division of whole numbers which lead to an answer in the form of a fraction (4 divided by 5 = 4/5). 


Language Arts

We began reading the Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken" last week and will reread the poem several times this week with a different purpose each time. We will practice fluently reading as well as gaining a better understanding of the poem by analyzing the words. We will also think about the structure of the poem. Later in the week, kids will write about a time when they had to make a choice and the effects of their choice. 

We will start our anchor text this week, Red Kayak. The book fits with our theme "At a Crossroads" and will require kids to consider the choices of the characters and the consequences of those choices. 

On Monday, we will finish up our latest opinion papers. Kids may need to finish these at home. 

Word Study

Last week we learned the meanings of several prefixes and this week kids will brainstorm words that include each prefix to make up our word study list for the week. We will have a quiz Friday over the words. 

Science

This week kids will research the path food takes through our digestive system. They will learn the parts of the body food passes through and what each part does to the food. After researching, kids will choose a project method of showing their learning. 

February 3-6

Thank you so much for coming in for Open House if you were able. It was great to see you all! 

Reminders:

Service Club Members- we pack food at Feed My Starving Children this Wednesday from 6:00-7:30. 

The Talent Show is this Friday evening! 

If anyone hasn't turned in their Hill Middle School form, it is past due. 

Also Robert Crown permission slips are due as soon as possible- we go next week (2/10)! Parents, I know some (maybe most?) of the kids are nervous about going...I keep telling them it is not as bad as they may think :). I will be talking with the kids before we go, and I would really appreciate if you could also do this...about appropriate behavior (we must be mature!) and about what they'll be learning. Thanks so much! 

5H Math: 

Kids will get several graded papers back on Tuesday (both quizzes from last week and some in-class assignments). We start unit 5 which has some review skills and some new skills:  

• 5.NBT.A.3a. Read and write decimals to thousandths using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form, e.g., 347.392 = 3 × 100 + 4 × 10 + 7 × 1 + 3 × (1/10) + 9 × (1/100) + 2 × (1/1000).
• 5.NBT.A.3b. Compare two decimals to thousandths based on meanings of the digits in each place, using >, =, and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.
• 5.NBT.A.4. Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place.
• 5.NF.A.1. Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators (including mixed numbers) by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions in such a way as to produce an equivalent sum or difference of fractions with like denominators. NEW
• 5.NF.A.2. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole, including cases of unlike denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models or equations to represent the problem. Use benchmark fractions and number sense of fractions to estimate mentally and assess the reasonableness of answers. 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. 

We will start with the new skills. We began talking about equivalent fractions last week and will continue this week before moving on to comparing fractions. Kids need to have a good understanding of this so they can determine if their answers are reasonable when we move on to adding and subtracting fractions. We will also work on using equivalent fractions to find common denominators, and by the end of the week we will be adding fractions with common denominators. 

Language Arts:

For the first couple days this week we will work on an opinion piece which will require kids to make an opinion about the text we just finished, "The Liberation of Gabriel King" and whether or not the book was an appropriate choice for the theme of courage. Based on their past opinion writings, we will work this week on summarizing our thoughts and restating our opinion in a conclusion as well as including transition words throughout.

We begin our third unit of the year: At a Crossroads: Challenges, Choices, Consequences. We will take a look at our different texts for the unit and talk about the task of decision making and the effects of decisions. We open the unit by listening to the song, "Man in the Mirror" sung by Michael Jackson, that I hope the kids have heard before! We will relate this to our theme and talk about changes we think need to happen in our world today. Next we'll take several days to analyze the classic by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken". 

Word Study- this week we will study common prefixes. This week we will be working on understanding the meaning of the prefix as well as collecting words that include the given prefix. Prefixes include: sub, post, semi, multi, ultra, non, over, inter, extra, anti, counter. No quiz this week- the quiz will be on words including these prefixes next week. 

Social Studies: 

We've finished up our colonization unit and the test is Thursday. Kids have notes and know what to study!

Science: 

We started our Digestion unit last week! This week we will read about the performance of oral health as well as begin to learn about the parts of the digestion system and their functions. Kids will learn the different types of teeth and their functions as well as the importance of saliva- the first digestive enzyme. 

Citizenship: 

This week we will be talking about manners. A great thing to carryover into home conversations :). In particular, I want to start by connecting this to respectful behavior while at our specials classes. Recently I've gotten some less than positive feedback from specials teachers about appropriate behavior.