April 26-May 1

This week:

Kids take the End of the Year PARCC this week. They will have one English Language Arts assessment on Monday, and a Math assessment on both Tuesday and Wednesday. They will take each test first thing in the morning. 

Kids can bring in books for the book exchange any day this week. Most kids did not get their mail Friday, so they will bring home a note about the book exchange Monday. 

ECO club members: ECO club meeting/field trip on Tuesday
Service Club members: meeting Wednesday until 4:45 

5H Math:

Kids will get their math quizzes back on Monday. There will be no math Tuesday, because of shifting of schedules due to PARCC testing. The rest of the week we'll focus on multiplying fractions by fractions and mixed numbers. This will include drawing models to show our solutions and solving word problems. 

Language Arts:
We'll read from our anchor text, Maniac Magee, each day this week. We'll work on a variety of skills:
-determining character traits based on evidence from the text
-annotating the text to demonstrate our thinking, we'll focus on annotating parts of the text that provide new information or that make us wonder
-looking at how and why the author uses repetition in his writing 

In addition, we are always learning about vocabulary and responding to questions about the text. We will also practice annotating with our nonfiction science texts. Kids will have a word study quiz this Thursday on -ine, -age, and -ege.

Science:
On Friday, kids completed paintings of the structure of the sun. They turned out great! Kids will have a quiz on the structure of the sun this Wednesday. They need to know the 3 inner layers of the sun as well as the layers of the sun's atmosphere. Kids will need to know basic information about each layer as well. We'll review on Monday. 

This week kids will watch a video and do some reading to learn about the stages in the life cycle of stars. By the end of the week, I hope we will be learning about the types of galaxies. 

April 20-24

As a reminder from the office, please remember to turn in your Proof of Residency information as soon as possible. Last week kids got a couple social studies papers returned, and they will get their quizzes back tomorrow (Monday) as well as their presentation grades. 

Events this week:
Tuesday: Bike Safety Assembly and Author Visit (kids can dress up as a fairy tale character!)
Wednesday: Fifth Grade Program- kids need to arrive at school at 6:45 PM, program starts at 7:00

Students will be taking part in the End of the Year PARCC assessments next week 4/27-4/29. 

5H Math:

We'll finish up Unit 7 this week with a quiz on Wednesday. The quiz will be on adding and subtracting mixed numbers, kids will need to know how to "borrow" or regroup when subtracting mixed numbers. The quiz will have computation and word problems. Kids got an exit slip handed back last week and will get another one tomorrow, to show how they're doing on the skills that will be on the quiz. We'll focus on word problems Monday and Tuesday. 

Later in the week, we'll be moving on to Unit 8, which will involve multiplying and dividing fractions.  

Language Arts: 

The kids' six word memoirs about the main characters we've read about turned out wonderfully. The kids showed they understood who the characters are and what was important to them. They're hanging up in the room right now, but will be sent home later. 

We continue with Maniac Magee. After reading the first chapter, we wrote down a lot of questions we had and as we read we are figuring out that the author is slowly revealing the answers to these questions. We are getting to know Maniac and will be answering the same questions about him as we have our other characters (Who is he? How has he shown courage? What choices/challenges has he faced? How is he moving forward?). We will also study the figurative language the author is using, this week. 

Word Study from last week has been moved to this week. So we will learn about the suffixes -ine, -age and -ege. We'll learn about the meanings of the these suffixes as well as the meanings of words that have these suffixes. I will update you and the kids about when the quiz will be for these words. 

Earth Day is this week, and we will read from our latest Time for Kids magazine which focuses on Earth Day to incorporate some nonfiction reading. 

In addition to all this, we will start to learn about what the colonists did to form their own government after they won independence from Great Britain. This will lead to a study of the Constitution, but we will first learn about the Articles of Confederation, which was the colonists' first attempt at a Constitution. 

Science: We continue our unit about the Sun. Kids will learn more about the layers of the sun this week as well as start to learn about the Sun's life cycle as well as the life cycle of larger stars. 

April 13-17

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend! 

This week:
Monday: ECO club meeting for those kids that participate
Tuesday: Jump Rope for Heart during school- kids should be prepared to be outside for a couple hours. Fifth grade jumps in the morning. If your child is collecting pledges, money is not due until April 27th, but they can bring in envelopes any time. 
Wednesday: Service Club meeting until 4:45 for kids that participate.

Mrs. May will be talking to the kids about an upcoming author visit; you can look for information to come home this week. The author visit is next Tuesday. 

5H Math: 

Kids will most likely get their tests back on Monday (still working on them!). We are starting unit 7, but this will be a quick unit. The only two standards in the unit are about adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers, which we worked on during unit 5. We will go further with these skills in this unit. Kids will learn how to add and subtract mixed numbers as well as how to subtract mixed numbers when you have to "borrow" or regroup. When solving fraction problems we will be working on using benchmark estimates to help us determine if our answers are reasonable, and we will work on making visual models to represent the problems. 

Language Arts:

We're starting our 4th quarter theme, "Moving Forward" this week. We'll be thinking about the below essential questions as we read different texts this quarter:  


1. How do individuals and groups move forward in their lives?
2. What is the value of reflecting and acting on knowledge gained from past experience when trying to move forward?


Our next anchor text will be Maniac Magee, which we will start later in the week. To begin the week, we will think back to the main characters of our previous texts, and think about how each theme from the year applied to each character...for example, "Who was Naomi?" (Identity), "How did Naomi show courage?" (Courage), "What choices did Naomi have to make?" (At a Crossroads), and "In what ways did Naomi move forward?" (Moving Forward). After we've reviewed the main characters we've read about this year, kids will write short memoirs for each character...very short in fact, they'll write a "Six Word Memoir" for each character. This will require students to think carefully about the 6 best words that represent each character. 

I love this theme because it connects so well with our social studies concepts and to the students as they "move forward" from elementary school! We're just wrapping up learning about the American Revolution, and soon we'll learn about how the people of the new United States moved forward after the war.

For word study this week, we'll learn about the suffixes -ine,  -age, and -ege. Kids will learn the meanings of these suffixes and we will then study a list of words, learning about their meanings and how to spell them. Kids will have a quiz Monday, April 20.  

Social Studies: 

In small groups, kids have been learning about important events that happened during the American Revolution. On Monday, groups will finish creating posters for their events and preparing for their presentations on Tuesday. On Tuesday we will review what kids need to know for their second quiz on the American Revolution. Kids will be helping create the quiz questions! The quiz will be Friday.

Science: 

We are beginning our Astronomy unit! This week we'll learn what a star is and start to learn more about our closest star, the Sun, through readings and a video. Here are the essential questions for the unit, although we will learn much more than this:

• What is the life cycle of a star?
• What are the names of some of the basic star patterns? (constellations)
• What are the basic parts of a star?
• What are the 4 basic types of galaxies?

April 6-10

I hope you all had a nice week with your kids :). We had a good first day back! By the way, Mrs. Donaldson, our music teacher, awarded 5H the "Golden Record Award" for 3rd quarter! This means 5H earned the most marbles during music class this past quarter out of all the 5th grade classrooms! 

Friday: Report cards will be available online. 

Kids brought home graded papers Monday. 

From Service Club: 

Way to go May Watts! The Service Club fundraiser, "Kids Helping Kids" for the Make a Wish Foundation was a great success! Maybe we should have called it "Community Helping Kids"! Together, we were able to raise $1,435.67​! ​All of your donations will go to helping Illinois kids with life-threatening conditions. Thank you for your help in making children's dreams come true! 

5H Math: This week we are finishing up Unit 6. Kids will take the unit 6 test Thursday. This will include converting within the metric and customary systems (word problems and computation), rounding decimals and line plots. We started learning about line plots today and will continue working with them on Tuesday. Kids need to be able to make a line plot from a set of data as well as be able to answer questions about the data. Wednesday we will review all the types of problems before the test Thursday. 

-Kids brought home their customary converting quizzes Monday. 

Language Arts/Social Studies: 

We finished up our Anchor Text, Red Kayak, before break, and will be reflecting about the book and how it fit the theme "At a Crossroads" this week. 

Kids are finishing up their performance tasks and will be presenting by Friday at the latest. As a reminder, their performance task requires them to write a newscast of a crossroads event in American History. They also write an interview with a person who experienced the event; they need to show their understanding of how the event impacted the person- this is hard! Some kids are presenting as early as Wednesday. Kids need to make sure they are well-practiced- they should be practicing at home. 

Kids will be finishing up reading about the American Revolution this week. The kids have learned a lot about the causes of the war, and this week we need to go a bit deeper into some of the events that happened during the war. We will read about several turning points during the war, which include ordinary people helping the Patriot war effort, important battles, and other countries coming to the colonists' aid. We will be reading multiple texts about the Declaration of Independence, and combining important information from each to gain a better understanding of the document and its importance. The students will also read more about what it was like to be a patriot or loyalist during the time period. Kids will most likely have a bit of SS reading homework this week. Next week we will have another quiz to end the unit. By the way, kids did an awesome job on their first American Revolution quiz! 

We will be moving into science next week, our Astronomy unit. Any astronomy experts that would like to share their knowledge with the class? We will be learning about stars, with a focus on the life cycle of the sun.