March 23-27

This is the last week of third quarter! Wow, time is flying! FYI...report cards are issued the week after Spring Break. 

This week:
Wednesday: School-wide PJ party for Make a Wish Foundation- see below for more info! 
Friday: no school for kids-beginning of Spring Break
-Safe travels to anyone heading out next week for a Spring Break Adventure!  

"Kids Helping Kids"

Make a Wish Foundation

A May Watts Service Club Project

The Service Club is organizing a fundraiser to support the Make a Wish Foundation of Illinois. This foundation makes dreams come true for Illinois children with life-threatening conditions. On Wednesday, March 25th, we're holding a school-wide PJ party. To participate, students donate $1.00 or more to wear their PJs and help a child's dream come true. For more information about the organization, visit their web site: http://illinois.wish.org/

5H Math:

This week we'll finish up working on converting customary units. We need a little more work with volume (pints, cups, etc) and then will move on to customary weight (ounces, pounds and tons). We'll have a quiz this Thursday on converting customary length, volume and weight measurements. 

Language Arts:

All week we'll be working on our third quarter performance task. For this quarter, kids will need to write an "on the scene" report of an event that occurred leading up to the American Revolution. They will need to combine information from multiple sources, and determine the most important information about the event. Then students will have to choose either an historical person who took part in the event or a fictitious person who could have experienced the event. The second part of their writing piece will be a Q&A with their chosen person about the event. Kids will need to express how this event impacted the life of the person. 

In addition to the performance task, we will try and finish up Red Kayak. We will look at a couple passages from the text that are particularly important; one that helps us better understand the characters and their motivations and another that is a turning point in the story. I'll be collecting kids' reading notebooks at the end of the week to grade a few written responses they've made about Red Kayak. They'll get these back after break, and I'll have them bring them home for you to see. 

We'll also be working on comparing how two different texts present information about the same topic, and think about how texts are organized. For example, some nonfiction texts are written chronologically, while others are written in a cause/effect or problem/solution format. We'll look for key words that help us understand the structure. 

Social Studies:

This week we'll finish watching "America the Story of Us" which will allow kids to see more of the events that happened during the war. Kids will learn about two important leaders, George Washington and King George III. We will also do a bit more reading about the Declaration of Independence. Kids will have social studies homework at least once this week. 

This Wednesday, kids will take a quiz on the causes of the American Revolution. Kids need to know several events that lead to the eventual war between the colonies and Great Britain. They will need to explain how these events lead to war. They also need to have an understanding of the similarities between the events- the colonists felt Great Britain was exercising too much control over the them and Great Britain thought they had the right to complete control over the colonies. 

Citizenship: We'll be talking about personal responsibility this week. 

March 16-20

No special events in the classroom this week, although we will hopefully have our "marble party" later in the week. The kids wanted some time to play outside, which makes sense, and ice cream. So, this means you'll have a permission slip coming your way sometime this week. I just have to get the permission slip approved by the office, first! 

I passed back a few papers last week (science quiz, vocabulary sheet, and converting sheet) and will let you know when you can expect to see more this week. 

5H Math: 

Kids take their converting quiz on Monday- see email. Then the rest of the week we will be practicing measuring and converting within the customary units. We will again work with distance, volume/capacity and weight.

Language Arts/Social Studies:

The next couple weeks, language arts and social studies will be very much intertwined. Our theme, "At a Crossroads", fits perfectly with our social studies unit of the American Revolution...when the colonies were at a crossroads. As we learn about the events and people that lead to the American Revolution we'll also be discussing how decisions were made and the consequences of these decisions. 

We started watching "America the Story of Us" last week, and we will also be reading from our social studies textbooks to go deeper with the events and people shown in the video. For example, this week we will read more about the taxes Great Britain imposed on the colonists and why. We will also learn more about Patrick Henry and read and hear some of his famous speech that included the line "give me liberty or give me death!" We will also review The Boston Tea Party, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and the beginning of the war in Lexington and Concord. 

We will also use the text "George vs. George" this week which presents both sides of the American Revolution. I will pair passages from this text with passages about similar topics from their social studies books so we can compare and contrast the information. 

Each day we will be reading about and discussing events that lead to the war. It would be great to ask your child each day what we discussed, to help them review.

We will continue to read "Red Kayak" during language arts as well. 

Word Study:

This week we'll study the suffixes "al" (like in the word "global") and "ity" (like in the word "security"). Kids will learn the meanings of the suffixes and words, how to change the spelling of a word to add the suffix, and a few homophones this week. Kids will have a short homework assignment Monday night for the homophones. 

Citizenship this week is about personal responsibility in school. Last week we focused on following directions the first time, and the kids did well. They earned all their marbles in every specials class last week :)! 

March 9-13

The kids did a great job last week working through the PARCC assessments! They focused and tried their best. 

No special events this week to remind you about; there is a service club meeting this Wednesday after school, though. 

5H Math

This week we continue converting within the metric system. Kids need to be able to convert from a larger unit to smaller and vice versa. We are working on kids understanding why it makes sense to move the decimal in a number when converting within the metric system. Kids need to understand that the metric system is based on the base ten system. Each larger unit is ten times greater than the last unit, and when you move the decimal in a number you are also making it ten times greater or smaller depending on the direction you move it. The more practice we get with measuring, the better their understanding will be. 

Later this week, kids will begin converting not only length, but also with metric weight (grams) and metric capacity (liters). Conversions are the same with these types of measure as when converting between metric lengths/distances. This Friday kids will have a quiz on converting- all three measurement types will be on their quiz. All this week, I will be working with kids on having them make sure their answer makes sense. For example, if converting meters to centimeters, does it make sense for your number to get smaller? No...because it takes more centimeters than meters to measure the same distance. 

Language Arts

We continue Red Kayak, our anchor text. Today we worked on narrative writing by writing from a different character's perspective. Kids had to think about the events from the chapter and put themselves in someone else's shoes while considering how the events may have effected this other character (Mrs. DiAngelo). 

Kids were supposed to print or send me an article about a current event they are interested in. We will be using this current event to practice informational writing again. Kids will practice what we learned last week, to gather information about their topic and write a short information piece this week. Tuesday night they will need to find an additional source that provides further information about their topic. Then kids will work on determining what information is important to best communicate the current event.  

Word Study

Kids are learning about the Greek and Latin roots "tract" (to pull) and "mini" (less). We will do several assignments this week to learn about the meanings of the words and how to use them appropriately. Kids will take a quiz this Friday. 

Social Studies

We are building up to the American Revolution. Today we reviewed and learned more about how Spain, England and France claimed land in North America. We learned how each group is starting to try and claim more land and how this will create conflict. 

For the next couple days, kids will read and learn about the French and Indian War. This is important because England will spend a lot of money in the war to protect the colonists, and will then need to tax the colonists to regain some wealth. As we know, "taxation without representation" was one of the causes of the American Revolution. 

Later this week we'll start watching "America the Story of Us" from the History Channel. There are a couple great episodes that will help the kids visualize the events leading up to the war as well as the war.

The essential questions for the unit are listed below, in case you're curious! 

-How did the colonists learn to govern themselves?

-Which events made the colonists decide to break away from Great Britain?

-How did the patriots' point of view differ from the loyalists' point of view?

-What are the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence?

-Which important leaders helped to establish our new nation?

-What were the important events during the Revolutionary War?

Citizenship

This week we are working on following directions the first time given. 

March 2-6

Happy March! 

Thank you to anyone that helped provide dinner to the staff Thursday night during conferences. The food was wonderful, as were the desserts and the room looked great! 

As you know, this week the kids will be taking the PARCC assessment. Students will take one session of the test each morning this week. Monday-Wednesday will be ELA (English Language Arts) and Thursday and Friday will be math assessments. 

A couple reminders/new pieces of information:
-please have your child bring headphones if they are able and haven't already brought them in
-kids will need to have a book to read when they finish the test each day, and they can't read off their devices (of course they can get a book at school if needed)
-because of testing, 5th grade and 2nd grade will be switching lunch times- this means 5th grade will eat lunch at 12:20 instead of 12:00 


5H Math:

The plan is to have math Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, since we will be short on time due to testing, we will not have math every day. Math will take place in the afternoon. 

Kids will get their unit 5 math tests back on Monday, and we will start unit 6- standards below. We will start by reviewing how to multiply and divide by powers of 10, because students need to be able to do this in order to convert between measurements within the metric system. Our next two math days will be focused on understanding the metric system in order to convert measurements. 

Unit 6 Standards 

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

5.MD.A.1. Convert among different-sized standard measurement units within a given measurement system (e.g., convert 5 cm to 0.05 m), and use these conversions in solving multi-step, real world problems.

5.MD.B.2. Make a line plot to display a data set of measurements in fractions of a unit (1/2, 1/4, 1/8). Use operations on fractions for this grade to solve problems involving information presented in line plots

Language Arts:

Every day this week, we will have a writing lesson on research/informational writing to help us write our paper about the liver. First, we will write an outline for our introduction. Second, we'll write an outline for each body paragraph. Then we'll have a lesson on how to move from an outline to paragraphs (adding information and transition words as needed). Finally, we'll have a lesson on writing a conclusion; kids will write an outline and then use all of their outlines to write their paper. Throughout each lesson, we'll be comparing research/informational writing to opinion writing- there are many similarities in the structures and components. 

We will read some of Red Kayak each day- this week we will work a bit on character analysis through the eyes of the main character. So, this will require kids to take the perspective of Brady and analyze the text to determine his thoughts about the other main characters. 

Science:

Kids will take part in a nutrition activity the first couple days of this week. With a partner, kids will write a two-day menu. They will need to include the 6 types of nutrients in each day, and work on including appropriate amounts of each. I'll be bringing in some magazines with recipes and cookbooks kids can look through. Kids can bring some from home too :). 

We'll have our last quiz on the digestive system this Friday. Kids will need to tell what each part of the digestive system does (mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, anus) - they have notes on this that I have returned.