It's hard to believe that Halloween is almost upon us! We've enjoyed some fun class meetings this month that had a Halloween flair! In fact, today we decorated virtual jack-lanterns and did a gallery walk to view everyone's creations!  Next week, we're heading full speed into November and starting to wrap up Trimester 1. It's crazy to believe that we're almost through a third of the 22-23 school year! Included in this update, you will find the family letter for our upcoming unit in math on place value and decimals, which we just started at the end of this week. 

Here are the targets we are currently/planning to work on throughout the next couple of weeks:

Literacy

This week, we started reading a nonfiction text titled Explorers: Triumphs and Troubles. This text highlights the details and impact of various explorers' expeditions throughout history. As we read the text, we are working on identifying the author's main point/s while determining reasons and evidence as support. To practice determining the author's main point/s, we ask ourselves, "What does the author MOST want us to know or believe about what was written?" We will continue our work on this learning target using various texts.

Writing

We have been continuing our writing on the positive effects of cellphones for children in school. After collecting and organizing their research, students have been working to draft their extended response. During instruction, they were guided through the process of writing an extended response, which includes an engaging introduction, well-supported body paragraphs, and effective conclusion. When students have completed a rough draft, they will work on revising and editing their writing, making sure that they included all necessary components of an analytical response. 

Math

We wrapped up our second unit, which focused on adding and subtracting fractions, and we have started our next unit on decimals. This unit includes building students' knowledge of place value, powers of ten, reading/writing decimals, and adding/subtracting decimals. Although a portion of this unit is instructed in Trimester 1, the learning targets will be reported out on the report cards for Trimester 2. In Number Corner this month, we've been weighing two carrots regularly to collect and plot data onto a double line graph. Both of our carrots have drastically changed in appearance and weight since the beginning of the month! To extend our investigation on the carrots, we decided to put them back into water to see what will happen! Be sure to ask your student about how the carrot changed after submerging it in water! Today we played a fun game called "Eyeballs in the Cauldron" which combined action and fraction skills! Be sure to ask your student about it!

Social Studies

During our first unit, we have been engaging within inquiry-based learning by participating in discussions and research. We've been focusing on the essential question, "How does a relationship to the land shape culture and way of life?" by learning about Native American tribes based on cultural areas and regions. Within groups, students were tasked to collect information and create a slideshow presentation on how different aspects of Native American life (e.g. food, shelter, tools, clothing, etc.) were influenced by the environment they inhabited. Groups are starting to present their presentations to their classmates in order to share their knowledge and practice their oral language skills.

Upcoming Events

• Friday, October 28 - Wildcat Wizardry PTO Event (@ 6:00-8:00 PM)

• Monday, October 31 - Halloween Parade & Classroom Parties

• Tuesday, November 1 - PTO Special Lunch

  Thursday, November 2--50th Day of school! Dress in your best 50's clothes!

  Friday, November 11 - Trimester 1 Reporting Period Ends

• Friday, November 11 - School Spirit Day (PJ Day)

Friendly Reminders

• Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night

• Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

• Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts up to 12

• If your child participates in orchestra or band, please remind him/her to bring their instrument on their lesson day

5th Grade BLOG update for 10/14/22

 

Happy Friday Families!

It was great seeing you at conferences last week to discuss your student's academic and social emotional progress.  I loved that I was able to learn more about each student through the conversations we shared!  Now that we're deep into the first grading period, I am excited to see how much more our students will grow throughout the year.  There is so much to teach and so much to learn, but so little time!

Here are the concepts we will focus on as we work through over the next couple of weeks:

Literacy
Our students started our new shared text, The Road to Freedom. The story is narrated from the point of view of a young girl, Emma, who is traveling on the Underground Railroad with her mother in hopes of making it North to freedom. Our students are highly engaged throughout text and are having many great discussions related to topics raised within the story.  Using this shared text, we will work on literacy skills such as summarizing and identifying narrator's point of view.

**As a part of our Thursday Fun Fluency each week, your student ALWAYS has homework every Thursday evening to read the poems we worked on to someone at home with good fluency. Kindly sign the poems after your student has read them aloud. Students in the upper elementary grades still greatly benefit from fluency practice.

**Also, every Tuesday, students check in with me about their independent reading. Students are expected to be reading 20-30 minutes per day. I am happy to suggest titles and make recommendations as I have a substantial classroom library and I love when students borrow books!

Writing

After spending a learning cycle with a focus on narrative writing, next week will will begin to shift to nonfiction analytical writing. We will start to plan our first analytical paper, focusing on the topic of “The Benefits Of Cell Phones In Schools”. Students will work through the writing process step by step, writing the introduction, working on body paragraphs, and then conclusion. They will end with editing their work.

Math

We are continuing to focus on fractions as we make our way through our second unit in math. Our students are starting to move away from utilizing money and time to model the operations and are learning how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators by finding common denominators and equivalent fractions (5.NF.1). Over the next two weeks, we will apply and stretch our knowledge in order to solve fractions story problems (5.NF.2). Those students who have already demonstrated their ability to add and subtract fraction with unlike denominators will participate in other activities to extend their knowledge of fractions in other areas.

Science

We wrapped up our discussions about ecosystems.  Over the last couple of weeks, we learned about consumers and the flow of energy through an ecosystem.  We learned that consumers must eat other animals in order to survive.  We also learned that the flow of energy starts at the sun and flows to the producers and then to the consumers.  Various discussions, activities, and investigations allowed us to create food chains that show the flow of energy from the sun to the owl.  

Social Studies

This week, we started our new Social Studies program!  The program focuses on students' voices and choices and the ability to connect to their own experiences and interests.  Through the inquiry-based learning model and engaging investigations, our students will build knowledge in history, civics, geography, and economics.  Our first discussions have focused around the perceptions of Indigenous American Cultures and learning how to formulate questions to help guide our students' learning on how to better honor the cultural heritage of this land. We used a process of visual note-taking as we learned new vocabulary in order to get a firmer grasp of the concepts and ideas being presented.

Upcoming Dates

Tuesday, October 25th - Early Release

Tuesday, November 8th - No School (Election Day)

Friendly Reminders

**Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night.

**If your child participates in orchestra or band, please remind him/her to bring their instrument on their lesson day.

**Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!

**Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts up to 12.