It was so nice to see everyone refreshed after coming back from winter break! I hope you all have had a relaxing and enjoyable time with family and friends. Entering into the latter half of the school year, we're looking forward to all of the learning, growth, and fun that comes with it!
Read below to find out what we've been learning!
Literacy
After we returned from break, we continued to practice analyzing multiple perspectives using nonfiction texts. With various reading passages, we compared and contrasted different authors’ points of view regarding topics such as the value of field trips and the history of video games. While we read these texts on author’s point of view, we are continuing to also practice identifying the author’s main point, and the reasons and evidence that the author uses to support it.
Writing
Within analytical writing, we worked on effectively organizing our paragraphs, crafting engaging hooks and closures, providing accurate supporting details, and elaborating on big ideas with further explanations. As we move into our new unit, we will be shifting our focus from analytic writing to narrative writing with a science fiction-based prompt. This will tie in nicely with our upcoming novel, George's Secret Key to the Universe! This novel is ALWAYS a favorite of 5th graders, and often sparks students to read other titles in the series on their own! I will highly be encouraging students to do so!
Math
This week, we continued our unit on multi-digit multiplication using the standard algorithm. Students are working to successfully solve multiplication problems by following the procedure of the standard algorithm and ensuring they arrive at accurate solutions by attending to precision errors. Next week, we will show how much we’ve learned with our end-of-unit test. Our next unit is multiplying and dividing fractions. Throughout the unit, students will be using equations along with labeled models to multiply and divide fractions. We will start this unit by learning how to multiply whole numbers and fractions.
Science & Social Studies
We finished our unit this week on daily and seasonal sky changes. We engaged in a variety of fun activities and demonstrations to help us understand constellations, earth’s rotation, as well as shadows. On Thursday, we played a review game in small groups in order to solidify the important concepts. We will be starting our next unit in Social Studies next week, where we are focusing on the Colonial Era. Here, we will discuss the motivations behind why European countries had a strong desire to expand their empires into the "New World" during the age of exploration. We will also analyze the effects and impacts of colonization in North and South America during this time in history.
Upcoming Events
Monday, January 15th- No School (MLK Jr. Day)
Tuesday, January 30 - Early Release (Dismissal @ 2:05 PM)
Friendly Reminders
Since winter weather is here, please make sure your student is properly dressed for recess.
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
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