January 21, 2016
Dear Fifth Grade Parents,
5A has been working very hard this week! They are learning so many new things in all subject areas. Mr. Barker and I attended an amazing class on Free Google Tools/Google Classroom on Tuesday. We are very excited for setting up all of our classes in Google Classroom. We continue to integrate the Chrome Books more and more each week. The students have been doing a great job with them.
Reminders:
January 29th: Invention Convention Due!
The following is a curriculum update for the week of January 25 – 29, 2016.
Math
1/22 Chapter Review
1/25 Chapter Test 5
1/26 Chapter 6, L. 1, Estimate Products of Whole Numbers and Decimals
1/27 Chapter 6, L. 2, Hands On: Use Models to Multiply
1/28 Chapter 6, L. 3, Multiply Decimals by Whole Numbers
1/29 Chapter 6, L. 4, Hands On: Use Models to Multiply Decimals
Religion
We are currently studying Ch. 15 Forgiveness and healing. The study guide has been passed out and we have been working on it during class. The test for this chapter is on Thursday 1/28. On 1/29 we will continue to learn more about the difference between Conflict and Bullying.
Social Studies
We are currently working on Chapter 8, Facing Slavery. In this chapter we will be learning about the slave trade from the West African perspective. Students will be working in groups to solve a series of dilemmas
Science
Student’s inventions are due Friday, January 29th. Students are learning about the tropical rainforest ecosystem. Students will be able to describe the niche of several creatures that live in the rainforest including squirrel monkeys, kinkajous and ocelots. Students will discuss how different populations of organisms make up the rainforest community.
Language Arts
This week in Language Arts the focus for spelling was once again vowel-consonant patterns. Students reviewed regular and irregular verbs in grammar. In writing students finished the opinion essay unit and began a cause-and-effect essay unit. Students brainstormed a cause-and-effect topic and created a graphic organizer for this essay. They will complete the rough draft next week.
Reading
This week we read another narrative non-fiction selection based upon the events of the American Revolution. Students are fascinated with that time period in history! We are also seeing that when reading more rigorous, informational text, it is important to use some of our Close Reading strategies. We will remain with this lesson next week in order to dive deeper into this challenging text.