May 19, 2011
Dear Fifth Grade Parents,
I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine! We have a very busy week ahead. Tomorrow is the Talent Show and Dress like the 80’s! Please follow the dress code rules as described in the handbook as well as in the EFC today.
Remember that next Friday 5/27 is Field Day and it is a noon dismissal. 5A’s colors to wear are BLUE & WHITE.
Math
Monday 5/23: Lesson 92, Dividing by Two-Digit Numbers
Tuesday 5/24: Lesson 93, Comparative Bar Graphs
Wednesday 5/24: Lesson 94, Using Estimation When Dividing by Two-Digit Numbers
Thursday 5/25: Reciprocals
Religion
We are currently working on Chapter 9, New Life. The study guide for this lesson is due on Monday 5/23. The test for this chapter will be on 6/1 during 1st period.
Social Studies
The 5th graders are working on Chapter 15, The Bill of Rights. They are currently creating a living scene or tableau in pairs of 6 of the amendments we studied. They will perform these on Tuesday 5/24. We will have a review on 5/25 and the test will be on 5/26.
Reading
In Reading this week we have taken a slight detour from the regular Reading curriculum to cover some of the Second Step lessons for 5th Grade. Our discussions have built upon the prior lessons about friendship skills and conflict resolution. We have learned to distinguish the difference between conflict and bullying which is the first ‘R’ of Bullying: Recognize. The second ‘R’ is Refuse and the third ‘R’ is Report. Through role playing, brainstorming and sharing, the 5th graders have become more comfortable and confident talking about this issue. We have begun the process of designing some catchy phrases to help us remember important things we’ve talked about. Next week, the 5th graders will be creating some anti-bullying posters to display around our school.
Science
In Chapter 4 of the Family Life text, students are learning the changes that occur during puberty. They will discuss the importance of growing in a balanced way-physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. Students will take a quiz on Ch. 3 and 4 next Wednesday (5/25).
Language Arts
Today, students were introduced to “Story Jumper,” an online program that helps students create narrative stories using text, scenes, pictures and other “props.” We began exploring this program together in class and reviewed the main components of a narrative story. Using this program, students will write their own original narrative stories. Each student has been given a graphic organizer planning sheet to use for brainstorming and pre-writing. These “story starter” worksheets are due on Monday.
I’ve asked students to browse through the website and look at sample Story Jumper books. They should also investigate the writing prompts available there as well as the scenes, characters, and visual “props” that can be used in their stories. In doing so, hopefully students will get some good ideas for their own stories, settings, characters, etc.
Each child will bring home a sheet, which contains a class ID number and individual username. This will allow each child to access Story Jumper from home once we actually begin writing. Parents will be given directions for creating a parent account in order for this access to occur. If you are not comfortable doing so, your child may work on their story from school only, but they will need to use study hall time or arrange for after school access with me in order to have enough time to finish. Neither the students nor I have ever used Story Jumper before, so this is very exciting for all of us to try out. Thanks for your support as we begin this new project!!
Have a great week!
Ms. Semandiris