November 1, 2012

November 1, 2012

Dear Fifth Grade Parents,

We have been working very hard this week in 5A. I hope you all had a wonderful “All Saints Day”.  There is no Boomerang envelope this week since we passed back all papers during conferences. We will have more corrected work next Thursday. It was great to meet all of you at conferences last week!

Religion

We have begun Chapter 14, Reborn in Christ. This Chapter is mainly about the about the RCIA process and the Sacraments of Initiation. Students will be given the study guide for this lesson tomorrow during Religion class. We will be working on it during class. The test for this lesson will be next Friday 11/9.

Math

Monday 11/5: Lesson 31, Pairs of Lines

Tuesday 11/6: Lesson 32, Angles/Polygons

Wednesday 11/7: Lesson 33, Rounding Numbers Using a number Line

Thursday 11/8: Lesson 34 Division with Zeros in the Quotient

Remember to practice multiplication facts each night!!!!

Social Studies

The fifth graders have been working on Lesson 3, Native Americans and Their Cultural Regions.  We will have the Lesson 3 Test on Tuesday 11/6.  Friday 11/2, we will be learning about Veteran’s Day and doing an outreach activity to our Veteran’s.  Veteran’s Day is Monday 11/12.  Next week after our test we will be moving on to Lesson 4, Why Europeans left for the New World.  Students will be exploring Artifacts in a sunken ship. They will be taking turns being the “Deep Sea Diver” and the “Research Scientist” while doing the lesson.  Students are encouraged to bring their swim goggles next Wednesday – Friday.

Reading

This week 5th graders have participated in a ‘mock book club’ using
‘little books’. The purpose of this mini-unit was to become familiar
with the process of participating in a book group. The students
practiced how to be the leader of the group, how to listen to the
leader, and worked out ways to make sure everyone gets a chance to
speak in the group. Next week students will select which book(s) they
would like to read and begin reading and discussing their book with
their new book club members.  There will be 4 students in each group
which means that not everyone will get his or her first choice this
time around. We will have another round of Book Club later in the
year, so hopefully everyone will eventually get to read their first
choice title! I am really looking forward to starting Book Clubs!

Science

Students will discover how water resources can be protected. They built a model showing how pollution can spread into underground water. Students will also discuss how land resources are used and can be protected. Next they will learn the sources and effects of air pollution, and how air quality can be protected. Students will take a short quiz on lessons 1 & 2 next Tuesday.

Language Arts

Students this week have concluded their descriptive writing unit and will be submitting their pumpkin essay by Wednesday of next week. This essay has been done in class and students have spent time learning how to: brainstorm, use a thesaurus to change adjectives, correctly peer edit each others papers, and recognize the difference between sentences and fragments. Each of these steps are part of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing process: Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions and Presentation.

In the weeks to come students will be starting a grammar unit on: common and proper nouns, action verbs, multi-syllable adjectives and synonyms. Students will also be starting a short descriptive piece on Thanksgiving.

Have a great week!

Ms. Semandiris