November 5, 2015
Dear Fifth Grade Parents,
Get Your Motor Running!
We are pleased to present our dream come true of having a monthly workshop called “Get Your Motor Running!” which teaches about simple machines. Both fifth grade classes led by Mr. Schreck and Ms. Semandiris will work in small groups for two periods. During this time students will collaborate in teams to successfully build and understand each machine. Students will use collaboration, mathematics, problem solving and communication skills, while working to complete each task together. These are skills that students will use in their future while working on real world problems. Subjects such as social studies and language arts will also be integrated to identify and write about how these machines are used in the real world. Students will also have he opportunity to present the process they went through to complete the task and reflect on how their group worked together as a team.
Reminders:
11/10 – 2:00 MASS
11/11 – No School Veteran’s Day
11/13 – Family Fun Center for Magazine Sale (If you qualified)
Curriculum Update:
Religion
We have begun Chapter 14, which is about the Sacraments of Initiation. On Monday 11/9, the “My Baptism” worksheet is due. Please read the rubric for details. We went over the rubric together in class. Students should come to school with 20 – 25 cut out pictures from magazines that have to do with the theme of Baptism to put on the collage. Ideas could include: water, candles, light, white clothing, child/New life etc… We will assemble it at school. Also I have asked them to bring in old magazines as well for Monday if possible!
Math
11/9: Ch. 3, L. 9, Place the first Digit
11/10: Ch. 3 L. 10, Quotients with Zeros
11/11: Ch. 3 L. 11, Hands On: Use Models to interpret the Remainder
11/12: Ch. 3 L. 12, Interpret the Remainder
11/13: Ch. 3 L. 13, Problem Solving Investigation
Accelerated Math:
The fifth graders have been working hard on two-digit division and will finish up Chapter 4: Dividing by Two-Digit Divisors with a test on Monday. We’ll move on to Chapter 5: Adding and Subtracting Decimals next week and will focus primarily on rounding decimals, estimating sums and differences, and using base ten blocks to model decimal problems.
Social Studies
We are studying Lesson 5, Routes of Exploration to the new world. We are currently working to complete the matrix in the interactive notebook. They have had several class periods to do this. Students will be participating in a game to test their knowledge of the 8 explorers we have studied tomorrow. Our review will be early next week. The test will be on Thursday (11/12). A study guide will be handed out on (11/6). Students will need to study at home for this test as well.
Science
Students will discover the main parts and functions of animal cells. They will compare and contrast these parts (organelles) with plant cells. Students will be able to identify similar cells that make up tissues, and how different kinds of tissues work together to make up organs
Language Arts
This week students learned about using transitions in their writing. Students practiced using transitions in several different writing pieces. We then transitioned to procedural writing, where our focus is specifically on using transitions and writing a strong introduction and conclusion. In grammar students learned about action and helping verbs this week. Finally, students studied different /r/ sounds in spelling this week.
Reading
We will wrap up the story of Hound Dog True this week. The students have been given access to the audio version of this story through the Think Central website. This provides an option for those who would like to listen to the story as they follow along in the book to finish by Monday. The 5th graders have enjoyed analyzing author’s style, character traits and the theme of friendship and trust through reading this book. Next week we will jump back into Journeys.