September 11, 2014

September 11, 2014

Dear Fifth Grade Parents,

We have had a great week in 5A! It was great to see you all at “Back to School Night”! Tomorrow we have our opening school Mass. We hope you join us at Mass at 8:45am.

The following is a curriculum update for the week of 9/15-9/19.

Reminders:

9/12 – Mass 8:45am – Perfect Uniform

Sell Magazines!!!!!

Religion

We are working on Chapter 1, Longing for God. In this chapter students will examine the importance of material goods vs. things that we need that money can’t buy. Students will be learning that having a relationship with God is the way to true happiness. We have completed the introductory lessons for the Sacred Story Meditation Program. Next week we will begin the meditations.

Math

9/15 Monday-Lesson 4, Representing Decimals pp. 29-34

9/16 Check My Progress Quiz Lessons 1-4.

9/17 Tuesday-Lesson 5, Understanding Place Value (Hands On) pp. 37-42Wednesday-

9/18 Thursday-Lesson 6, Place Value Through Thousandths pp. 43-48

9/19 Friday-Lesson 7, Compare Decimals pp. 55-60

Social Studies

The fifth graders are busy learning about Chapter 1, The Geography of the United States. Students will work in pairs to complete their Interactive Notebooks in class for Maps A-D. There is also an on-line study guide for this lesson. This is located on the right hand side of my web-page (Ms. Semandiris 5A) under the word HISTORY ALIVE! Just click on it and then select the correct lesson in this case it is Chapter 1. The test for this Chapter is 9/26.

Students will be able to:

Label:

  • 4 Hemispheres
  • Compass Rose
  • Equator
  • Prime Meridian
  • 7 Continents
  • 4 Oceans
  • Using: latitude/Longitude to find locations on the Earth’s surface
  • Define and be able to locate on a map: 14 geographical terms, (bay, ocean, peninsula..)

 

Reading

It was a pleasure meeting your children this week in 5th Gr. Reading. We will have Reading class on Mon.-Thurs. each week. I am excited to be using the new Houghton Mifflin Journeys program this year. Your student will be learning how to access the online component next week in the computer lab. Band parents: It is important to note that 5A band members miss 30 min. of Reading class every Monday, and 5B misses 10 min. of Reading class each Wed. Band students should be communicating with their Study Buddies and consulting the 5th grade homework page especially closely those days. Mrs. McFaul

LA Boomerang

This week in Language Arts students were busy reviewing policies and procedures as well as starting on several writing pieces. Students are completing a pre-assessment about someone they admire or a pair of magical goggles. This pre-assessment will generate a base from which students will grow as writers throughout the year. Students will begin a fictional narrative writing unit focusing on plot and its structure in stories. Students will focus on effectively writing these stories with description and dialogue.

Science

Students will learn how to conduct controlled experiments by experimenting with variables that do and do not affect the behavior of pendulums they have built in class. They will graph their results in a variety of ways and use their graphs to predict the behavior of different lengths of pendulums they construct. Students will take a quiz based on their experiences with pendulums (also called swingers) and vocabulary notes they have copied in their 5-subject notebooks on Wednesday 9/24).