September 21, 2017

September 21, 2017

 

Dear Fifth Grade Parents,

 

This week we have been working on following through with the procedures of the classroom rules, listening skills, as well as walking in the halls as a group. We will be practicing these things next week as well!

 

Religion

We have been working on Chapter 1, “God’s Plan for All Creation”. Students will explore all of creation as the gift of God’s goodness. They will also learn that stewardship is the way we appreciate and use God’s gifts. Students will take an assessment approximately every one to two weeks. They will complete study guides in class to help prepare for the assessments. The test on Chapter 1 will be Tuesday (9/26).

 

Math: (Semandiris)

 

Students are progressing very well. I am so impressed by how well our class is participating and focused. Please remember to practice your multiplication problems 0-12’s every night! Also, you can work on ALEKS if you have a light homework day and on every weekend!!

 

9/22 – Chapter 1 Test

9/25 – Ch. 2, Lesson 1, Prime Factorization/Review any test correction questions.

9/26 –Ch.2, Lesson 1, Prime Factorization – Day 2

9/27 – Ch. 2, Lesson 3, Powers & Exponents

9/28 – Ch. 2, Lesson 4, Multiplication Patterns

9/29 – Check My Progress Quiz Lessons 1-4.

 

Math: (Mr. Schreck)

We will be skipping non-essential lessons periodically in order to teach the geometry unit late in the school year.

Here’s an overview of the next lessons:

 

Thursday: Lesson 1, Prime Factorization

Friday: Review Lesson 1

Monday: Lesson 3, Powers and Exponents

Tuesday: Lesson 4, Multiplication Patterns

Wednesday: Review Lessons 1, 3 & 4

Thursday: Quiz, Lessons 1,3 & 4

Math (Mrs. Heuer):
This week we are concluding our first unit: Understanding Decimals.  In this unit, we learned some background on decimals, which helped us to better understand how to add and subtract decimals.  Next week we will begin our second unit where we will learn how to multiply and divide decimals.  Next week the students will also get their username and password for ALEKS, which will be a supplemental online learning system that we will use in class periodically throughout the year.  Students are also encouraged to work through their ALEKS path at home.  If a parent or student ever needs any information on math homework, please visit my homework page @ math.holyrosaryws.org and click on the 5th homework page.

 

Language Arts

This week in Language Arts students have been working on their classroom behavior skills, on their guided short story writing skills, and on their spelling skills. The first spelling test of the year is today (9/21) for 5A and tomorrow (9/22) for 5B. Due to the way the class schedules work 5A (on most weeks) will have a spelling test on Thursday and 5B will have a spelling test on Friday. Students have been working on words with short vowel sounds this week. I will post the spelling words on my website weekly and they can also be found in their Readers Notebook. This week students have also been working on short stories involving one thing they could never leave home without. The idea of this short story is to remember to include enough detail to give their writing volume and substance.

 

Social Studies

The fifth graders are busy learning about Lesson 1, The Geography of the United States. Students will work in pairs to complete their Interactive Notebooks in class for Maps A-D.

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..)
  • Be able to identify 15 major physical features of the USA

I.E:(Mississippi R., Sierra Nevada, The Great Plains.

 

The test for this Chapter is on 9/29. The Study Guide will be handed out on 9/22. Please remind you child to study for this test using the study guide, text and their Interactive Notebook.

 

Science:

Students will wrap up their experiments with pendulums with a quiz based on their experiments and notes copied in class next Tuesday (9/20).

Students begin a unit in the Engineering is Elementary program. Students will explore the field of environmental engineering as they design a process to clean an oil spill in a model river. They will learn how pollution can negatively impact the organisms in the ecosystem and how engineers must consider both short and long-term effects of pollutants on the organisms in a given ecosystem.