September 29, 2016
Dear Fifth Grade Parents,
I hope you are all doing well! We are very busy in 5A. The following is a curriculum update for the week of October 3-7, 2016.
Religion
The Chapter 1 Test will be on Monday 10/3. Next we will move on to Ch. 2, Worshiping God. We will be learning about how Chico Mendes and the Rain Forest. Chico lived in Brazil as a rubber tapper and he fought to protect the environment because he cared for God’s creation.
Math
***Please practice your multiplication facts every night!!! This is the October challenge!!!
10/3 – Ch. 2 L, 9 Multiplying by One-Digit Numbers
10/4 – Ch. 2 L. 10 Multiplying by Two-Digit Numbers
10/5 – Ch. 2 Fluency Practice
10/6 – Ch. 2 Fluency Practice &Chapter Review
10/10 – Chapter Review & Practice
Social Studies
This week we began Chapter 4, Why Europeans left for the New World. In this lesson, students learn about European Exploration in the 15th and 16th Centuries by “excavating” and examining objects from “sunken ship”. In a Social Studies skill builder, pairs take on the role of underwater archeologists to investigate eight placards, each of which contains an image of an artifact from an explorer’s sunken ship. After analyzing and reading about the artifacts, students will categorize them into 3 different categories: as motives for exploration, as new technology that encouraged exploration, or as “new” products from the Americas. * Students may bring in their swim goggles for our deep-sea diving adventure!
Language Arts
This week in Language Arts students’ spelling focused on the long o and the long i sounds. In grammar students learned about complete subjects and complete predicates as well as compound sentences. Students continued to work on narrative writing this week and we focused specifically on writing a descriptive paragraph of a setting. Students learned about sensory details and worked on bringing their setting to life through their descriptions.
Science
Students will learn how an oil spill might affect an ecosystem. They will use a controlled experiment to examine different materials and methods used to clean oil spills. They will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Reading
As we continue reading Hatchet, we will focus our attention on how the setting and plot help to shape the themes found in this story.