Wow! What a phenomenal Halloween party we had last Friday. Thank you room moms for such intricate planning and a memorable event. The activities were very creative; the games were fun and safe, and the treats were delicious. What else can a 5th grader ask for! Here is a round-up of the coming month’s curriculum happenings:
Link to the Halloween Party Video
Writing: We are almost finished with our WEX narratives! The final piece is finally coming together after going through the writing process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, proofreading and publishing. Next, we will move on to learning more about poetry, which we are all extremely excited about. We will study different types of poems like Haikus, Limericks, couplets, triplets, quatrains, cinquains and free verse; we plan to take a closer look at the poetic devices, their features and culminate the unit by creating our own poems. In grammar, we will be covering possessive nouns, action verbs and verb tenses.
Reading: We have started switching during our guided reading block for novel groups. The three books we’re currently reading are My Brother Sam is Dead, Toliver’s Secret and Fighting Ground. All three novels reference the pre-revolutionary war period that align with our History Alive curriculum. During shared reading time, we are learning to use good reading strategies from the Comprehension Toolkit. We are working on activating and connecting to new learning using a variety of non-fiction sources, like TKF, National Geographic and other non-fiction sources. We are analyzing text features and discussing how they improve our comprehension of the text. Our reading genre for the month of November is non-fiction.
Math: In Unit three, we are exploring congruent figures, angles, using a geometry template, compass and a straight edge, making tessellations and more. While I am very pleased with the progress many students have made with mastering their math facts, they can continue to benefit from additional practice, especially with their division facts. In math workshop, we continue to work on grade level skills in small, guided group settings. During center time, students are logging into IXL to practice the targeted concepts and skills we are learning in small groups. Oftentimes, these lessons are also assigned for homework as extra practice.
Link to Unit 3 On-line Resources
IXL - Geometry Link
XtraMath
Social Studies: The fifth grade attended their first field trip to view the Historical Reenactment at Olive School. It was a great trip and students reflected on their experience by creating thoughtful presentations that were posted to their blogs. We wrapped up chapter 10 by analyzing the Boston Massacre and wrote letters expressing our views on the event. We are now learning about patriots and loyalists and the arguments they made for or against going to war with the British.
Link to the Historical Reenactment Video
Social Studies Link
History Alive Tutorial
Khan Academy
Word Work: Students are mastering their differentiated word lists that cover various spelling patterns, while taking a closer look at syllabication, digraphs, blends, word parts and affixes. We are also learning to identify and apply similar patterns in our reading and writing, and in our weekly spelling test.
In the next couple of weeks, I will be sending home the conference time. Please let me know if any changes or conflicts in schedule come up. Otherwise, I look forward to meeting with you and sharing your child’s progress so far this year.
Link to Student E-Portfolios
Link to Class Calendar
Link to the Halloween Party Video
Writing: We are almost finished with our WEX narratives! The final piece is finally coming together after going through the writing process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, proofreading and publishing. Next, we will move on to learning more about poetry, which we are all extremely excited about. We will study different types of poems like Haikus, Limericks, couplets, triplets, quatrains, cinquains and free verse; we plan to take a closer look at the poetic devices, their features and culminate the unit by creating our own poems. In grammar, we will be covering possessive nouns, action verbs and verb tenses.
Reading: We have started switching during our guided reading block for novel groups. The three books we’re currently reading are My Brother Sam is Dead, Toliver’s Secret and Fighting Ground. All three novels reference the pre-revolutionary war period that align with our History Alive curriculum. During shared reading time, we are learning to use good reading strategies from the Comprehension Toolkit. We are working on activating and connecting to new learning using a variety of non-fiction sources, like TKF, National Geographic and other non-fiction sources. We are analyzing text features and discussing how they improve our comprehension of the text. Our reading genre for the month of November is non-fiction.
Math: In Unit three, we are exploring congruent figures, angles, using a geometry template, compass and a straight edge, making tessellations and more. While I am very pleased with the progress many students have made with mastering their math facts, they can continue to benefit from additional practice, especially with their division facts. In math workshop, we continue to work on grade level skills in small, guided group settings. During center time, students are logging into IXL to practice the targeted concepts and skills we are learning in small groups. Oftentimes, these lessons are also assigned for homework as extra practice.
Link to Unit 3 On-line Resources
IXL - Geometry Link
XtraMath
Social Studies: The fifth grade attended their first field trip to view the Historical Reenactment at Olive School. It was a great trip and students reflected on their experience by creating thoughtful presentations that were posted to their blogs. We wrapped up chapter 10 by analyzing the Boston Massacre and wrote letters expressing our views on the event. We are now learning about patriots and loyalists and the arguments they made for or against going to war with the British.
Link to the Historical Reenactment Video
Social Studies Link
History Alive Tutorial
Khan Academy
Word Work: Students are mastering their differentiated word lists that cover various spelling patterns, while taking a closer look at syllabication, digraphs, blends, word parts and affixes. We are also learning to identify and apply similar patterns in our reading and writing, and in our weekly spelling test.
In the next couple of weeks, I will be sending home the conference time. Please let me know if any changes or conflicts in schedule come up. Otherwise, I look forward to meeting with you and sharing your child’s progress so far this year.
Link to Student E-Portfolios
Link to Class Calendar