Updates and announcements

I can’t believe we are already in our second to last week of school! This last quarter flew by.

We heard some absolutely incredible speeches students wrote for Promotion. In fact, they were so well done, I invited Mr. Gillingham to listen and help me decide which speech would be given for Promotion. All students should be very proud of their hard work.

Just some housekeeping, I will be gone from school the last two days (next Thursday and Friday) to attend my brother’s graduation back in Montana. My last engagement with the students will be Promotion. I am so sad to miss out on the end of year celebration, but I will get to see them off to middle school during Promotion. No worries, I will be back early the following week with my siblings to take care of the classroom and I look forward to watching our students grow next year on the Prep side.

5^th Grade Promotion is next Wednesday, May 23^rd. Students should arrive by 5:15 to get in their places.

Our week in learning

This week in Language Arts, students will take their end-of-year grammar test and begin learning about myths, legends, and tall tales. At the end of the week, students will begin composing their own such fiction!

In Across Five Aprils, students will add finishing touches to their literature project on Tuesday to turn in on Wednesday.

• A title
• A summary of a Civil War battle or event (2 paragraph minimum)
• An opinion article (see handout for prompt; must include 2 quotations; 2-3 paragraph minimum)
• A Civil War era photograph to accompany the summary
• An advertisement of a Civil War era product

The project will be due on May 16th.

This week in science, students will take their final unit exam of the year over the nervous system. On Tuesday, students will watch a short film about the chemist Percy Lavon Julian, and will have the opportunity to use biographical material to research his life and contributions to science. In groups of two, students will produce an illustrated children’s book about Julian’s life. They will have two full in-class days to complete this project, and should not need to work on it at home. The finished book is due next Monday.

Students are beginning their exciting unit on Native Americans: Cultures and Conflicts. Students will learn about the Indian Wars, the Battle of Little Bighorn, Custer, Wovoka, and the Battle of Wounded Knee. The study guides are due Wednesday, 5/16 and the test will be on Thursday, 5/17. On Friday, students will begin our final, short, non-tested unit on Russia.

This week, students will be assessed on their cumulative knowledge of math facts and skills from throughout the year. This will not be taken for a grade-just a check in to see where our students are after a year of hard work! We will take the assessments Monday and Tuesday in class. Students do not need to prepare or review at home. On Wednesday, we will do some fun brain teasers in math groups, and on Thursday and Friday students will have some fun, introductory lessons into ancient Babylonian and Greek mathematicians.