Updates and announcements

We are off to a strong start! The third quarter is one of my favorites. Students are refreshed from their long break and our classroom culture is strong. We have so many things coming up in the third quarter, like Great Hearts Day, our field trip to the Renaissance Fair (more on that soon), and preparing for the AZMerit tests in the fourth quarter.

This Friday, we have MAP testing. If your child has a planned absence, please let me know and I can arrange to have them take the test early.

Just a friendly reminder-open math tutoring is on Mondays with Ms. White. I noticed that none of our students have attended this tutoring session and it is a wonderful resource.

See the Spring semester clubs on this google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18DwPk4-JICmHZG_1ECNFz_ObqUlNc4rkamFSJ_a30t0/edit?usp=sharing

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “Steal his/her thunder”.

Students will learn about the roots cardo, porta, and porto. They will be quizzed on these roots next week. Students should expect a similar quiz every week over the previous week’s roots.

In Literature, we will start reading “The Secret Garden”. We will continue reading through chapter 6. Students will have a journal entry about every two days. Please send in “The Secret Garden” book by Monday, January 14.

In Writing and Grammar, students will have a grammar quiz on Wednesday. Students will start researching their explorer in class. Students will need to have hard copies of the website articles they use for research and a photocopy of the book pages they use. This is so they are able to highlight the information. Researching methods will be modeled in class. Students will be given time to research in class and their homework will be to finish the research they were not able to finish for the body paragraph assigned in class. Students will need their research complete by January 22nd, which is when the hard copies of their book and online sources are due. It would be best to start earlier rather than later in collecting these resource materials.

This week in science, student will continue their study of botany. There will be a short quiz on Tuesday over the characteristics of plants notes from last week. Students will continue learning about different types of non vascular plants, and begin a study of seedless non-vascular plants. We will also begin our study of plant reproduction this week by learning about spores.

This week in History, students will continue learning about the Age of Exploration, discussing the famous explorers Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. We will learn about the Spanish Empire, including their treatment of Indians, as well as English explorers and the colonies they attempted to settle.

In math, we will start a rather lengthy unit on decimals. Students will add, subtract, compare, round, multiply and divide decimals. Most of this week’s work should be review from last year. ALL workbook homework assignments will be half of every type of problem. We will explain what this looks like to the class and sample the first few homework assignments with them. There will be a short quiz over ratio Monday, January 14, then we will switch to the “5B” books. “5A” workbooks can stay home.