Updates and announcements

I hope everyone had a wonderful Fall Break! We moved to a new house much closer to school, so though our break was not restful, it was quite fulfilling. Cosmo and Gustav are enjoying their bigger house and finding new places to hide.

Block scheduling starts this week. Please send in a reusable grocery bag with your child if you have not already done so.

Please sign up for a conference time if you have not already done so (link is in previous blog post).

Our week in learning

Students will learn about the idiom “Forty winks.”

Students will learn about the roots anthropos, vir, and femina. Students will be quizzed over these roots next Wednesday. Students should expect a similar quiz each week.

Students will learn about the poem “Narcissa” on 10/16. Students will recite “Narcissa” on 10/30. 

In Literature, students will start a poetry unit, learning about and identifying alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme schemes, slant rhymes, and imagery. 

In Grammar, students will learn about complex sentences, independent clauses, dependent clauses, and direct objects.

This week in science, we are beginning our science fair project. This project will take place over the course of Quarter 2, and on December 4th from 6PM-7PM, students will present their projects in the Arete gym for their classmates and families! On Monday, students will bring home a packet that contains due dates for all components on the projects and a place to record all data and assignments. Students will need to bring in their project idea signed by a parent or guardian to their homeroom teacher by 10/17. Please feel free to reach out to Ms. White with questions about potential projects. On Friday, students will have a chance to begin researching their projects on computers. This research should be completed by 10/22. We will also be studying classification. Study guides will go home on Tuesday, and students will learn about the Kingdom Animalia this week.

This week in history we will discuss the impact made by Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland, and King Henry VIII in England. We will compare them with Martin Luther, and discuss how the various churches in Protestantism developed. We will also learn about the Counter or Catholic Reformation, including Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits and the Council of Trent.

In math, students will learn about multiplying a fraction by a whole number, converting measurement expressed as a fraction of a unit to a smaller unit and visa versa, and word problems involving fractions. There will be no math groups this week. 

When a “test b” (multiplication test) is assigned for homework, it contains questions very similar to a quiz the following day. We take a lot of low-stakes math quizzes in fifth grade. All math workbook assignments are half of every type of problem. Please keep in mind that students may do test corrections on any math quiz for partial credit (fill in the blank sheets, not multiple choice homework sheets).