Updates and announcements
Happy Week 6! It is hard to believe
that we are over half way through the semester. Our students have been working
so hard on their turkey essays (mostly completed in class) and science fair essays.
I am so excited to read these and see their hard work come to fruition through
presentations in the following weeks.
Thank you to everyone who has
informed me of a planned absence. Please continue to do so, especially as we
approach Thanksgiving and Winter Break.
Our week in learning
Students will learn about the idiom “A miss is as
good as a mile.”
Students will learn about the roots agon, dromos,
and mons. Students will be quizzed over these roots next Wednesday. Students
should expect a similar quiz each week.
Students learned about the poem “The Snowstorm” on
11/13 and recite it on 12/4. We are giving extra time for this poem because it
can be challenging. The poem does not have a rhyme scheme. It has been helpful
for students in the past to listen to a recording while in the car or getting
ready in the morning.
Here are some good recordings of “The Snowstorm”:
In Literature, students will continue reading
“Where the Red Fern Grows”, ending the week with chapter 11. Students will
journal every day we read in Literature about a given prompt. We are a
spoiler-free school, so if students or older siblings know the end, please
encourage your child to discover the text on their own (especially the
ending).
In Grammar, students will use the writing process
to construct an essay from the perspective of a turkey around the holidays who
is convincing a farmer to not eat him/her. Students will work through the
revising and editing steps, handwriting a final draft and typing a final draft
this week. Starting Friday, students will read their finished drafts for the
class. Students will have class time to work on all of these components, then
what they do not finish is homework.
On
Monday, student science fair essays are due to their homeroom teachers. Their
posters will be due on Friday, November 22nd to their homeroom teacher.
Students will present their projects to their classes on November 25th-26th.
These presentations should be no more than two minutes in length, and should
focus on their hypothesis, procedure and conclusions. Posters will remain at
school until the science fair on December 4th. We will begin studying cells
this week. There will be no major unit test for this unit; instead, students
will be assessed with several short quizzes and prepare using their notes. The
first of these will be on December 3rd and will be over the parts of the animal
cell.
This week in history we will finish our
unit on England. Study guides are due Thursday, 11/21. The test will occur on
Friday, 11/22. On Monday we will discuss the reigns of Charles II who restored
the monarchy, and his brother James II, who was the first Catholic monarch of
England since Queen Mary I. On Tuesday we will finish our instruction, covering
the Glorious, or bloodless, Revolution. On Wednesday students will be given an assignment
to create a newspaper article about the execution of King Charles I of England.
Students will have the day to work on this, with a rough draft of their ½-1
page article due on Monday, 11/25. Final drafts are due on Tuesday, 11/26.
Students will be provided with construction paper to complete this assignment,
and will be given a half sheet with detailed instructions.
As we explore this period in the
history of England, please utilize this student reader, and other free
resources on Core Knowledge’s website: https://www.coreknowledge.org/free-resource/ckhg-unit-06-england-golden-age/student-reader/
In math, students will finish the unit on multiplying
and dividing fractions, taking their test on Tuesday. We will begin our unit on
area, surface area, and perimeter on Wednesday. Students will learn about
square units, the area of rectangles, symmetry, and perimeter. There are no
more math groups dates for the rest of the quarter.
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).
