Updates and announcements
I hope everyone had a wonderful
Thanksgiving break! We were up in Flagstaff with my husband’s family. We weathered
the storm coming back on Friday and relaxed with our cats for the rest of
break.
As the semester draws to a close,
Archway Arete teachers are hard at work drafting narrative evaluations for each
of their students. This labor of love requires many hours of intentional
reflection and to facilitate this process, our teachers are given one work day
to focus on writing these evals. On Wednesday, December 11th, I will
be away from the classroom writing narrative evaluations. If you are interested
in supporting our classroom during my absence, please email me. Thank you in
advance! We are looking for a fingerprint cleared parent to cover lunch and
recess (12:40-1:20), and possibly help with a reading group (12:10-12:40).
The Winter Carnival is this weekend! I
hope to see you there! I’ll be selling some bowl cozies and possibly other quilted
goods at one of the merchant booths.
Our week in learning
Students will learn about the idiom “Out of the
frying pan and into the fire.”
The study guide for roots #25-50 is due on 12/4 and
their test will be on 12/11.
Students learned about the poem “The Snowstorm” on
11/13 and recite it on 12/11. 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 15. 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 construct their first
persuasive essay using real facts from provided articles. Students will write
convincing their parents that they either should or should not get a pet. We
will analyze articles, cite sources, construct a sentence outline, and write
their rough drafts this week. Students will have ample time in class to work on
their essay. Homework will be what students do not finish in class.
This week, students will
continue learning about animal cells and their organelles. There will be a
short quiz over the location and function of the organelles on Thursday,
December 5th. Later in the week, students will begin learning about the
structure and function of plant cells. Students may expect a quiz over plant
cells on December 10th.
We
hope to see everyone at this week’s Science Fair on Wednesday from
6:00PM-7:00PM!
This week in History, students
will learn about feudal Japan by completing a group project. This unit has 5
chapters, and the class will be split up into 5 groups. Each group will be
assigned a chapter, and create a presentation to share with the class.
Presentations will take place next Monday and Tuesday (December 9th
and 10th). All work will be completed in class. On
Wednesday, students will also individually be assigned one of the United States,
and will create a brochure on that State to present in class. Students will
have two class periods to work on this project (12/4 and 12/13), including an
opportunity to do research on computers. The brochure is due on Monday,
December 16th, and presentations will take place throughout the
last week of school (12/16-12/18).
In math, students continue our unit on area,
surface area, and perimeter with practicing using ½ X base X height to find the
area of a triangle, finding the area of a parallelogram (b X h), and total
surface area of a 3-dimensional figure. 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).
