Monday, February 3, 2020


Updates and announcements

I hope everyone had a restful weekend after our Athletic Field Day excitement! While we earned 3rd place in a very close competition, I was very proud of the citizenship and integrity I saw for most of the day.

Please return field trip permission slips as soon as possible.

Great Hearts Day is coming up! Please check last week’s blog for more specific information on guidelines for the day.

I saw a great increase in math quizzes being corrected for partial credit last week! I will continue to send a quick email to all parents regarding what important assessments to look out for in signed folders every week. With the excitement from Field Day, we did not get folders out on Friday. We will send them home today instead.

Our week in learning

Students will learn about the idiom “Time heals all wounds.”

Students will learn about the roots quintus, sextus, septus, and octavus. Students will be quizzed over these next week. Students should expect a similar quiz every week. 

Students learned about the poem “I Hear America Singing” on 1/29 and will recite it on 2/12.

In Literature, students will read through chapter 18. There are periodic journal entries which are numbered, but do not happen after every chapter. Students will do journal entries 11, 12, and 13 this week. Please send in the book as soon as possible. 

In Grammar, students will write learn about predicate adjectives. 

In science, we will continue our study of botany. Students will learn about differences in monocots and dicots on Monday, and practice that information with stations on Tuesday. On Thursday, students will play a Jeopardy review game as a whole class to review information from the whole unit. Students will turn in their study guides on the 10th and take their unit test on the 11th.

In History, students will gain an understanding of the Louisiana Territory and what Lewis and Clark encountered throughout their journey. They will be able to identify who Sacagawea was and why she was important to the explorers. Students will also present their explorers that were researched and written on in Grammar and Writing. We will end the week with a discussion of the Indian chief Tecumseh, who attempted to unite all Indians against the invading United States. Students may access our textbook online here: https://www.coreknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/CKHG_G5_U10_WestwardExpBefore_SR.pdf

In math, students will start a short unit on volumes. This week, students will focus on converting measurements, review volume of a rectangular prism, and find the missing side of a rectangular prism when given the volume and area of the base. 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).