Laker News
January 2015 Fifth and Sixth Grade Newsletter
BEFORE CHRISTMAS BREAK
Wrapping presents
Christmas Party
Shopping Locally
5th Grade Math
The standards receiving greater emphasized standards are:
Below is a video from LearnZillion demonstrating the standards students' are learning.
Free Educational Apps
Below are some FREE apps that you can download to help your child’s education! These all have an educational component and can be a helpful support at home.
5 Dice: Order of Operations Game
A math game intended for upper elementary and middle school students that helps students enjoy practicing their order of operations. The game encourages students to use higher order thinking to solve the "target" number by working backwards given the answer but not the equation.
Word collapse
Each puzzle in WordCollapse contains a number of words on a certain theme, such as fruits, sports or animals. All letters are mixed and now you find a word and swipe it. The tiles disappear and the remaining tiles collapse into new words. The tricky bit is to remove the words in the correct order so you clear the board and complete the level.
Math Ninja
Use your math skills to defend your treehouse against a hungry tomato and his robotic army in this fun action packed game! Choose between ninja stars, smoke bombs, or ninja magic - and choose your upgrades wisely!
Best Books For Tweens
Help your student’s pick AR books in which they’re interested! Developer Description: “This app is a fun way for parents, teachers, librarians, and readers to get more information about top rated books at the fifth and sixth grade level. Tag a book as “I want this” or “I’ve read this” to add it to your list. You can email your list out for an easy way to show which books you’re interested in getting and which books you’ve already completed.”
Video Science
Developer Description: “A growing library of over 80 hands-on Science lessons that are great for home and the classroom. These short videos demonstrate inexpensive and easy to recreate experiments that are designed to inspire and excite kids of all ages.”
SkyORB
Developer Description: “SkyORB features many functions as a 3D real-time representation of the planets position around the sun, the ability to hold your device and point toward a visible star and planet and reveal the name by tracking the GPS position, compass orientation, the elevation from the gyroscope, warn the user when a phenomenon is occurs as a full moon, a planet really visible, which is worth the observation.”
History Line
Developer Description: “History Line is a collaborative learning game for the iPad focusing on US History. The game can be played by 1-6 players. As a single player game, a series of historical events are presented on the screen and the goal of the game is to place the events onto a timeline at the bottom of the screen in the correct sequence. When the event placed on the line is correct the date appears below.”
6th Grade Math
Grade 6 Module 3: Rational Numbers
Students are familiar with the number line and determining the location of positive fractions, decimals, and whole numbers from previous grades. Students extend the number line (both horizontally and vertically) in Module 3 to include the opposites of whole numbers. The number line serves as a model to relate integers and other rational numbers to statements of order in real-world contexts. In this module's final topic, the number line model is extended to two-dimensions, as students use the coordinate plane to model and solve real-world problems involving rational numbers.
5TH GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS
TECHNOLOGY UPDATE-We are always trying to keep our kids updated on the latest technology and avenues of learning . We practiced all December and will take the Language Arts Quarterly Assessment on line this grading period. The kids always enjoy the new technology. It is a fantastic way to prepare our students for the on-line PARCC assessments, students will experience late February/early March.
WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON?
Language Arts
The fifth grade has been learning all about adages and proverbs. We are having a lot of fun learning that the old sayings our parents sometimes say to us, actually have a deeper meaning and sometimes a lesson for life.
Reading
We've finished with our lessons on reading multiple accounts of the same event or topic. We worked on the similarities and differences that the reading passages offer to us through the narrators point of view.
During Christmas time, we used a reading passage entitled "Christmas in Italy" to study how visual elements contribute to the meaning of a text. We also determined the main idea of the text along with it's supporting details. Summarizing the text is our work in progress.
COMING UP IN READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS (3RD QUARTER)
Reading
We will continue to draw on information from multiple and digital print sources.(non-fiction) We will be learning how to integrate the information from several texts and write about that knowledge.
Using fictional sources, we will be determining the themes of our stories and poems, using details from the text. We will continue to analyze how the characters in our stories respond to challenges.
Because summarization of any text is difficult to put into writing, our reading class will continue to work on that area as well.
Language Arts-
Students will be learning how to write opinion pieces on topics or texts supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
Titles of works require proper punctuation. Students will determine which titles require quotation marks, underlining or italics.
6TH GRADE LANGUAGE
TECHNOLOGY UPDATE:
As mentioned in the 5th grade post, the 6th graders are also working on reading passages and assessments on-line. It is the way of the world now, and we want our students to be prepared for the technology that is coming our way.
WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON?
Reading
The sixth grade has been analyzing various forms of literature that compare and contrast one author's presentation with that of another. Students have been studying the Christmas classic "The Gift of the Magi" in the form of a video, reading passage, and audio version.
Language Arts (grammar and writing)
We have been working diligently on the use of commas. There are so many ways in which they are applied. ( separating items in a series, introductory elements and setting off words such as :"thank you", and " Yes")
COMING UP IN READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS (3RD QUARTER)
Reading
We will determine how words are used in a non-fiction text. This will include figurative, technical and connotative meanings.
In fictional text, we will be working on comparing and contrasting how different forms or genres approach similar themes or topics.
Language Arts- Our 6th graders will be working on proper placement of dashes and commas. We will also be writing arguments to support claims based on our opinion and facts that support.