Room 604 News
Week of February 1 - 5
Notes & Dates:
Our first semester of the year has wrapped up. Report cards will be coming home the week of 2/16.
There's a four day weekend: February 12-15.
Colonial Day for Mrs. Ceko's class will be 2/18. I will need some volunteers in the afternoon. More details to come next week.
Our 100th Day of School is on 2/23. The fifth graders are going to be running centers for the rest of the primary grades. This includes a math night on 2/25. More information will come.
Language Arts
February is Black History month. As a class, we will be reading a novel, The Cay, which has a great message about accepting others for their differences. It is my favorite fifth grade novel, and even though I read it every year, I have yet to finish it with a dry eye. Students will begin the week by making maps of the Caribbean to get a feel for the relative location where the historical fiction novel takes place, as well as working on some vocabulary work. I will be reading the novel aloud, but students are responsible for reading comprehension questions for each day. These may come home for homework if not completed in class.
Math
Our next unit of study is on decimals. It will be important to review place value from unit one. Students need to clearly understand the value of each digit, whether it is a whole number or a decimal fraction. It is essential that the kids know the significance of the powers of ten; increasing by powers of ten as numbers move toward the left, and decreasing by powers of ten as a number shifts to the right.
Students will be expected to order decimals, compare values, add, subtract, multiply, and divide. We will begin with building a strong foundation on the meaning before we use operations with decimals.
https://drive.google.com/a/smusd.org/file/d/0B6CBHvbpnR1CUlRBa2JoeGlhRlk/view
Science
Students read about physical and chemical changes, as well as the stages of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. We painted models of the three phases on Friday to help them visualize this abstract concept. This week we will learn about reactions, including: decomposition, combination, and rearrangement.
Social Studies
We love Liberty Kids! This is a great little series of videos put on by KPBS that hit many of our fifth grade social studies standards relating to the American Revolution. We have seen two videos already: Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts. As we read through different lessons, I will show videos that relate to the topic. This week, we will read about, and watch, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. This resource helps kids take that text book and make the content easily understood.