5th Grade Specials
Newtown Friends School :: February, 2016
Art
Fifth grade artists continue to study the art element of space, but in new and exciting ways. Students looked at and discussed the work of Stuart Davis. This painter creates abstract cityscapes inspired by sound, music and advertising. Students will be creating their own inspired landscapes but through collaging. We will focus on color, pattern, shape and filling the plane. We will later use music as inspiration for final details.
Latin - 5MM
The fifth graders in Meg’s class will tackle many new and exciting challenges in Latin this quarter! They will learn their first official list of Latin vocabulary words and have an Upper School-style quiz! They will also master the basics of present tense verb conjugation in Latin and English. We will practice our new knowledge and skills in a variety of ways, including games, worksheets, songs, and the reading of our first Latin storybook, Ursus et Porcus by Rose Williams. We have a fun-filled and busy month ahead of us!
Library
Fifth Grade will read The Day Glo Brothers, a nonfiction book about the invention of neon paint, and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. We will then kick off a poetry unit with a narrative poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee, and several poems from Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes.
Music
Fifth graders did a great job with their quick music history units. We are now ready to begin preparations for the 4th and 5th grade show which will take place in April. Be on the look out for a practice CD and script in the coming weeks. Our February composer of the month is Cole Porter.
P.E.
This month we will continue to develop our physical fitness and work on skill development in each class. Our lessons at the beginning of this month will focus on jumping rope. Students will participate in a variety of jump rope games, skills and challenges in preparation for our school wide event Jump Rope for Heart. During this month we will also play a team game called Speed Ball, which is a combination of soccer, basketball and football. Each class will use the rock wall once in February and our fitness challenge for each student will be how many times you can jump the rope in one minute. There will also be a bonus football activity the week of the Super Bowl!
Science
Fifth graders finish their matter unit by presenting posters about one aspect of matter they learned during the unit. We end the unit with our first engineering investigation. Students will explore how properties of different substances found in a kitchen can be mixed to create a new substance. More specifically, students will be making glue. Students will be directed through the engineering design process of constantly defining the problem, designing a solution, planning its implementation, creating the glue, testing its strength, collecting data and improving on their formulas. Students will communicate with their peers, share ideas, and present their findings to help one another succeed. We will revisit our questions and see which ones are testable. We will also decide on which properties are important for our final glue recipe. Then each group will come up with a final solution for making a glue, test it, and present their findings.
Spanish - 5CE
This month students begin class doing warm up work using already learned and new expressions to expand their conversational vocabulary base. Topics will include food and daily activities. For our unit work, the class will learn singular and plural pronouns and start to do conjugation work. They will begin to apply the different forms of a verb as it changes in number and person; important for constructing spoken and written language. They will continue to use previously studied verbs and will use these extensively having a better understanding of conjugation. They will work with -ar, -er, and -ir verbs and provide more precise oral and written work.
Upcoming Events:
Thursday 2/11 - Noon Dismissal, Parent-Teacher Conferences
Friday 2/12 - No School, Parent-Teacher Conferences
Monday 2/15 - No School, Presidents' Day