The Language Arts Lowdown!
Volume 5, Issue 15 November 15, 2013
Here's the Scoop
Can you believe we're already halfway through the 2nd quarter!?!? I know time is FLYING by for me here at school! Please make sure you check in on the Parent Portal (or have the kids check on the Student Portal) and take a look at current grades. Most of our projects and assignments are entered, so you should have a good idea of where your child stands at this point in the semester. We will have quite a few more grades in all subjects before the end of the 9 weeks, however, so don't panic if things don't look as good as you hope!
4th Grade
NOTE: In your child's folder today should be their Hatchet essay test. Please note that there was a 10 point curve added to the test, so your child's grade will be reflected10 points higher in the Parent Portal.
Grammar:
This week, we discussed conjunctions. At this point, we are only looking at the basic uses of conjunctions, and not separating them out into their different types. We discussed that any sentence that is compound or complex will require a conjunction! This is our last part of speech, and we will spend next week reviewing all 8 parts, culminating in a quiz on Friday.
Word Study:
This week's spelling focus was on "calendar" words. These all should have been a review from the past 4 years of school ;)
Writing:
Our writing this week focused on how we write for specific purposes (in particular, for our literature circles). Our audience will greatly impact how we write and the vocabulary we use! We will complete our final, final draft of our persuasive piece by Friday of next week, as well.
Reading:
We continued our literature circles this week, and will complete these novels by next Wednesday. Thursday's literature circle time will be spent working on a project "tic-tac-toe" that will allow students to show what they learned from their novels!
5th Grade
Reading:
We are continuing work in our literature circles. We should complete all books by Wednesday of next week, with Thursday being spent on our novel projects.
Grammar:
This week, we talked about conjunctions. We looked at the three types: coordinating (i.e. FANBOYS), correlative (i.e. both...and, neither...nor), and subordinating (i.e., since, while, when). We talked about when we use each type of conjunction, and what its purpose in each sentence might be. This is a LOT of new information for 5th grade, so we will review this throughout the year. :) This is our last part of speech, so next week will be a review, culminating in a quiz on Friday.
Word Study:
This week, our spelling rule had to do with compound words. We looked at commonly used compound words, hyphenated words, and incorrectly compounded words (like a lot instead of alot)
Writing:
We will complete our re-re-write of our persuasive piece by next Friday. We will also do a mini-lesson on audience as we revise our writing :)
Greek and Latin Roots
This week, I was at a conference Wednesday afternoon, so we didn't get to our root words. Next week, we'll double up :)
5th Grade
Femina--Latin--means woman--seen in words such as female, feminine, and feminism
Infans/Infantis--Latin--means inability to speak--seen in words such as infant, infantry, and infantile
Pais/Paidos--Greek--means child--seen in words such as pediatrician, pedant, and encyclopedia.
Reading Requirements-2nd 9 weeks
4th grade:
1-Realistic Fiction
1-Historical Fiction
2-Non-fiction (Informational)
2-Biography
1-Choice
1-Poetry (in class)
5th grade:
all of 4th PLUS
1-myth/fable/fairy tale
1-Drama (in class)