5th Grade News
October 14, 2016
Notes
- Conferences are October 25 and November 9. Sign up information was sent in a seperate email.
- Picture retake/make up day is November 8.
- Please upgrade your child's iPad to IOS 10. It does take some time to complete the upgrade so allow enough time for it to complete. Thank you!
- Some of our students have subscriptions to email updates from things like youtube and other online games. Please help your child UNSUBSCRIBE to these emails (usually a link at the bottom of the email). Their school email is for school only and these emails are overwhelming and making it difficult for students to find the items we are emailing them. Thank you for your help with this!
- Please check your child's "Notes" app nightly. This is where their assignments and class notes will be kept. There is a math assignment due every day (Tuesday through Friday). Students are also reading 30-45 minutes each night and practicing the spelling pattern/words.
Literacy
We just started our second literacy unit which focuses on relationships. 5th graders will use mentor texts with strong characters and strong relationships. Ask your child to share what they are reading and exploring in class!
Mentor Text of the Week: Orphan Train and Saying Goodbye (both are non fiction articles about the Orphan Trains of the mid-late 1800's and early 1900's)
Reading: We will focus on "characters" throughout this unit. We will also continue to monitor and teach the qualities of a growing reader. Lesson topics include: analyzing characters, making inferences, literature discussion group introduction and more review on theme and summarizing.
Writing: We will publish our narratives at the end of this week. Students will make sure their narratives are sequentially organized and include paragraphs. Students will also revise, edit and self assess their writing.
Spelling: Your child should practice their spelling words AND the Pattern/Rule for the week at home. Some of the spelling test words will be from the list but others will be new words that follow the pattern/rule.
Spelling Unit 5 Rule: When a word with the "k" sound is French influenced, it is spelled "que". For example, "botique"
Math
All the videos for this week include examples of partial quotients, checking solutions with multiplication, AND the standard algorithm. I have explained to students that theyDO NOT have to watch the part of the video that teaches the standard algorithm.However, I wanted to have it available for students who are ready for it (For example, they know their multiplication and division facts fluently - within about 3 seconds).
Next week, we will continue working on long division (dividing a 4 digit number by a 2 digit number). However, this week, will include decimals! Again, we will be using two strategies to ensure a firm understanding of place value. We will be using partial quotients AND the standard algorithm (which is the way most of us learned long division). Because of the inverse relationship between multiplication and division, students should always be encouraged to check their division answer, using multiplication. This allows us to continue practicing multi-digit multiplication as well (which is always a great ideas :)
Reminders:
Home learning packs go home on Fridays. Just a reminder that assigned home learning pages are due each day (Tuesday - Friday) and the entire packet is turned in each Friday.
Home Learning Videos: So far, there have been videos for each home learning assignments, explaining a variety of strategies that we are using in class. If students get "stuck," they should watch the videos, pausing to work out the problems on their own.
TenMarks accounts: Students have "Personal Learning Assignments" on their account. Because these assignments are based on students assessment data, it should be "just right math" for them. Students are welcome to work on TenMarks personal assignments at any time. In fact, if students are getting done with their home learning quickly, we recommend supplementing with TenMarks Personal Assignments (to ensure at least 30 minutes of math a night).
Our only rules for TenMarks are these:
- Assessments are ALWAYS done at school.
- If students complete a personal assignment AND the don't get 100 percent, they should attempt to "raise their score" by correcting the incorrect problems. With that in mind, if students get a question incorrect, it is expected that they watch the video that goes along with that question before changing their response (they can look at the "hints" in addition to the video if needed).
Mathematicians at work...Students as teachers!
Social Studies
We finished researching regions and have presented our findings to the class. Next week, we will talk about the distribution of natural resources and how that affects economics in that area. Students should be ready for an assessment next Tuesday (if all goes as planned ;-))