Mrs. Prestridge's 5th Grade Class
Meadow Lane 2016-2017
September 16, 2016
Mid-Term notes went home today. Please remember you can always access grades on Parent-Vue. Your child has a note in backpacks about midterms so please sign and return. Don't forget--students can always correct work for 1/2 points to increase grade. This is only the half way point to the end of 1st quarter. We still have a ton of learning ahead! Questions--just hollar!
Important Dates this week:
Monday--Students will be running the Pacer Test in PE, don't forget tennis shoes!
Tuesday, 9/20 Math Wings
Wednesday 9/21 Student Govt
Chess Club Begins in Library on Wednesday
Thursday 9/22: Room Parent Mtg, CSI Begins
Friday 9/23—5th Grade Field Trip to Timberidge. Pack a Lunch for this day! Wear appropriate clothes for walking, climbing, playing...and make sure you returned field trip forms to Mrs. Prestridge!!!
READING AND MATH
In Math, we wrapped up our unit of Place Value, (a reviewed concept from 4th grade.) Students worked in math stations this week and explored decimals and place value charts by writing numbers in different forms (word, expanded, and standard.) We took our Math test today after reviewing in class with the Train Game, a game with a musical chairs element.
Most of the tricky parts to the test were just learning to read and understand what the question is asking...one of the best things to help with this is to always read the question out loud. I will be working with the students this next week on really building that independent stamina to read all the way through a question to solve it.
SCIENCE, SOCIAL STUDIES, and WRITING
SOCIAL STUDIES:
We celebrated Constitution Day (Sept. 17) a little early this week. Students learned about rights and freedoms in the First Amendment—freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly. We took a look at each by analyzing primary sources. To wrap up the week, each student chose a freedom he/she felt was most important, and shared its meaning and importance through a news report or a billboard.
SCIENCE:
In science we have been focusing on the heart. We built a heart model and practiced following the path of blood through the heart, lungs and body. Please ask them to show you the model and explain the path of blood through the heart using correct terminology and giving details. We have begun reading The Heart by Seymour Simon. As we read students are completing a WS to be used to help study for our test. Look for the study guide to come home later next week. The circulatory test will be in a few weeks. They could begin studying worksheets and notes about 10 minutes a few nights a week in preparation for the test.
WRITING:
This week we are wrapping up the 'drafting process' with our personal narratives. Next week we will complete the 'conferencing and editing stages,' very close to our 'publishing 'goal. We will complete the conferencing stage using a fun format called "American Idol Conferencing." Mustache Baby and Mustache Baby Meets His Match were fun and descriptive mentor text books that we read this week to help us look for different types of nouns and pronouns, which was our grammar focus skill.