Barry 5th Grade Team Silver
Friday, October 5th, 2018
Important Dates
October 12 - Dunkin with Dads 7:00 a.m.
October 12 - End of 1st Quarter
October 15 - PTSA Meeting 5:00 p.m.
PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES - October 23 (3:30-7:30) October 25 (3:30-7:00)
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October 30 - Fall Family Night: Spooktacular 6:00 - 8:00
Reminders
- Please check your child's planner each night for updates on what we are working on in class, upcoming events/reminders, and behavior tracking. Your child can help you find this information, and provide more details.
- Read 20 minutes a night, 5 nights a week
- Practice on Reflex Math 15 minutes a night, 3 times a week
Reading
Students on Team Silver have continued to work on reading at home and at school toward their 1st quarter AR goals. Your child’s AR goal for the quarter can be found on a post-it in the front of his or her planner. The students on Team Silver will have until the end of the day on Friday, October 12, the last day of first quarter, to take quizzes on the books they have completed to have points toward their AR goals.
I am encouraging the children to read at a good pace and to read carefully to help them have success on their AR quizzes. The children must pass their quizzes in order to receive points toward their goal on the books they read. The point value awarded for the book also goes down with each question missed on the quiz. Please take a moment to discuss your child’s progress so far this quarter with his or her AR goal and to help them continue to map out a plan for working toward achieving their goal by the end of the quarter. Students on Team Silver are given time in class to read during Reader’s Workshop but are also encouraged to read at home to help them work toward their AR goals. Students in 5th grade will receive a “W” for work in their planners for AR goals not met by the end of the quarter.
In order to help encourage students to meet their AR goals and reading goals, I am asking students on Team Silver to read for at least 20 minutes a night at home for homework to help them make progress in their books. I am asking students to read for 20 minutes at home at least 5 nights a week. This is the main homework the students will be focusing on for ELA during the year other than working on writing projects or other projects that might need more time to finish.
We have also been focusing on making inferences with fiction text during Reader’s Workshop this week. We have learned that the skill of inferencing asks us to go beyond the text to come up with an idea about what the author is trying to communicate to us concerning the characters and events in the story. Inferencing requires us to use what the author states in the text and our own background knowledge to help us reach a conclusion about what the author is trying to communicate to the reader. We have also learned how to frame our answers to inferential questions by stating the inference and quoting details from the text to help support our inference. We have practiced this skill with text as a class as well as with the books we are reading on our own. We will be wrapping up our unit soon and will begin moving into recognizing a theme in fictional stories as our next unit of study.
Writing
We have studied the characteristics of a Personal Narrative and have begun to choose topics for our next piece about our own experiences with a “Journey to Our Favorite Place.” After choosing our topics, we have been working on creating an organizer to help us plan our thinking about our pieces as we move into the drafting phase of our pieces. We have learned that a personal narrative describes the thoughts and feelings an author has around an experience in his or her own life and is told in 1st Person point of view. Next week we will work toward finishing our pieces and will then move into our next unit of study, Third Person Narrative.
Math
We are jumping into Topic 3 - Fluently Multiply Multi-Digit Whole Numbers this week as well. This topic will include:
- Using mental math to multiply by powers of 10
- Estimating products
- Multiplying 3-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers
- Solving word problems using multiplication
Students should be practicing on Reflex Math 3 times a week for 15 minutes.
If your child has reached fluency on Reflex, or if he/she would like extra practice, he/she may go on Prodigy. Students have this log-in information in their planners. You can get to both websites by clicking on the links below.
Science
We are now studying the Engineering Design Process! We have looked at the steps of this process, compared it to the Scientific Method, and are beginning our first lab using this process. Our goal is to create a chair out of paper that will support a small stuffed animal. Ask your child if they can list the steps of Engineering Design, and tell you how each step fits with our lab.
Engineering Design Process:
- Define the Problem
- Generate Concepts
- Develop Solutions
- Construct and Test Prototype
- Evaluate Solutions
Social Studies
We have begun our unit on Regions of the United States and have also started our Geography Masters challenge. During this unit, we will be focusing on the landforms, economy, history, culture, landmarks, and attractions of each region as well as finding the locations of the states and capital cities within each region.
We started our Regions of the U.S. studies with the Midwest. During class, we created a map together that can be used as a study guide to help students locate each state and capital city within the region. We have also completed activities to help us get to know the region that our home state of Missouri is a part of. Once a week, we will have a quiz over the states and capitals located within the region we are studying.
The students on Team Silver are participating in a Geography Masters challenge in which they will be eligible for a special pizza lunch and technology celebration if they pass each states and capitals quiz with 90% accuracy. If they do not get 90% accuracy on the first attempt at the quiz, they can have 2 more attempts to try to remain eligible for the celebration.
I am encouraging the children to look over their states and capitals study guide a little each day to help them practice for the quiz. They will have a copy of the study guide as well as a progress sheet for the Geography Masters inside their trappers. The first Geography Masters quiz considered for the challenge was the quiz that was taken this week on Oceans and Continents. I handed it back to the children this week and it should be in their trappers.
Our first states and capitals quiz over the Midwestern states will be on Wednesday, October 10. Our next region of study will be the Northeast.
Ms. Shoup
Math and Science
(816) 436-9623 EXT. 3152
Mrs. Hayes
ELA and Social Studies
(816) 436-9623 EXT. 3145