5th Grade Weekly Update Week of March 26th
ELA: This week, we are starting our Poetry Unit! We will review some key terms that we will see throughout our unit and practice using those terms while reading poems by Tony Medina, Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, and William Shakespeare. Students will also be introduced to our outside reading for the quarter, Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. This week’s assignment will cover the first six chapters of the book (21 pages) and will end with a discussion on Thursday. Pairing Tiger Rising with a poetry unit is a match made in heaven! Tiger Rising is full of figurative language that we’ll also notice all throughout our poetry unit. And just in case that’s not enough to do for the week, we’re also headed to the computer lab to type up our research papers. Any extra typing practice you can work on at home will help us prepare for typing those research papers with ease! Mrs. Butcher has some great links on her website to help practice. Here’s the link to her website: http://wamediatech.weebly.com/5th-grade.html She says that the typing club is the best one to use to practice. It requires a login and password that each student has previously used.
History: Since we finished our Ancient Civilizations unit before we left for Camp Widji, we’re going to focus on a couple of map skills before the break. We’re going to review grid map skills and population maps. Instead of regular old maps, we’ll use a grid map of constellations and a population map that follows the “Sasquatch population of Canada”. On Thursday afternoon, starting at 2:00, students will participate in a Presidential Trivia. They will create questions and compete with teams for top bragging rights! Parents are invited to join us for this fun activity that uses facts we’ve discovered during our presidential research paper. Better brush up on your presidential facts!
Math: On Monday, we will get to play a review board game designed by our students who were unable to attend the field trip. They have worked hard on them, and I can’t wait to see the final product! Then, we will move forward and begin exploring geometric concepts. Students will learn how to use a protractor to measure angles hidden in their names! They will learn about types of transformations and lines of symmetry too!
Science: Last week, students received a list of all the big ideas we have learned throughout our unit on simple machines. They have been instructed to look over their flash cards to ensure they have questions for each big idea and to make flash cards for any that are missing. We will check these on Monday. Then, students will complete a study guide with review questions in preparation for our unit test on Wednesday.
Other: We have an early release on Friday at 1:00 for Spring Break. Our party will start at 11:00 with lunch and lawn games, that will most likely move indoors due to weather. Report cards come home on Tuesday, since we were gone for the original date of release!