5th Grade Weekly Update for Week of February 11th

ELA: Last week, we finished note cards and created our thesis statements. This week, we are focusing on topic sentences before we begin working on our outlines. We’ll focus on five different types of topic sentences to help give direction to the types of sentences we could use when creating paragraphs. In vocabulary, we’ll review Lesson 3 in Vocabu-Lit and then test for Lessons 1-3 the following Friday (the 22nd). Daily Paragraph Editing will reinforce capitalization, commas, spelling, apostrophes, and fixing run-on sentences. I told the students on Friday that I would give them a BIG hint for Daily Paragraph Editing if they read the blog! They may write these words down on a scratch piece of paper to have available to help them this week: business, special, bought, decide, chemicals, earnings, brought
History: Students are having a fun time participating in our Cowboy Cattle Drive Experience. Each day, students are picking scenarios that a true cowboy might face while herding cattle across the country, all while keeping tabs on their miles traveled and cattle lost/gained. We will continue work on this unit using the independent study and fun activities in class to reinforce concepts.
Math: Last week, we explored the meaning of mean, mode, range, and median as we analyzed past Super Bowl scores and learned how it could help us make future predictions. We also discovered this year’s score was definitely an outlier! We also introduced graphs we will practice within this unit. This week, we will incorporate fun Valentines activities as we learn how to create stem-and-leaf plots, box-and-whisker plots, and histograms!
Please look for the chapter six unit test in Friday Folders. Please sign and return on Monday!
Science: We will look begin our Work and Simple Machines unit! Within this unit, students will learn to redefine their understanding of “work” and learn how simple machines make work feel easier without changing the amount of work performed. At the end of the unit, I will have a fun STEM challenge, but I need your help! This week, I will send home a list of household supplies we will need such as paper towel rolls, etc. I’m sending the list home early to leave us plenty of time to collect some of these materials.
Please look for the Earth’s Forces performance assessment in Friday Folders and sign and return Monday!
Other: Valentine’s Day is on Thursday this week! Please be sure to send in 21 Valentines for each of our students. The class lists were sent home earlier in the week via email. We will exchange Valentines first thing in the morning, share a treat at lunch, and complete a fun Valentines vocabulary activity in Language Arts class with Mrs. Armstrong!
Camp Widjiwagan forms are due on Friday! The final payment is not due until March 8th. Please use the edited forms send home in Friday Folders two weeks ago.
Thank you for such a quick response regarding conferences. We truly value the time spent discussing your child’s education and future plans!
Week at a Glance:
Monday- Return signed math test and science performance assessment
Thursday- Exchange valentines
Friday- Field trip forms due