5th Grade Weekly Update for Week of August 19th
Photo Highlight of the Week: Students enjoyed sharing their knowledge of place value with one another as they raced around the room to find classmates to help them complete their “Find Someone Who” activity sheet.
Our first week together was a great success! Students participated in a variety of activities to help us get to know one another better, including making “selfie” posters that we will put on display. It did not take me long to discover that this truly is a special group of children who are kind and are eager to learn. This is going to be a great year together!
ELA: I am so proud of all the hard work students put forth into their summer reading projects! When students divided into book club groups to discuss the free choice book, the discussions were rich and filled with insightful comments from all group members. I was very impressed! In fact, one student enjoyed it so much, she has decided to create her own book club in her free time outside of school! I love it!
Wood Acres is proudly celebrating 50 years of higher learning this year, and we are excited to be a part of this special time! In honor of this celebration, we are creating a special bulletin board titled “50 Adventurers of Our Time.” On Friday, we discussed character traits of a great adventurer. We named famous adventurers in history that we admire and learned that our personal heroes also possess the same qualities of a great adventurer. On Monday, students will write a letter to nominate someone for our bulletin board. This person could be someone famous that they admire or someone they know personally. Students had fun showing their creative side as they participated in a watercolor art project that will be used to display the names of these great adventurers! I can’t wait to see the final product!
This week, I will also introduce our first quarter outside reading project, our booktalk videos. This is a meaningful project that children love to share! Students will choose a book they have never read before and create a video commercial that will help “sell” the book to their classmates. Then, we will keep a copy of the book in our classroom library for the year, so fellow classmates can read it. This project encourages children to read because we are more likely to pick up a book recommended by a friend! This week, we will watch videos of former students and practice writing a booktalk script together. By the end of this week, students will be well prepared to work on this project independently outside of school! We will discuss this project in greater detail on Parent Night.
Math: Last week, we kicked off our Place Value Unit. Within this unit, students will practice reading and writing numbers up to the billions place. They will also practice comparing and ordering numbers, rounding, and writing numbers in expanded form. Students are familiar with these skills because it builds on what they learned in fourth grade. Therefore, we will move quickly through these lessons, so the majority of our time will focus on building our understanding of decimal place value. This tends to be the area within our curriculum that students need more time practicing. Understanding decimals and fractions is an important component in our fifth grade curriculum, so we want to make sure that we have a solid understanding of what decimals represent and how to read, write, and represent decimals up to the thousandths place.
Science: Our young scientists are doing an incredible job in lab participating in our class discussions and working well with lab partners. We are diving into our first CELL, Microscopic Explorations. During this CELL, students will conduct Investigations focused on both understanding how the compound microscope works and utilizing the principles upon which its function is based in order to study microscopic structures of various specimens. Through their explorations they will come to a better understanding of the field of microscopy and will discover how microscopy can be used to understand the structure and function of living and non-living things.
History: What a great week in fifth grade history! We started our study of the United States this week. We labeled and colored a map of the United States that shows the regions and talked about how they are grouped based on climate, landforms, and other cultural differences. We will continue our study of the regions, focusing on the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern regions. The current event instructions were handed out this week. Please review it and let me know if you have any questions. You should find the assignment in their history section of their binder. Pay close attention to the presentation date on the last page. Two to three students will present through the end of the quarter! Continue to study states and capitals! We will test the Tuesday after Labor Day!
Other: If your child has not signed and returned the Internet agreement form, please look for it in their homework folder. Friday Folders were sent home with your child on Friday afternoon. There is a parent letter inside with an explanation. It also has some of the getting to know you activities and homework assignments children completed this week. Please remove the papers and return the signed Friday Folder with your child on Monday.
Mark your calendar for Parent Night on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in my room! If you are unable to attend the meeting, please e-mail me to let me know beforehand, and I will send home a handout that contains all the pertinent information we will discuss.
Week at a Glance:
Monday- Return Friday Folders and Internet forms
Thursday- Parent Night @ 7:00 p.m. in Mrs. Rozier’s classroom
