Dear Families,
Our year is off to a great start. I would like to thank those of you who were able to make it to our Bridge Curriculum Night to hear about our plans for this year in fifth grade. For those of you who were not able to attend, there is a Prezi presentation that was created for our Curriculum Night posted to our “Announcements” tab. Feel free to view it to learn more about our classroom routines, fifth grade curriculum, this year’s field trips, and more!
Students have done well with our review of some fourth grade math concepts in Unit 1 and we have begun our next unit on Decimals, Place Value, and Computation. We are in the process of incorporating Fastt Math and Fraction Nation into our math rotations along with a challenge station using material from the math program “Think Tank”.
In Social Studies, we are studying chronology, gaining a better understanding of time periods, and how timelines are created and help historians to study the past. Students will be creating their own timelines, listing at least 3 events that happened before their lifetime and at least 3 events that happened after they were born. We will share these in class next week before beginning our next unit on European Exploration.
In Reading, we have been practicing the skills needed to help us with comprehension as well as how to have good conversations about literature. Students have practiced speed-booking (a 60 second, jig-saw book talk!), sketch-to-stretch, and thinking critically about different elements and characters from our class read alouds. In school, students are encouraged to “stop and jot” as they read their independent reading book. This involves recording thoughts, inferences, questions, and new vocabulary on a post it and sticking it onto the page. We later discuss their findings during share time and 1-1 conferences. Please encourage this at home too as it promotes active reading! J
Our Writer’s Workshop has been very productive as students have been taking all they know about stories and writing to create personal narratives. Planning and revision have been big focus areas in this process. Students are reminded that in writing, once you’re “done” you’ve just begun! We are constantly making improvements to these pieces in hopes to have an impressive collection of published small moment stories by mid-October!
Upcoming events:
· Curriculum Morning is Monday, September 29 from 8:30-9:00. Please come visit our classroom so your child can share with you some work he/she has created and give you a tour of our room!
· Map Night (North America) in the school Gym: Tuesday, September 30, come explore National Geographic Society’s giant map of North America (we will also visit the big map as a class during the school day)
· Deadline to order Spirit Wear is Friday, September 3
As always, feel free to email me with any questions. Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Our year is off to a great start. I would like to thank those of you who were able to make it to our Bridge Curriculum Night to hear about our plans for this year in fifth grade. For those of you who were not able to attend, there is a Prezi presentation that was created for our Curriculum Night posted to our “Announcements” tab. Feel free to view it to learn more about our classroom routines, fifth grade curriculum, this year’s field trips, and more!
Students have done well with our review of some fourth grade math concepts in Unit 1 and we have begun our next unit on Decimals, Place Value, and Computation. We are in the process of incorporating Fastt Math and Fraction Nation into our math rotations along with a challenge station using material from the math program “Think Tank”.
In Social Studies, we are studying chronology, gaining a better understanding of time periods, and how timelines are created and help historians to study the past. Students will be creating their own timelines, listing at least 3 events that happened before their lifetime and at least 3 events that happened after they were born. We will share these in class next week before beginning our next unit on European Exploration.
In Reading, we have been practicing the skills needed to help us with comprehension as well as how to have good conversations about literature. Students have practiced speed-booking (a 60 second, jig-saw book talk!), sketch-to-stretch, and thinking critically about different elements and characters from our class read alouds. In school, students are encouraged to “stop and jot” as they read their independent reading book. This involves recording thoughts, inferences, questions, and new vocabulary on a post it and sticking it onto the page. We later discuss their findings during share time and 1-1 conferences. Please encourage this at home too as it promotes active reading! J
Our Writer’s Workshop has been very productive as students have been taking all they know about stories and writing to create personal narratives. Planning and revision have been big focus areas in this process. Students are reminded that in writing, once you’re “done” you’ve just begun! We are constantly making improvements to these pieces in hopes to have an impressive collection of published small moment stories by mid-October!
Upcoming events:
· Curriculum Morning is Monday, September 29 from 8:30-9:00. Please come visit our classroom so your child can share with you some work he/she has created and give you a tour of our room!
· Map Night (North America) in the school Gym: Tuesday, September 30, come explore National Geographic Society’s giant map of North America (we will also visit the big map as a class during the school day)
· Deadline to order Spirit Wear is Friday, September 3
As always, feel free to email me with any questions. Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,