Reader's Workshop Our reader's workshop time got cut a little short this week due to assemblies and other projects. We worked on writing summaries that include all the necessary information but leave out all the specifics that don't help us understand what our books are about. When we get back from the break, we will start working on using our nonfiction books to help teach other people about topics we are interested in. Writer's Workshop Our second drafts are coming along; we started officially writing them on Thursday. Before that, we worked on conducting research to find information that would interest our readers. We also talked about the importance of using primary sources and why they would have better information than other sources. We will finish these up when we get back from the break. Math We finished up our finances project and took the chapter 3 math test on Friday. We will start our next chapter when we return: multiplying decimals! Social Studies Continuing with chapter 2, we learned about different explorers that traveled on land. We also dove into the beginning of colonization and we will get into the specifics in our next unit. Our chapter 2 test will be on Monday and we have prepared for this by completing study guides. Extras We had P.E. with Coach Mitchell and music with Ms. Mesch. We also had a fun activity with our kindergarten/ TK buddies this week: we made friendship bracelets! Although we struggled a little to learn how to make them, the bracelets still turned out fine and the kindergarteners were very appreciative. The fifth graders are so great with their little buddies and I hope we can do more with them in the future. Instead of a website update next week, I will send out a link to a folder with all the pictures from science camp, so be on the lookout for that! Please check the list of things your child might need for science camp and get excited! :)
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Reader's Workshop
In reader's workshop this week, we learned many new strategies to help us comprehend complex nonfiction. We first talked about how to decode difficult vocabulary words using morphology and context clues. Then, we learned how to identify different structures of nonfiction and how knowing what the book is trying to teach us will help us understand it. Finally, we got a new tool: text complexity cards! These cards have a common problem we may face and on the back, there is a solution to help us move past it. As we move forward in the unit, we will start to apply these strategies and begin researching one topic more specifically. Writer's Workshop We finished up our first research report drafts and turned them in this Thursday. This week, we learned that we need to use a formal tone and take out certain words that change the way the report is read. We took out contractions and made sure our writing is in third person since the perspective in research reports is very different from narratives. In the next few weeks, we will be focusing on one subtopic under the larger umbrella of civil rights and start the whole research report process again. Math Chapter three is almost done! In my class, we worked on some tougher math problems this week and sharpened our problem-solving skills. We also started a project that we will continue next week to practice our fluency with adding and subtracting decimals and also give us an introduction to finance. Our chapter 3 math test is scheduled for next Friday. Social Studies We are moving on from Native Americans and starting to learn about the explorers that tried to find a new way to get to Asia. We talked about reasons they would have for wanting to explore and learned about the various people that tried to find the New World. Extras We had P.E. with Coach Mitchell and music with Ms. Mesch this week. We also got to start working with a new program called Tinkercad. The students will use this program to design a special object to 3-D print in the next month. They can also practice at home if they have a laptop or tablet to use. Reader's Workshop Continuing with our nonfiction unit, we looked at ways in which nonfiction becomes more complex as we get older. Comparing different versions of the same text helped us see that there are different ways to convey the same information and we figured out strategies to help us understand it better. We also came up with different strategies to figure out the main idea of a text. One way we talked about was chunking but the students had many different ideas that they tried. Writer's Workshop When we first started our research reports, there was a common misconception that we are just summarizing the research we find into a report. Our work this week was all about editing our flash drafts that we started on Monday and trying to think of new and different ideas that we could include in our reports. We also revised our drafts by looking at the geography and timeline of events and asking ourselves questions to go and answer as we research more. Math This new chapter is all about adding and subtracting decimals. In my class, we talked about the concept of a decimal: what does that mean and what are some patterns we see within a number itself? We practiced adding, subtracting, comparing, and rounding decimals to gain more automaticity with these operations. Science We finished up our science unit and had our test this week. Our last lesson was all about sustaining life on other planets. We learned about what requirements there are to be able to live on a planet and asked ourselves if we actually could find other beings in different solar systems. Social Studies Our first social studies test was this week too. We finished up our chapter on Native Americans and we will be starting our next unit this week: the Age of Exploration! Extras We had P.E. with Coach Mitchell and music with Ms. Mesch this week. In P.E., the students learned a dance that they performed at the Halloween parade! The video is up on Seesaw if you missed it. We also had a former astronaut from NASA come to speak to us about space and his experience on missions. Art with Mrs. Fish was this week as well. We made fall leaves using chalk on a piece of paper.
Finally, the insanity of Halloween ensued on Thursday. We had our parade, took some class pictures, and had a great party! Thank you so much to all the parents that volunteered to put on the party for our students. It was so much fun and the kids really enjoyed it. |
AuthorUpdates on the class will occur regularly and you can check back here to see what's happening at school. Archives
March 2020
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