Welcome back! As I type these plans at the Atlanta airport on my way back from a great vacation in Costa Rica, I'm looking forward to seeing my lovely students again! I hope they had a restful, fulfilling break.

Notice: 5th Grade Car Wash is postponed. Looks like rain on Wednesday, so the 5th grade committee made the executive decision to reschedule. New date TBA.

Here are the plans for the week:

Math: Preparation begins for the 5th grade math MCAS, which will take place Monday and Tuesday, May 5th and 6th. Even though it is not the end of the school year yet, the math MCAS will be testing students on an entire year of curriculum, so we need to cram in some lessons on volume, coordinate grids, and measurement this week so students are ready. We'll take practice tests and analyze how to write a clear, complete, and accurate open response.

Reading: We'll begin working in reading groups this week. I've assigned students a group based on their relative reading strengths and each group will be reading a novel together. We'll have group discussions in which we read together, summarize, learn new vocabulary, synthesize information, and work on a number of other reading skills and strategies.

Writing: This week we'll be working on mini R.A.F.T. writing assignments. I will assign students a role, audience, format, and topic, and they will need to write within those parameters. Here is more info:

• Role of the Writer: Who are you as the writer? A movie star? The President? A plant?
• Audience: To whom are you writing? A senator?  Yourself? A company?
• Format: In what format are you writing? A diary entry? A newspaper?  A love letter?
• Topic: What are you writing about?

We'll, time to board! See you in class!

The last week before April vacation! There is no school on Friday --it is Good Friday.

Here is the plan for this 4-day week:

Reading: This week we'll be working in reading groups for the first time. Students will be in a reading group with others around their reading level. We'll practice the strategies we learned from  Reciprocal Teaching, which went quite well last week. We'll be reading about Joseph Plumb Martin, a soldier in the American army, and Sybil Ludington, a young girl who rode through the countryside to round up Minutemen. Students will focus on identifying information on why each person is important.

Writing: Students will finish an essay about Molly Pitcher, started last week, describing her actions and bravery at the battle of Monmouth and explaining how she shaped history. We will then work on a role-play writing assignment. Students will pretend to be movie makers and will write a memo to their boss explaining why they want to make a movie about Sybil Ludington or Joseph Plumb Martin.

Math: Last week we had an assessment on addition and subtraction of fractions.This week we investigate multiplication of fractions. We start with modeling fractions times whole numbers using drawings and manipulatives. Then we learn the standard way. We then learn how to multiply a fraction times a fraction the standard way. If we have time, we'll get a sneak peak at how to multiply mixed numbers using an area model --tough stuff!

Last week was fun. We had a contest to see which group could best translate the poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," into kid-friendly language. Leah and Ricky from the Golden Owl Tavern and Pete and Maya from the Dark Horse Tavern each tied for the most accurate and easy to understand translation. Congrats to all who tried!

Here is the plan for this week:

Reading: We'll continue reading about the American Revolution. We didn't get to this last week, so we'll be reading about Molly Pitcher, the mythical woman who supplied the patriots water and then later worked the cannon to continue fighting the British at Monmouth. 

We'll be trying a new reading strategy this week called Reciprocal Teaching, where the students become the teacher in small groups. Students will rotate among the roles of Summarizer, Questioner, Clarifier, and Predictor. 

Writing: We'll write a summary of another important revolutionary battle in the form of a news article, focusing on the "who, what, where, when, and why" of the event.

Math: This week we finish up adding and subtracting fractions. We'll conclude with a lesson on solving fraction word problems using algebra. Then we begin reviewing concepts for an assessment. Students should know how to:

• Find a common denominator for two fractions, especially the least common denominator
  
• Make equivalent fractions using a common denominator
  
• Add and subtract fractions
  
• Write a fraction in simplest form
  
• Convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and visa versa
  
• Subtract fractions that require borrowing from the whole
  
• Use algebra to solve word problems that require two instances of adding or subtracting fractions

Social Studies: We continue studying the American Revolution through reading and writing. We'll watch short clips of famous revolutionary battles from the excellent PBS documentary, "Liberty". See the Class Project below.

In this project, students will work in a mix of cooperative groups and partnerships on a range of activities that explore the following:

• The causes of the American Revolution, such as the French & Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts. 

• Important figures such as John Adams,  Benjamin Franklin,  King George III,  Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson,  James Madison, and George Washington.
  
• Major battles such as Lexington and Concord (1775), Bunker Hill (1775), Saratoga (1777), Valley Forge (1777-1778), and Yorktown (1781).
  
• The meaning of the American Revolution and the founding of our modern democracy.
  

In their teams, students will earn Revolutionary Dollars for the successful completion of activities and assignments. They will also earn Revolutionary Dollars for dressing in colonial attire and using colonial language. The team with the most Revolutionary Dollars at the end of the project will be praised as the Leaders of the Revolution.