Plans Week of March 23rd, 2015

Highlights from the Previous Week:

The 5th Grade Student vs. Teacher Basketball game fundraiser was a blast! Students were not intimidated by my victory crown nor my "Winner" medal, and played their hardest. Although students were close to winning, Mr. Solof, kindergarten teacher, made a brilliant shot that tied the game. I hear the 5th grade committee raised over $2,000 for the 5th grade end-of-year activities. Wow!

We took our first PARCC test this week. It was on reading and lasted about an hour and a half, including reading directions. Students reported that it wasn't too bad. Many finished within 45 minutes. Some students didn't realize they had to write an extensive essay at the end of it and instead only wrote a short response. The box in which they were told to type was small but with a scroll bar, so the size was deceiving. This is why we are simply "testing the test" this year.

I am so impressed with the effort and creativity students are putting into their informational writing projects. Students are incorporating timelines, text boxes, comics, quizzes, maps, and much more to enhance their research-based historical writing.

We wrapped up our fun math unit called "Parks and Playgrounds," which had students explore fraction multiplication in real life situations. Students have learned to model fraction multiplication in a variety of ways, such as with number lines and arrays. 


Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
Another busy week!

Child Assault Prevention (CAP) takes place for our class on Monday, from 9:00-10:30am.

We have two more English Language PARCC tests this week. The first is Wednesday at 9:00am. The second is Thursday at 11:45am. They are each over an hour long.

Parent Teacher Conferences continue this week.
Link to the Conference Schedule.


Reading: 

• We are reading samples of memoirs in our guided reading book groups. Students will be learning strategies to help them grow at their level as readers.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We wrap up Phase 2 of our informational writing unit, which focuses on historical research writing. Students just need some uninterrupted time to work on their projects. We will celebrate the end of this unit on Friday.
  
• Next, we begin our study of the American Revolution.

Math: 

• We continue fraction multiplication. This week we will explore how to model fractions of whole numbers using number lines and drawings. We will also learn to model mixed number multiplication in different ways. We'll explore some real life mixed number multiplication situations involving area and scaling. If we have time, we'll begin investigating fraction division.

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.

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