Week of January 4, 2016

There was a special visitor in room 29D over the break! Her name is Xena and she enjoyed her day at Pine Hill.

Highlights from Last Week:

​I hope everyone had a great break and wonderful holidays! Happy New Year!
 
Before the break, we had an exciting short week. The Beatnik Café was a delight for students and teachers. Brave students recited poetry in front of the entire fifth grade while the 5th grade teachers made introductory rhymes and created a cool, chill vibe.
 
We wrapped up addition, subtraction, and multiplication of decimals with a massive assessment. Students corrected them in class, I graded them, and they should already be before parents’ eyes for a signature. Students who struggled are welcome to extra help at lunch, recess, or after school, and they can certainly correct their errors on a separate paper and turn it all in for a new grade.
 
Students finished their second personal narratives. They learned some structural and planning techniques to make their stories flow and peak like the stories of published authors. We shared some of them before the break.
 
 
What we didn't get to:
We didn’t get to the Open Response Practice in Math.
We didn’t make much progress in Social Studies last time.


This Week's Plan
 
Special:

• New Student! This week we welcome Elizabeth to 5K. We are very excited to help her feel at home in her new classroom.

  

Math: 
Decimal Division.

• Decimal Patterns with Powers of 10 –Students will explore how dividing by 10, 100, 1,000, as well as by 0.1, 0.01, and 0.001, affects a number.
• Models of Decimal Division –We will explore how to draw representations of division of decimals by whole numbers.
• Divide Decimals by Whole Numbers –We will review the partial quotients algorithm and divide decimals using estimates.
• Divide Decimals by Decimals –It gets messier, but estimates and a “menu of multiples” will save the day here.

 
Writing:  
Spelling and Vocabulary.

• Spelling Assessment –Students will take a spelling assessment that will help me discover their spelling strengths and weaknesses.
• Spelling Groups –For students that need work with spelling, they will be working in small groups to learn certain spelling patterns and practice structured word lists.
• Vocabulary Groups –For students that are strong spellers, they will be working in small groups to increase their vocabularies by reading words in context, looking up definitions, and using the new words in their writing.

 
Reading:
Book Groups. Determining Theme.

• Book Groups –Groups continue to meet using Reading Reports to prepare for insightful discussions.
• Determining the Theme –We will learn how to determine the theme of a text and explain it by describing how characters respond to challenges. I will read aloud short stories with a variety of themes.
• Reading Response Journals –Students will write a response on a topic of their choice about their independent reading.
• Informational Text –As part of our exploration of early American Colonization, we will read informational texts and primary sources. See the Social Studies section for more details.

 
Social Studies:
Colonial America. We will learn about the following through videos, readings, and reenactments:

• What challenges did colonists overcome to survive in the new settlements?
• How did the European colonists and the Native Americans interact?
• What are the similarities and differences among the first settlements/colonies?
• Who were some of the famous characters in early Colonial America?

This week, students will learn to analyze the perspective of historical characters. They will learn how to use features of informational text and how to get the most out of what they read by questioning, perspective-taking, and comparing and contrasting. Students will also read some primary sources and discuss the virtues and the limitations they present.


Homework:
Please visit the Homework Page for more details.

• Homework Project: There is a new homework project this week called “Human Rights Exploration”.
• Math: There will be a page or two of math practice each night.
• Reading: 20 minutes of daily independent reading is expected. Students should log it in their Planners. 
• Reading Response Blog: There is a new blog post for students to respond to by Friday.

Thanks for Reading!
So that's the plan for the week. Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments, or feedback. 

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