 Hi Families, Congratulations to your moving-on 5th grader! We had a lot of fun in our final days at Barrows. Here’s a look at what we were up to:
Pictures Below are a bunch of pictures from our last week of school, including our paper towers and 5th grade fun day. A Final Note Thank you so much for all of your support and generosity throughout the year! It’s been such a joy to watch each student grow, mature, and gain confidence as a learner. I truly treasure the relationships we’ve built, and I’ll deeply miss each child’s unique personality and spirit. Our days were filled with laughter, creativity, teamwork, curiosity, and enriching discussions. Whether we were diving into challenging academics or building our collaborative community during morning meetings, there was always something special happening in our classroom. This stage of growing up can definitely come with its challenges—especially with the onset of puberty and all the distractions from video games, social media, and the ever-enticing world of YouTube—but your children rose to the occasion. They showed up each day ready to learn, and their focus and effort were inspiring. Thank you for everything you’ve done to support your child’s learning this year. Education is truly a team effort between school and home, and I’m so grateful for your partnership. It has been an absolute honor to be your child’s 5th grade teacher. And now, it is with sadness that I share the news that I have resigned from my position at Barrows. While it is not what I had hoped or planned for, I am looking forward to spending more time with my family, especially my two young boys, who I know will grow up too quickly. Although I’ll miss the joy and energy of running a classroom, I’m excited to take a step back and focus on rebalancing my life and reconnecting with some of the passions that were put on hold during my teaching journey. I hope to stay connected to the Barrows community by substituting and getting involved with the PTO—it’s a special place, and I’d love to continue being a part of it in new ways. Teaching at Barrows over the past three years has been an incredible experience, and I’m deeply grateful for the support, kindness, and sense of community I’ve felt here. Thank you for being such a meaningful part of this chapter in my life. For any future communication, you can reach me at [email protected]. Have a wonderful summer and send my best to your wonderful future middle-schooler! Thank you so much! Meri Kimball
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 Hi Families, Hard to believe, but there are only 5.5 days of school left! Students enjoyed their experience at Parker on Monday afternoon, getting a preview of all of the excitement of being a middle schooler. Field day was filled with fun activities and the weather was lovely. Thanks to Mrs. Atwood for planning and running such a great day! And thank you to all of the parent volunteers. Students enjoyed their end-of-year “Who-done-it?” science experience from Science From Scientists. They acted like crime scene investigators, dusting for fingerprints and identifying a mysterious white powder based on its physical and chemical properties. 5th graders enjoyed other perks this week, such as their Friday kickball game and moving-on ceremony rehearsals and preparation. Those who are performing, emceeing, or working backstage participated in the Talent Show rehearsal on Friday. Moving On Ceremony Wednesday, June 11th from 8:30-10:00 am in the Barrows Cafeteria. Pictures to follow on the blacktop. 5th Grade Fun Day Due to the potential for rain on Tuesday, Fun Day has been moved to Thursday, June 12. 5th Grade Fun Day Volunteer Sign Up Fifth Grade Flowers Please have your child bring in a small bouquet of flowers on the morning of the Moving On Ceremony, June 11th, to be given to a designated staff member. We will distribute flowers following the ceremony. The bouquets do not have to be expensive or elaborate. If you are able to bring in an extra bouquet in case some students are unable to bring one, please let me know. June Lunch Menu To save on food waste, our cafeteria manager has created this menu using ingredients she already has on hand. June Lunch Menu Spirit Week See the flyer at the bottom of the update! Monday is Sports Fan day. Upcoming Events
Pictures Check out pictures from Field Day, Science From Scientists, and classroom fun. Starburst Principal Update Here is the link to Principal Gallegos's weekly update: The Starburst June 6th   Hi Families, We’ve got 10.5 school days left in the 2024-2025 school year! We had a pleasant time at the Maillet, Sommes, and Morgan Conservation area on Wednesday. We learned about water runoff, natural water filtration, tree identification, invasive species, and pond life. June Lunch Menu To save on food waste, our cafeteria manager has created this menu using ingredients she already has on hand: June Lunch Menu Parker Move Up Afternoon Monday we will walk to Parker Middle School for a move-up experience.. Students will depart Barrows around 12:15. Students will be dismissed from Parker at 2:30 and should know their dismissal plan ahead of time. They are not returning to Barrows once we leave at 12:15. Please let us know if you have any questions. Field Day and Tug of War Field Day is Tuesday, June 3. Grades 3-5 have their outdoor games in the afternoon. You can sign up to volunteer here: Field Day Volunteer Sign Up. 5th graders should wear their 5th grade tshirt, shorts, and sneakers to school. Hats for sun protection are welcome. Please be sure your student has a refillable water bottle. There will be a water station that they can access. Also, please apply sunscreen before school. We kindly ask that students do NOT bring face paint, "eye black," or face glitter. The Field Day Tug of War will be from 10:45-11:00. Families are invited to come and watch classes versus each other on the field. Talent Show Dress Rehearsal Talent show dress rehearsal is after school on Friday, June 6. Any students who are performing, serving as emcees, or helping backstage must attend this rehearsal. Please contact Mrs. Gargano or Mrs. Encarnacao with any questions. 5th Grade Fun Day There are still some spots left to volunteer for 5th Grade Fun Day on Tuesday, June 10th (rain date June 12th). 5th Grade Fun Day Volunteer Sign Up Fifth Grade Flowers As the end of the year approaches, we would like to celebrate all the teachers and staff members that have helped students throughout their years at Barrows. We would like to continue the Barrows’ tradition of delivering flowers to all of the teachers and staff members within the school to thank them for their support, kindness, and wisdom that they have bestowed upon the fifth graders and for all of the work they have put in to make Barrows a great place to be. We have 68 staff members to deliver flowers to. We are hoping that each student could bring in 1-2 flower bouquets to share with the staff. (Please contact your student’s teacher if you can bring in 2 bouquets.) These bouquets could be from your garden or yard or you could purchase one from the store. It does not need to be extremely fancy. We will take time after the fifth grade celebration, on June 11, to hand deliver a bouquet of flowers to each staff member from the fifth grade class. Please reach out with any questions. Here is what we’ve been up to this past week. Math We finished our last unit and took its assessment. We also took our end-of-year 5th grade math assessment. English Language Arts / Social Studies We have been learning about the Civil Rights Movement. We read about Jim Crow Laws, segregation, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, student sit-ins, and more. We also have been working on Barrows Memory Poems to share with families at the Moving On Ceremony. Students continue reading and holding discussions in their book groups. I conducted end-of-year reading assessments on students as well. Science We enjoyed our last visit from Science From Scientists. The scientists gave students an engineering design challenge to build a prototype bridge to span a given distance, support a load of weight, and stay above the water line. Students worked in teams to build their bridges from a limited selection of materials. See pictures below. Upcoming Events
Pictures Check out pictures below from our field trip and our Science From Scientists bridge building challenge. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Hi Families, We’ve got 15 school days left in the 2024-2025 school year! We finished MCAS for the year with Science MCAS on Monday and Tuesday. Students are thrilled to have those long, grueling tests done. There are still some spots left to volunteer for 5th Grade Fun Day on Tuesday, June 10th (rain date June 12th). 5th Grade Fun Day Volunteer Sign Up Field Day is Tuesday, June 3. You can sign up to volunteer here: Field Day Volunteer Sign Up On Friday May 30th (Wednesday May 28th rain date) we are going to walk to the Maillet Conservation area off of Willow Street. Since the forecast looks uncertain, we will share by Tuesday afternoon whether we will attend on Wednesday or Friday. Meanwhile, please read below what students should pack for the trip. Students should wear footwear and clothing for hiking in a swampy area. Please help your student pack the following items for the trip:
No cell phones or smart watches. No Crocs or sandals. Consider applying bug spray and sunscreen before students arrive at school. We encourage students to do a tick check when they arrive home from the field trip. Here is what we’ve been up to this past week. Math Unit 7: Shapes on the Coordinate Plane We learned about numerical patterns this week. Students generated and identified relationships between corresponding terms in two patterns, given a rule. English Language Arts / Social Studies Unit 4: The Civil War Era We wrapped up our study of the Civil War Era this week by reading about Reconstruction. Some students shared their slideshows on the historical figure they researched with the class. We’ll share the rest in small groups next week. We also continued reading about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and his legacy. We began learning about the Jim Crow Era and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. We also kept to a strict schedule with our book group reading. Students are steadily making their way through their final novel of the year and hopefully enjoying it! Some students may not finish the reading in class and may have to finish for homework. Science Students were scienced-out this week with MCAS! Community Building In our Second Step Lesson this week, we reviewed our S.T.E.P. acronym for solving problems. We also discussed times when problems were too big for us to solve on our own and when it's appropriate to ask a trusted adult for help. Homework We are all done with physical homework papers for the rest of the school year. I still encourage you to have your child read 20 minutes per day to keep their reading skills strong. Upcoming Events
Pictures Below are pictures of some students presenting their Civil War historical figure slide show and students playing a math game on their computers. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Hi Families, It was wonderful to see so many of you at Open House on Thursday evening. I hope you enjoyed engaging in a few 5th grade activities to experience “a day in the life” of your 5th grader. Our water filters were especially fun to discuss the next day. We selected our clearest filtered water samples and calculated the cost of purchasing 10,000 of those filters as if we were a company. We debated whether to buy the filters that produced the clearest water yet were the most expensive, or to buy the filters with the slightly less clear water but saved us money. We had a very practical and thoughtful discussion! We’ve got 20 school days left in the 2024-2025 school year! Students worked hard on their Math MCAS tests this week. We are so proud of their perseverance. To celebrate our 5th graders, we give them a day of fun: 5th Grade Fun Day! It is on Tuesday, June 10th (Rain date June 12th) and we need parent volunteers to help run it. Here is a message from the Fun Day Committee: We’re looking forward to a fun few days for the 5th graders! If you’re unable to attend the fun day but still want to contribute, you can Venmo Alicia Curtin @Alicia-Curtin. We will use this money for anything miscellaneous for field day and graduation expenses. If we have anything leftover, we’ll donate it back to the PTO. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Alicia Curtin- [email protected] Sign Up to Help Here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C054EAEA62DAAFBC61-56898941-5thgrade Here is what we’ve been up to this past week and the week before the April break. Math Unit 7: Shapes on the Coordinate Plane We learned about coordinate grids, properties of polygons, and types of triangles. Students enjoyed my analogy of the hierarchy of quadrilaterals to “The Polygon Mansion of Fun.” Feel free to ask your child about it to see if they can describe the special “rooms” different polygons get to go in based on their attributes, such as “2 pairs of parallel sides,” and “four 90 degree angles.” We also reviewed a number of math concepts from throughout the school year in preparation for MCAS. English Language Arts / Social Studies Unit 4: The Civil War Era Students finished researching their Civil War Era figure and created a biographical slideshow to present their learning. Students worked so hard and created some very engaging presentations. Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, and Robert E. Lee were some of the fascinating historical figures students learned about. We also continue to read and hold discussions in our book groups. Science We spent time reviewing our science standards and content in preparation for our Science MCAS next week. We had a “cram session” on Friday where students used a kid-safe search engine to seek out infographics on science concepts that were confusing, and we discussed them as a class. Students continue to enjoy the occasional Bill Nye the Science Guy video from my archive. Homework We are all done with physical homework papers for the rest of the school year. I still encourage you to have your child read 20 minutes per day to keep their reading skills strong. Upcoming Events
Pictures Below are some pictures of students playing Coordinate Grid Battleship and showing off their water filters. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
 Hi Families, It was great to hear about everyone’s week away. We had a fun week prior to the break (I didn't send an update that week), with the field trip to Appleton Farms, a fun activity from Science From Scientists, and a thrilling science lab on designing roller coasters. See the many pictures below! Spring is in full swing but summer isn’t far off. We are in the home stretch of fifth grade and getting excited for all of the upcoming special events. We still have 2 sets of MCAS tests to take (Math and Science), so the hard work and learning isn’t done yet. Please encourage your child to finish the school year (and their last days of elementary school) strong by continuing to be role models for our Barrows Beliefs: be respectful, persevere, be safe, be kind, and collaborate. Starting May 15th, we will be doing a countdown to the end of the year with one fun thing to look forward to each day. I will send out more information next week. Don’t forget that the Fun Run is happening on Thursday, May 8th from 3-4pm. Good luck runners! I will be running with you.
On Friday May 30 we will be taking a walking field trip from 8:30-12:30 to the Maillet Conservation Area off Willow Street in Reading to explore the ecosystem, check out the watershed, and do some fun hands-on science. The rain date for this field trip is Wednesday May 28, which is scheduled before the actual day of the trip. We will pay attention to the weather that week and if Friday looks like a wash out, we’ll go on the 28th. I am looking for two chaperones to join our class. You would be responsible for walking over with the entire fifth grade class and then supporting a group of 12 students through six different stations. If you are available to join us, you need an up-to-date CORI and need to be available for both the 30th and 28th incase we need to pivot due to the weather. Please email me if interested! Here is what we’ve been up to this past week and the week before the April break. Math Unit 6: More Decimal and Fraction Operations We wrapped up our 2nd to last math unit. Students learned how to add and subtract fractions with different denominators, and specifically how to subtract mixed numbers when regrouping was needed. Students also learned how fraction multiplication can affect the product. Multiplying any number by a fraction less than 1 will make the product smaller than the original number. And multiplying any number by a fraction greater than 1 will make the product greater than the original number. Students took the end of unit assessment and then we began our final unit on Shapes on the Coordinate Plane. English Language Arts / Social Studies Unit 4: The Civil War Era We continued learning about the Civil War. We finished our read aloud of “Spirits of Resistance: Heroes in the Fight Against Enslavement.” We read other texts about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. Students chose a historical figure to research and began reading and taking notes about that person. We set up our notebooks with research questions to guide our reading and notetaking. We restructured our book group time this week as well to try to maximize student productivity when they are not meeting with me. One new favorite literacy activity is our Word Ladders puzzles. Students enjoy using the clues to figure out the words, using their spelling and vocabulary knowledge in a fun way. Science Before the break, we had a blast conducting our Roller Coasters lab. Students worked in partnerships to design prototype roller coasters out of halved foam pipe insulators. Using limited materials, students needed to coast a marble through 2 loop-the-loops and a sharp curve without it falling off, using their knowledge of force, friction, potential energy, gravity, and drag, as well as their engineering skills. All groups were able to get their marble through their roller coasters! Even though there were some challenges, we all had a blast. Community Building In our Second Step lesson this week, we learned about using problem solving steps through the acronym, “STEP”: Say the problem, Think of solutions, Explore consequences, and Pick a solution. Students enjoyed my dramatization of adults using those problem solving steps in real life challenges: My neighborhood had a meeting with the Reading Police Department regarding the Austin Prep students using Arcadia Avenue as a parking lot. Students enjoyed thinking of solutions and exploring consequences to that particular problem. Homework This week I assigned a math sheet each day. I also expect students to continue reading for 20 minutes per day (or 100 minutes per week), but I will no longer be expecting them to turn in a reading log in their planners. Upcoming Events
Pictures Check out pictures from our Appleton Farms field trip, some classroom activities, and our Roller Coasters Science Lab. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Hi Families, We all finished our English Language Arts MCAS tests early this week. Students all seemed very focused and tried their best. We have a field trip on Monday! We will be visiting Appleton Farms in South Hamilton to learn about decomposers, decomposition, and animal behaviors on a farm. We encourage your child to wear their Barrows 5th Grade T-shirt underneath their jacket (maybe on top of a layer). Temperatures will be cooler north of Reading where the farm is located. The morning and early afternoon will also be on the cooler side. Please have your child dress in layers, including a jacket. Students should wear old sneakers or hiking boots. We will be walking around a farm with wetland-like conditions and their shoes will get dirty. Crocs are NOT permitted. Students will not be permitted to use their cell phones or devices while on the field trip. Each student should bring their back pack with them on the field trip. Please have them pack:
This will be a very fun, hands-on, outdoor field trip! Next week is Spirit Week! Tuesday: Sports Day. Wednesday: Dress like a food. Thursday: Travel back in time. Friday: Dress to impress or relax. Here is what we’ve been up to this past week. Math Unit 6: More Decimal and Fraction Operations This week we worked on adding and subtracting fractions. We learned how to find common denominators using either multiplication or a multiplication grid. We multiplied fractions by a form of 1 (such as 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, etc) to create equivalent fractions with common denominators. We also learned how to regroup mixed numbers when subtracting a larger fraction. For example, 2 ⅓ - ⅔ can be solved by regrouping the 2 wholes into 1 and 3/3, and then combining the 3/3 and ⅓. Students then could subtract the ⅔ from 1 4/3, which would get them 1 ⅔.
English Language Arts Unit 4: The Civil War Era We continue learning about enslavement and the lead up to the Civil War. This week we learned about Nat Turner’s Rebellion, where enslaved people rose up violently against enslavers, and John Brown’s raid, “one of the best planned and best executed conspiracies that ever failed.” We also learned about Abraham Lincoln and how his election enraged the southern, pro-slavery states, triggering the Civil War. Students practiced answering questions about their reading and writing short responses. Science This week we made long-overdue conclusions about our acid rain experiment, realizing that acid affects all parts of a plant, leaves, roots, and stems. When plants lose leaves, they can’t photosynthesize and make food for themselves. When their roots are damaged, they can’t draw in nutrients. We then began Unit 6 on Force and Motion. We set up our “Sled Dog and Friction” Lab, experimenting with how different surfaces (rough and smooth) create friction on a “sled”. Students apply different levels of force (using gravity and weights) to the sled. They collect data on how much force is needed to move a sled over different surfaces and compare results. Community Building In our Second Step lesson this week we learned about avoiding assumptions. We discussed various assumptions we might make about our peers and how often those assumptions are wrong. I encouraged students to be careful about assuming negative things about their peers and to ask questions before jumping to conclusions during disagreements. Homework Homework was not consistent this week, particularly because of MCAS. Homework will also be light next week too. You can stay on top of your child’s homework with my Homework Assignment Log. Upcoming Events
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Hi Families, English Language Arts MCAS will take place on Monday and Tuesday. Please be sure your child gets a good night’s rest, has a hearty breakfast, and arrives on time each day since we begin testing first thing in the morning. Students will get a short, silent snack break during testing. Please make sure the snack they bring is mess-free and can be eaten efficiently, as we will only have 5 minutes. I recommend granola or cereal bars. Students will have 2nd lunch, so they will be eating 35 minutes later than they are used to. Also, please send your child in with a book or two to read once they finish the MCAS. If your child gets distracted by extraneous noises, I recommend packing them a pair of earplugs to muffle unwanted sounds. Here is what we’ve been up to this past week. Parker Chorus and Band Demonstration A group of 8th grade Parker students in the chorus and band presented to 5th graders. Students learned about different instrument options, heard from 8th graders about their experiences, and listened and participated in some fun musical activities. Students were invited to attend the Parker Band Night on April 28th to try out a handful of instruments in person if they are interested in joining the Parker band. Math Unit 6: More Decimal and Fraction Operations We worked on measurement conversions this week, both in metric and US Customary units. Students seemed comfortable using their knowledge of multiplication and division with powers of 10 to solve metric conversions, such as: How many meters is 450 centimeters (4.5 meters). Students practiced changing miles to yards to feet to inches, incorporating some decimals and fractions in them, too. For example, students converted 30 inches to 2.5 feet by recognizing that 30 divided by 12 is 2 with a remainder of 6 inches, and 6 is half of 12. Complicated stuff, but students were doing great.
English Language Arts Unit 4: The Civil War Era We are learning about the history of enslavement leading up to the Civil War. This week we focused on the resistance to enslavement through legal means and rebellion. We continued reading from our whole class informational text: “Spirits of Resistance: Heroes in the Fight Against Enslavement,” learning about abolitionists and their efforts. We’ve focused on many vocabulary words, including: oppression, dignity, ingenious, and isolated. We also looked at complex sentences, focusing on finding the simple subject and predicate within a slew of clauses and phrases. We also practiced reading and responding to sample MCAS passages. Students read a variety of passages, on paper and on the computer, and learned some strategies to better comprehend challenging texts and to carefully read questions and prompts. We also learned how to shape our written responses so they best reflect our understanding of each text. Hopefully students will remember those strategies during the actual test! Science/Social Studies We welcomed Science From Scientists this week to learn about weather and climate. Students worked in teams to investigate different weather patterns of a region and match them to a given local on a world map. Students also read about acid rain and its impact on the structures and functions of plants. I also incorporated some Social Studies this week to review American History through the American Revolution and Constitution to better understand the history of enslavement and the Civil War. Community Building We celebrated the end of the month-long Read-a-Thon as a school on Wednesday. Congrats to all of our great readers! I would greatly appreciate a reminder to your child about the importance of their continued effort and focus in school, on homework, and in treating peers and teachers with respect. This time of year often comes with a drop in motivation for 5th graders given the promise of nicer weather and end-of-elementary-school activities. On top of that, the onset of puberty can cause students to push boundaries and test authority, making it challenging for teachers. I hope students will commit to finishing their last months of elementary school as role models. Thank you for your support from home! Homework This week we had a daily math sheet, a grammar packet on verbs, and independent reading for homework. I will not assign homework on MCAS days. You can stay on top of your child’s homework with my Homework Assignment Log. Upcoming Events
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Hi Families, Here is what we’ve been up to this past week. Math Unit 6: More Decimal and Fraction Operations We took our End-of-Unit Assessment on Unit 5, Place Value Patterns and Decimal Operations and corrected them as a class. I hope to grade them and send them home by the end of next week for your review. Many students still need more practice with multiplying and dividing decimals, so I will build that into our work. We started the next unit where we will continue working with decimal operations, incorporating measurement conversions, and then move into fraction operations. This week we worked on powers of 10, noticing patterns in how multiplying by 10, 100, 1,000 and so on shift a number’s value. For example, 6.5 x 10 = 65 and 6.5 x 100 = 650. We also used exponents to represent large powers of 10, such as 1,000,000 = 106 and has 6 zeros.
English Language Arts Unit 4: The Civil War Era Students completed an assessment on our novel Esperanza Rising, which was an essay I wrote about how Esperanza changed over the course of the novel, but with missing words and phrases that students had to fill in. Most students did very well! We kicked off our fourth literacy unit on The Civil War Era. In this unit, we will learn about how the US divided itself, particularly over the issue of enslavement. We will read about resistance to enslavement, important events of the Civil War, and its outcome. Students will choose a historical figure of the time to research and write about. Science Unit 5: Ecosystem Interactions We continued to observe corn seed plant growth and our in-class composters. Some plants are growing well and need to be transplanted, others never germinated and need to be culled. In our composters, we already witnessed decomposition in our wet composters, with the carrots in those composters breaking down into mush. So cool! Also this week, we integrated literacy and science by researching environmental threats and drafting letters advocating our concerns to elected leaders. Students chose an environmental threat such as pollution, global warming, deforestation, or unsustainable fishing to research and then chose an elected leader from Massachusetts to write to, arguing for them to make this issue a priority. We’ll be mailing those letters next week! Community Building In our Second Step lesson this week we learned about handling insults and using kind language in our interactions. Homework This week we had a daily math sheet, a grammar packet on verbs, and independent reading for homework. You can stay on top of your child’s homework with my Homework Assignment Log.  Upcoming Events
Pictures Only 1 this week, sorry! The Reading Police Department served lunch to students on Tuesday. I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Hi Families, Happy Spring! Read-A-Thon Please keep logging your child’s reading minutes at home. I will log the minutes we read at school. Try to make reading a daily expectation at home for all. Here is what we’ve been up to this past week. Math Unit 5: Place Value Patterns and Decimal Operations This week we learned how to divide decimals. We explored two ways of thinking about division. First, as finding how many of an amount fit into a larger amount. For example, with 6 ÷ 0.2, we would ask, “How many 0.2’s fit into 6 wholes?” Well, using a hundredths grid, we determined that 5 groups of 0.2 fit into 1 whole, so 5 x 6 would fit into 6 wholes. The answer to 6 ÷ 0.2 is 30. We also looked at this same problem another way. If we know 6 ÷ 2 = 3, and we know that 0.2 is a place value smaller than 2, then we could take our product of 3 and make it bigger by a place value, thus, 30. Our second way of thinking about division was to think about splitting a small amount into a whole number of groups. For example, if we had 0.45 ÷ 5, we would think of it as 45 hundredths split into 5 equal groups. Well, we know 45 ÷ 5 = 9, so since we’re working with 45 hundredths, our answer should be in hundredths, too, making it 9 hundredths. So 0.45 ÷ 5 is 0.09. I know, not easy stuff!
English Language Arts Unit 3: Adventure and Survival: Narrative and Literary Analysis We finished reading Esperanza Rising this week! It is such a beautifully and artfully written historical fiction loaded with emotion, figurative language, life lessons, and often overlooked history. As a class, we build background knowledge about migrant farming, the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and the mass deportations of many Mexican Americans from the US in the 1930s, which all served as a backdrop to the story. We learned some great vocabulary words from the book this week, such as skeptical, impulsive, listless, nimbly, and reassured, and revisited many words that made reappearances. We also discussed the “big metaphors” woven throughout the novel, such as “The River” between two characters, representing their class divide, and “the zigzags” in a crocheted blanket representing the ups and downs of life.
Science Unit 5: Ecosystem Interactions We welcomed Science from Scientists this week with an exploration of beach erosion and how to slow or prevent it. Students worked in groups to measure the water line along a model coast before and after creating a barrier. We also began our next unit in science on ecosystem interactions, learning about acid rain. We set up an experiment to test how acid rain affects aquatic plant life. We will observe this and our plant growth experiment over the next week and record results. Community Building In our Second Step lesson this week, we learned about “Listening with Attention,” a lesson from earlier in the year that needed revisiting. We discussed how to show someone you are listening to them: look at and face them, nod your head, stay quiet, ask questions, and repeat back what they said to you. We also had an All-School Assembly this week welcoming former Harlem GlobeTrotter Corey the Dribbler who showed off his amazing basketball tricks and motivating students to show respect, work hard, and dream big. Homework This week we had a daily math sheet, a grammar packet on conjunctions, and independent reading for homework. Students also should be finishing their documents for the 5th grade yearbook (due Tuesday). Please review your child’s responses for appropriateness. You can stay on top of your child’s homework with my Homework Assignment Log. Upcoming Events
Pictures Below are some pictures from our Science from Scientist erosion activity, library makerspace projects, and our All School Assembly. I hope you had a wonderful weekend! |
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