Highlights from Last Week:

• Friday was day 90! We are halfway through the school year.

• Students loved Ms. Faucon's lessons on Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. On Friday, students began writing their own "I Have a Dream" speeches. Rheona let us use her speech about ending animal cruelty as an example. Danny later moved the class with his heartfelt and well-written speech about gay equality. Students wrote about ending hunger, suffering, war, homelessness, hate, and so much more. 
• Students did quite well on the fraction addition and subtraction assessment. 
• The Create-Your-Own Homework Project presentations are amazing. Students love learning about their classmates interests. Everyone picked some really unique topics. So far, Julia taught us about airplanes; Rheona taught us about the brain; Yubin taught us about the history of the piano; Talia taught us about chicken soup; Sage W taught us about the Caribbean; and Sofia & Olivia D taught us about medieval villages.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:

Back Checks
The nurse will be conducting back checks on fifth graders this week. Girls were scheduled for Tuesday morning, but due to the snow, we'll probably reschedule. Boys are scheduled for Wednesday at 9am.

Reading: 

• Begin our new unit on reading Memoirs. Students will learn what memoirs are and why authors write memoirs.

Writing and Social Studies:

• How to properly cite sources for our research.
• Write an interesting introduction and a meaningful conclusion to our research papers.
• Conference with another student to get feedback.
• We'll also finish our "I Have A Dream" speeches.

Math: 

• Powers of 10 and scientific notation.
• Parenthesis in number sentences and order of operations.

Science:

• Conduct experiments and observations on the water cycle.
• Write a Science Report and explain how precipitation, condensation, and evaporation effect weather.

Thanks for reading!

Highlights from Last Week:

• Students worked in pairs and small groups to perform Readers' Theaters of The Tiger Rising. We learned so much more about the characters and the story from watching live readings of important scenes. Sage W really brought the boisterous hotel owner Beauchamp to life. Forrest gave a passionate reading of Rob "opening up his suitcase." Rheona helped us feel how awkward it was for the principal to tell Rob to stay home from school. And there were many more moving readings. Great job students!

• Ms. Faucon taught some lessons to the class this past week, guiding students to subtract mixed numbers and helping students see both sides of the debate on bringing the Olympics to Boston.

• In Science we learned how temperature can affect the weather by causing air to move, thus creating wind. We also learned how variables in our experiment can affect our data and therefore our conclusions.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
Thursday, January 22: "Understanding Our Differences" 
The fifth grade will learn more about autism and how it influences people's lives.

Reading: 

• Engage in some nonfiction reading and vocabulary development.
• I will finish conducting the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessments on students.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We continue working on our research papers about Colonial America. Students learn how to dig deeper with questions and looking for answers. They also learn about organizing a research paper with headings.

Math: 

• Add and subtract fractions in real world situations and in word problems. 
• Interpret language to form a numerical expression with fractions.
• Explain in writing the steps you take to solve a problem.
• Review and assess adding and subtracting fractions.

Science:

• Conduct experiments and observations on clouds and the water cycle.
• Write a Science Report and explain how condensation and evaporation effect weather.

Thanks for reading!

What a fun first week for 2015!

Highlights from Last Week:

• We finally finished The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. Students had impressively deep thoughts about the many symbols in the book and were riveted by the powerful climax.
  
• In Science, we began learning about the weather. A mysterious weather business owner named Michael McGee sent us a letter asking our class to help solve the mystery of whole stole his weather data. Our suspects so far are Bob Blizzard and Juan Sum Light. We then conducted an exciting experiment to see which substance heats up and cools down fastest --sand, soil, or water. We will analyze our data this week!
  

Here is the general plan for this week:

Reading: 

• Analyze the ending and meaning of The Tiger Rising.
• Engage in some nonfiction reading and vocabulary development.
• I will be conducting the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessments on students.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We're working on our research papers about Colonial America. Students will learn how to add details related to geography and chronology. They will also learn to question their own writing.
  

Math: 

• Adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers.
• Represent fraction addition and subtraction with drawings and manipulatives.

Science:

• Write a Science Report on our "Heat 'Em Up" experiment and analyze our experiment data. How does the temperature of the Earth's surface affect the weather?
• Conduct experiments on Moving Air and learn how hot and cold air affects the weather.

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great winter break.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Reading: 
Finish Tiger Rising and discuss the meaning behind the title.
Begin our unit on Memoir.

Writing:
Begin our informational unit on writing a research paper. Students may choose a topic about Colonial America to research and write about.

Math:
Add and subtract fractions. Estimate sums and differences. Use common denominators and equivalent fractions.

Science:
Begin our unit on Weather and Climate.

Social Studies:
Will be tied in with Writing. Students will research a specific topic about Colonial America.

Have a great week! Cheers!