Highlights from the Previous Week:

• With the other fifth grade classes, we celebrated the publishing of our first research papers on a topic about Colonial America. Students did a great job presenting a highlight from their research to a large group of their peers!
• Ms. Faucon taught a fun and interactive lesson on negative numbers to help students learn practical uses for them. Students were moving all over the room!
• During reading, Ms. Faucon also taught an exciting lesson about what is and isn't a memoir, and showed us how authors use places they remember to spark their memoirs.
• We met with our first grade reading buddies and read aloud some of their favorite stories.

• Since we had 2 snow days the previous week and had 5 students absent on Friday, I had to push many of our plans into this upcoming week.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
The Winter Concert will be Monday, February 23rd from 7:30pm-8:30pm.

Reading: 

• We continue our unit on reading Memoirs. Students will examine why authors write memoirs, what feelings, insights, or experiences are they expressing, and how authors' unique perspectives influence the telling of the memoir.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We will enter our research and writing Phase 2. We will study how to make our informational writing compelling. We will learn how to examine primary sources for a research topic in small groups. We will also learn to guide our research through questioning. Lastly, we will study ways to structure our draft.
  

Math: 

• Take a short assessment on division to check student progress.
• Create line plots from fractional data.
• Review for the Unit 7 assessment on: exponents, powers of 10, grouping symbols, numerical expressions, and line plots.
• Track student progress with the Unit 7 assessment. Students then answer an open response puzzle using a combination of operations.

Science:

• Review traits of weather and climate using questions taken from previous 5th grade MCAS tests and BrainPop.
• We will also explore some other features of weather, the water cycle, and energy transfer using real life situations --ice dams and snow melt!

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

Highlights from Last Week:

•  With two snow days last week, we obviously didn't get to everything I had planned. Nevertheless, we still had a great short week!
  
• Students solved the weather mystery in science! Based on a set of clues, such as movie tickets, a doctor's note, a CVS receipt, and more, students determined that is was Joe Breezy who stole the weather data from the McGee Weather Company. The suspect has been apprehended and Mr. McGee sent us a thank you note praising our keen detective skills.
• We began learning about and reading memoirs. Students were enthralled by the pleasantly simple yet emotionally moving "Saturdays and Teacakes" by Lester Laminack. We learned that memoirs do not always have the same story structure as narratives.
• Estimation week is underway. Students roamed the hallways making estimates outside of each classroom based on the given challenges. We can't wait to find out what the actual answers are so we can compare our estimates.
• In math we simulated using multiple sets of parenthesis in complex number sentences by having students stand in a line and "hang out" with each other in different orders. It was a fun movement activity to show math in action.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
The Winter Concert will be Monday, February 9th, first, for the school at 9:00am, then for parents at 7:30pm.

February Vacation Week is the following week. Woo!

Reading: 

• We continue our unit on reading Memoirs. Students will examine why authors write memoirs, what feelings, insights, or experiences are they expressing, and how authors' unique perspectives influence the telling of the memoir.

Writing and Social Studies:

• Students finished their first research report! We will try to have a cross-grade celebration on Wednesday.
• We will enter our research and writing Phase 2. We'll look at how to study primary sources for a research topic.

Math: 

• Solve number sentences with parenthesis, brackets, and braces.
• Use the order of operations to solve number sentences without grouping symbols.
• Creating line plots from fractional data.
• Gain familiarity with positive and negative numbers.
• Review for an assessment on: exponents, powers of 10, grouping symbols, numerical expressions, and line plots.

Science:

• Explain the difference between weather and climate.
• Practice answering previous MCAS questions on weather.

Thanks for reading!

Highlights from Last Week:

•  Students are wrapping up their first research report on Colonial America. We learned strategies for writing strong introductions and conclusions, as well as how to avoid informal language.
• We conducted a fun experiment that simulated earth's water cycle. We also received a new suspect in the stolen weather data case --Debbie Drizzle. Also, we watched a Bill Nye episode on "Extreme Weather," and now we know how tornados and lightning are created.
• In math on Friday, we got caught up in a pattern between bases and exponents that we noticed from the homework. Since the teachers were dying to figure it out, we let the rest of the class try too. Sage W. figured out the rule: find the square root of a base and double its exponent, and the solution will be the same. So 9^2 = 3^4. Bravo Sage!
• Friday ended with a pep rally for the Patriots. Students debated earlier in the day about the pros and cons of idolizing sports teams. They could clearly see two powerful sides to the debate.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
The after school program is hosting The Freelance Players performance of "Mother Goose, Inc." which features our very own Sam, Mikey, Nathan, and Kaela. Come check it out at 4:00pm.

Report cards go out Tuesday, February 3rd.

There will be an early release on Wednesday, February 4th for teacher professional development. We'll be learning about the PARCC test.

Estimation Week is this week. We have two challenges outside of our classroom. On Tuesday, we'll circulate the school taking other classes' estimation challenges.

All School Meeting will be on Friday, February 6th at 8:40am.

Reading: 

• Begin our new unit on reading Memoirs. Students will learn what memoirs are and why authors write memoirs. (We didn't get to start this last week.)

Writing and Social Studies:

• How to properly cite sources for our research.
• Conference with another student to get feedback.
• We will finish publishing our research papers.

Math: 

• Parenthesis in number sentences and order of operations (didn't get to this last week).
• Creating line plots from fractional data.
• Solving estimation week challenges!

Science:

• Finish learning about Extreme Weather.
• Practice answering previous MCAS questions on weather.
• Solve the weather mystery for Mr. Michael McGee.

Thanks for reading!