News Flash...November?!

When I realized how many Fridays have actually passed since my last News Flash Friday, I couldn't actually believe it. Since then, heritage projects and celebration have come and gone, fall turned to winter and our thoughts turn to the holiday season.  We've been BUSY everyday in 5th grade.  Here's what we've been up to.

Look for multiplication and division strands

Math-  We are finishing up Module 2 and our end of module test is scheduled for Tuesday, December 8th.  This module's focus was in multi-digit multiplication, as well as introducing students to long division with two digit divisors.  The students practiced expressing the answer in a division problem as a quotient and a remainder or adding zeros to the dividend to express the remainder as a decimal.  Please encourage your child to practice, practice, practice using one of the many tools available to them through Guilderland.  Next up, module 3 which is all about adding and subtracting fractions.



Reading- Our first unit of determining themes in fiction was long and detailed and the students produced some amazing thoughts while reading many chapter books.  This unit culminated in a book clubs and some members are still reading books that they choose together.  The skills we learned in this first unit were the foundation of skills that we will use for the remainder of the year.  We are currently in the middle of a non-fiction unit.  The major emphasis is helping your child get themselves to work to raise their level of fluency, understanding and reading of more challenging nonfiction texts.  We're reading books, news articles, info-graphics, speeches and more all while studying how text features and structures effect a readers understanding and ability to get information from nonfiction.  The culmination of this unit will be a self selected research feature article (plus on other type of nonfiction visual presentation) on a topic of choice.

Writing- Much of the month of November was spent finishing heritage.  We've recently dived in to the world of book reviews.  The students spent some reading book blogs and reviews to determine what reviews are made of and what they typically include. Then, they wrote two of reviews of their own of a book they finished this year.  From there, we jumped onto Blogger and the students created their very own book review blogs.  Ask your child what the web address is to their blog!  We then designed mini posters to hang in the hallway with QR codes so that friends in the building can visit the blogs for book recommendations.  The kids had a blast being creative and authors of their very own blogs!  Next up, nonfiction feature article writing and presentation.

Word Study- We began word study this past week.  This year, the program will continue to focus on learning patterns of spelling but all children will be exposed to grade level words including new vocabulary words that fit the pattern that we are working on that week. There are various classroom and homework activities throughout the week.  Assessments will be given on Fridays and students will also be responsible for looking for words that in their own writing that fit the patterns we are studying.  Our goal is to expose your child to more difficult words as well as teaching them skills to figure out these words both in meaning and in spelling.