September 24-28

Math
Students have a Unit 1 Test on Monday, October 1st. They started a practice test in class, and if they didn't finish, it is homework this weekend. The answers to the practice test are below:

Writing
Students worked hard this week to craft endings to their stories. They are writing a final clean copy of one of the personal narratives they have been working on. The final draft is due on Monday.

Reading
Students participated in book clubs this week! We are learning how to best communicate and have rich discussions in our book clubs. We also know that readers can pay close attention to the problems that characters are facing and ask ourselves "What life lesson does the character learn?" These life lessons are often themes in the book!

Science
This week in science, we read a funny book that explained everything about matter. As a class, we decided on its main idea and supporting details so that we could use the information during our investigations. Then, we applied this thinking to create a rule about matter and decide why something might not be matter. This pushed us to think back to the mystery object from last week thinking about how we could tell if it is matter or not.

We finished the week with measuring of matter in terms of weight and volume since it was part of our rule. Students planned an executed their investigation to see if the containers held the same amounts of corn kernels (in some other way than counting all of them).

September 17-21

Math
Students continue to work with fractions this week! We are finding common denominators to add and subtract fractions and mixed numbers! In addition to our nightly math homework, we have some important dates coming up:

Review Journal Pages 31, 32 due Friday 9/28
Unit 1 Test Monday 10/1

Reading
Students continue to THINK while they read! We enjoy reading our class read aloud, Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate

Writing
As experienced readers, we know how stories should go. We put this knowledge to use when we write our stories! We re-draft to make sure that our story has a heart or bigger meaning. We also re-draft to elaborate in the heart of our story.

Social Studies
TEST!  The first social studies test of the year is on Monday, September 24, 2018.  Students have multiple papers in their social studies/take home folders to help them prepare.   Also, the book should have come home over the weekend to help them study as well!  (Chapter 14 is what the test will cover.)

Science
This week we tried to determine what a mystery object was by thinking of its properties and the questions that we could ask to find out more information. We then explored the properties of matter by looking at several different substances. Everyone had an opportunity to utilize the balance as a science tool. It was interesting to find the mass of the substances! We got in a little bit of a debate about whether air has mass or weight or neither. As we learn more, we'll be able to have a better definition of matter.

September 10 -14

Writing
As we build a community of writers, we are busy jotting down ideas for writing personal narratives. We have been doing lots of flash drafts, and have been working hard to write stories from "inside" the character.We are taking some time to look closely at what they have drafted so far to see if their stories have a heart, a meaning, or special message to make their story complete.  While this is a new skill in fifth grade and can be a difficult challenge, all students are working hard to come with the best heart for their own stories.   Impressive work so far!

Reading
Students set goals for themselves as readers and we launched the 40 book challenge! We learned that we will be doing a lot of writing about our reading this year. We looked at exemplar fifth grade reading notebook entries, and did a Chalk Talk, noting the great qualities of their entries. Our entries are already changing and growing!

We also previewed books for our first fifth grade book clubs, launching next week! Students choose their top 3 choices!

Math
Fifth graders are practicing determining equivalent fractions and finding common denominators between two fractions. We learned a lot of strategies to help us compare two fractions and determine which one is bigger. We even played some math games!

Social Studies
Our fifth graders are off to a running start in social studies!  We are busy learning about the Constitution.  Students have read about the legislative and executive branches in detail.  We have taken notes and have had some wonderful conversations.   We will cover the judicial branch on Monday.   Look for our first test (chapter 14) to come up.  As the date gets closer, I will let you know the exact date.

Science
It has been a little messy in science but if it weren't messy... it might not be science! Ha! We loved taking a closer look at our "slime" by interacting with it and comparing its properties to the original substances that we put into the slime. We all came up with some seriously good questions that hopefully, throughout this unit, we'll have answered!