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!