October 22 - 26

Thank you to each and every family for spending some time with us this week.  We really enjoyed our conversations and are excited to see the amazing things your student accomplishes throughout the year!!

Here are some pictures of our Karaoke Party on Wednesday!

Social Studies
 Students took their chapter 1 test on geography on Wednesday.  Look for the results to come home early next week.    We have started on chapter 2, Native Americans.   Students will focus mostly on how the Natives came to settle in North America and where they chose to settle.  We will be synthesizing this information by practicing writing summaries about what we have read about in our textbook.    This is a shorter chapter, so look for the chapter 2 test to be coming soon!

DG
 The DG 2 quiz will be this Tuesday, October 30, 2018.  Students will then receive DG 3 and it will be due on November 7, 2018.    Have fun looking at maps!

Science
Students planned and conducted an investigation centered around the effect of water's temperature on dissolving a substance. All students found, based on their data, that hot water dissolves solids, like sugar, much faster than cold water. We even graphed a scatter plot as a class to show the correlation between the temperature and time! Students watched simulation of water molecules in cold and hot water. They were able to apply this new understanding to their investigations as a part of their reasoning for the claim that: Hot water dissolves sugar faster than cold water.

Reading
This week we've been continuing to read complex nonfiction texts. We focused on looking at tricky vocabulary words by looking around and in the word to try to find its meaning. Later on in the week we zeroed in on text structure and noticed that when nonfiction text gets more complex, the structure is more of a hybrid. Throughout one section of text, there may be multiple structures.

Writing
  Students have been having a blast collecting multiple news stories from around Leonard.   They have used their reporter badges to "gain access" to different classrooms and interview students about what they are learning.   Our fifth graders are drafting 3 -5 stories and then will take one story and publish it. 
On Monday, Patrice Rowbal, a reporter for our Troy School District newspaper, will be here to talk all things Journalism with our students.  I know they will gain a lot of expertise from listening to and working with a real live journalist!

Math
This week in math, we started a new Unit on Multiplying in Dividing Fractions. We worked on multiplying fractions by a whole number, and drawing comparison bars. 

October 15-19

CAMP!
Students were excited to hear about CAMP this week! Please return camp paperwork to your child's homeroom teacher by Thursday, November 1, 2018.   

Reading
This week, we launched our Nonfiction unit! We realized that our nonfiction texts are starting to become tricky. In this unit, we will explore strategies to read nonfiction texts!

Writing
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! 5th graders turned into news reporters this week! We are on the lookout for news worthy stories. We had fun writing about our read aloud "Wonder" getting taken away. Luckily, it wasn't real! Reporters received a mini notebook to jot notes in as they are discovering newsworthy stories. We also read on Newsela.com to see what topics are newsworthy. Finally, journalists got special passes that gives them "access" to interview students and teachers about newsworthy topics around Leonard. Be on the lookout for some of our published work to come out!

 

Math
We reviewed for our Math test this week! The Math Test is on Monday, October 22nd. See the answers to the review practice test and the review worksheet below. Unit 2 Math Test is on Monday, October 22nd

Science
This week in science, we looked at another property of matter: solubility. We worked to explain what happens to sugar when stirred into warm water. Then, we saw what other small, solid substances also seem to disappear when added to warm water. So far, we've determined that not all small solids are soluble but there are some that are!

Social Studies  Students were having way too much fun this week as we explored some different geography centers!   Students had the opportunity to complete different puzzles to help practice their geography learning.  The chapter 1 test is this coming Wednesday, October 24, 2018.   
Daily Geography (DG) is a hit!  Students have reported having so much fun looking at maps to answer these basic geography questions!  DG 2 is due on THURSDAY, October 25, 2018.

October 8-12

Fun Run!

5th Graders enjoyed their LAST Fun Run! Thank you to all the families who donated money to support out school!

Reading
We finished up our book clubs this week! We celebrated by learning a little more about the Sudan civil war and the "Lost Boys", who were the inspiration for our novel, Home of the Brave. We've been talking about themes, and we see how the themes from Home of the Brave are reflected in the real lives of the "Lost Boys". We made connections to this story/theme to ourselves, our family, and our world.  

Writing
We celebrated all the hard work we did as writer's in our Narrative unit! In the courtyard, we shared our final narratives aloud with partners from across the grade level. Then we spent some time reflecting on all the great writing skills we learned this unit. 

Math
We have been working on adding and subtracting with decimals. We talked about math properties and see that they help us add mentally!
Our Journal Review pages 55, 56 are due Friday 10/19
The Unit 2 Test is Monday, October 22nd 

Social Studies  Students have been having a blast learning about the world and its geography this week.  With partners, students completed 3 different geography challenges where they were labeling different maps with key geographic terms and locations.   They are having fun and learning at the same time!   One more challenge to go next week then we will engage in some fun geography centers to review our learning!    

Our first DG quiz will be on Tuesday, October 16, 2018.   Be sure to study, study, study!    

Science
This week, we spent some time reviewing science concepts that the kids learned in fourth grade. We watched a few short, but interesting videos then had fun responding to them through the Flip Grid app. Have your student show you their post and comments! Once we were reminded that both magnetism and electricity are properties of matter, we started to wonder if solubility could be a property of matter as well. Students investigated to see how many sugar cubes/packets their water could hold. Then they determined if this changed the weight and volume of their original substances.

October 1 - 5, 2018

Social Studies - Students have wrapped up their studies of government with a quick unit on the Bill of Rights.   Lots of great conversations and questions were discussed over the last couple weeks.  Glad to see everyone is excited to learn about our government!   Next, we will do chapter 1 which covers geography.  We will also be introduced to our weekly DG (Daily Geography) questions.   Past students recall DGs with lots of enjoyment and learning!   Can't wait to start them this year!

Reading - Students have been enjoying reading their book club books and working as part of a small group.  Many are finishing up their stories and having some great conversations regarding the themes they are uncovering throughout their books.  Be sure to ask your student about the book they are reading!


Science - Students thought about how mass and volume apply to both solids and liquids. We read about Archimedes and how he used water displacement to measure the volume of oddly shaped liquids. Students problem solved in order to find the volume of a marble, washer, screw, and golf ball using our graduated cylinders. It took some complex thinking but we got it! Now, we're looking at the age old Crow and Pitcher story to see how it is similar and different from Archimedes's story! It's awesome that we're able to involve so much reading and writing in our science learning.

Math -We started a new unit this week, Unit 2! We are working on reading decimals and understanding place value.