Week of March 30- April 3

Weekly News:

Thursday will be our DARE celebration and pizza party for the students. The winner of the DARE essay contest will be announced. Students will walk down to the Town Hall for this event.

Monday, April 6th begins our Smarter Balanced Testing. Please come to school well rested and having eaten a good breakfast!

This Week:

Writing: We continue to work on our writing stamina in preparation for the writing portion of the SBAC,

Science: We are talking about clouds and forecasting tools to finish up our weather unit and take a short test on storms. Watch for a study guide to be coming home on Wednesday for a test on Friday.

Social Studies: We continue to work on on research for our inventor presentations.

Math: We are finishing up adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators and will be testing this week.

Reading: We will be looking deeper at the conventions of writing and how they impact what we read.

Week of March 16-20

Events This Week:

Curriculum Fair/ Science Fair
Wednesday is the annual Curriculum Fair/ Science Fair! It starts at 6:00, please remind your fifth grader to stay with their project for the night.

Please remember to have your child bring in any materials they would like to display to school Wednesday morning. We will complete the rest of the project here at school.

This Week:

Writing: We continue to work on our writing stamina, and sticking with the topic as we write. Students are also completing their DARE essays.

Science: SCIENCE FAIR PROJECTS continue to consume us this week, but after the fair we will begin talking about extreme weather. We have also rescheduled Kevin Skarupa for March 25th.

Social Studies: We are starting our inventor research projects, using the tech tool Thinglink.

Math: We are starting FRACTIONS! Students will begin with estimating fractions before learning to find common denominators to add and subtract unlike fractions.

Reading: Students continue to write from multiple sources they have read.

Week of March 9-13

Smarter Balanced Testing:

We have started preparing for the upcoming SBAC Testing. Students are using the new Chromebooks to work the test online. There is a lot for us to learn about this new way of testing. Please help us by talking with your child about the testing, and keeping them positive!

Science Fair:

This week students should be working on their experiments at home. Please remember to be taking pictures and keeping track of what they are doing in their notebooks. All experiments and data must be done and completed by Monday the 16th. We cannot offer any extensions on this project, the Science Fair is Wednesday the 18th at 6.

This Week:

Writing: We will be working on our DARE essays. The winner of the competition will earn $50. We will have one winner per class. We also will be continuing to work on answering writing prompts.

Science: We will have our forecasting quiz on Wednesday, and spend the majority of the week working on Science Fair.

Social Studies: We are continuing our journey through the Industrial Revolution. We are also reading Lydie together- reading this book helps the students understand what life was really like in the Mills and will help a lot when we go to them in April.

Math: We should be finishing up Topic 8 this week and will begin to delve into FRACTIONS!

Reading: We continue to define unknown words in text by using text clues, answer questions from reading, and find parts of speech and other conventions in our reading.

Week of March 2-6

Welcome Back!!

We hope you had a great VACATION and are ready to get work done! We have a couple of very busy weeks coming up before April Vacation, and a lot that we need to complete!

A Couple of Important Dates:

Science Fair/Curriculum Night is Wednesday, March 18th.
Remember to be working on your science fair experiments!
SmarterBalanced testing is starting soon.

This Week:

Writing: We are going back to basics with how to answer writing prompts, sticking to a topic, and writing so others can understand.

Science: We will be doing a mix of science fair work, the scientific method, and finishing up meteorology- Hopefully sneaking in a visit with Kevin Skarupa!

Social Studies: We are learning about the Industrial Revolution. Students are exploring the shift from cottage industries to factory life, and as a result how the lives of women and children really changed. We are also learning about the many inventions that changed America during this time.

Reading: We are working on pulling main ideas, new vocabulary, and pulling evidence from short stories and excerpts.

Math: We are beginning Topic 8! Which explores some numerical reasoning. We expect this to be a fast moving topic, so be looking for a test next week!