5V News

Parent conferences:

Parent conferences begin the week of Monday, April 9th.  Please check out our class wiki for available times and to sign up.  You should have received an email invitation.  You can also request to join the wiki or email me with a time you would like and I can sign up for you. 
http://msvalenti.wikispaces.com/April+conferences


We are learning about:

• Negative numbers
• New England, Middle and Southern colonies
• Persuasive essay
• "Reading" characters

Some activities we did this week:

• Made a human number line to practice adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers
• Reviewed concepts from math unit 7
• Read examples of persuasive essays
• Brainstormed topics we are passionate about
• Shared ideas for possible persuasive essay topics
• Started planning our persuasive essays
• Made inferences about characters in our book based on their actions
• Noticed what objects our characters keep close and what that reveals about them
• Read and discussed the similarities and differences between the New England, Middle and Southern colonies
• Reviewed the risks of tobacco products with Mr. Fosher during Life Skills
• Played "Zoom"

Notes and reminders:

• The third quarter closes Friday, March 30th
• Please send in your child's personal page for the 5th grade memory book
• Parent conferences begin the week of April 9th
• Jeff Warner (our fifth grade artist in residence) evening performance: Thursday, April 19th at 6:30
• Report cards go home Friday, April 20th  
• April vacation- week of April 23rd

April conferences

The conference schedule for April is up on our class wiki.  You can find the conference page under "All Pages" on the right.  Feel free to sign up whenever you get a chance.

Here is a direct link:
http://msvalenti.wikispaces.com/April+conferences

Feature articles

5V students have uploaded their feature articles as PDFs to our class blog.  They are proud of their hard work and excited about their final products.  Please check them out and feel free to comment! 

http://kidblog.org/MsValentisClass/

5V News

Thank you to those of you that have signed up to read to our class next week.  I have set up a Wikispace for our class and you should have received an invitation to join.  If you haven't received an email invitation please let me know.  I'm also hoping to use this space to sign up for conferences and I would love some feedback from you on whether you think this might work.  Thank you! 

 http://msvalenti.wikispaces.com/

We are learning about:

• Exponential notation
• Jamestown and Plimoth
• Visualizing as a reading strategy
• Using images to write

Some activities we did this week:

• Converted numbers between exponential notation and standard notation
• Played Exponent Ball
• Wrote stories using Storybird (http://storybird.com/)
• Shared our finished feature articles with other fifth grade classes
• Compared life in Jamestown and Plimoth colonies 
• Practiced some strategies for researching 
• Learned about the 13 original colonies
• Listened to Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen during read aloud
• Searched for words with the "able" suffix

Notes and reminders:

• School district meeting- tonight at 7:00
• Read Across America week begins Monday, March 12th
• Friday, March 16th - no school