5V News

We have been busy in 5V!  We just completed unit 5 in math and we are becoming more familiar with fractions, decimals and percents.  IXL has been a great resource for practicing these skills and challenging students in other areas.  We have been focused on research in writing and social studies and how to paraphrase, take notes and cite sources.  The students are working on creating Glogs of their explorers and have started planning their articles on topics of their choice.  Our work in reading has complemented our research work as we have been focusing on nonfiction text features and differentiating between fact vs opinion.

As a reminder, your child should be writing one blog post per week on a topic of their choice that should be at least two paragraphs long.  After vacation we will begin using a rubric to evaluate these posts.  Students are also required to comment on at least three posts and these should be at least three sentences.  Additionally, students should be spending at least 20 minutes per week on IXL practicing math skills.  

As we enter the second half of fifth grade we are focused on students' independence, responsibility and organization and any support at home to foster these skills is appreciated.

We have a wonderful group of kids in 5V and I'm always impressed with their hard work, creativity and enthusiasm for learning.  It truly feels like a family in our classroom and I'm always proud of how they help and support each other.  5V is an amazing place to be!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful vacation!

Building a fort after snowshoeing

5V News

Mystery Skype:
Do you know our class has Mystery Skyped with four other fifth grade classes?  So far we have met classes in Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin and Arizona.  Mystery Skype is when we connect with another class through Skype and ask yes or no questions to try to guess where they are located.  It's a great way to connect with other students and work on our geography skills.  We are also Mystery Chatting with another class through video since they are too far away to Skype.  So far we know they are East of the Prime Meridian, North of the equator, English isn't their first language and their citizens don't vote for their leaders.  We can't wait to find out where they are!

We are learning about:

• Circle graphs
• Feature articles
• European explorers

Some activities we did:

• Practiced reading and creating circle graphs
• Interpreted bar graphs and line graphs on IXL
• Experimented with Glogster
• Researched our individual explorers 
• Began creating Glogs on our explorers
• Created questions for research on our feature article topic
• Decided on an audience for our feature article 
• Started planning our feature articles
• Celebrating Valentine's Day by exchanging valentines and eating some treats

Notes and reminders:

• Feburary vacation: February 25-29
• Faculty vs 5th grade basketball game: March 12th 

5V News

We are learning about:

• Fractions, decimals, percents
• Early explorers
• Nonfiction feature articles

Some activities we did this week:

• Converted between mixed numbers and improper fractions
• Converted between fractions, decimals and percents
• Played Frac-tac-toe
• Ate homemade pie as a fraction lesson
• Explored text features in feature articles
• Practiced activating our schemas using text features
• Predicted big ideas of feature articles before we read
• Began listening to Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen during read aloud
• Read about why Europeans explorers wanted to explore
• Made a mystery chat video for a class that lives on the Eastern side of the Prime Meridian
• Created a page in our altered books about where we think we will be in ten years
• Blogged about our week in 5V

 Notes and reminders:

• Students may choose to bring in Valentines for classmates on Thursday, February 14th.  If they choose to, they should be sure to bring one in for everyone in the class.
• Report cards go home today
• 5th grade vs faculty basketball game has been rescheduled for March 12th