Thursday, September 7, 2017

September Happenings

We are well under way into our fifth grade journey and we are getting into some great routines and learning experiences.  Below is information about the focus of our work right now in each subject as well as important dates to know.  There are a lot of fun opportunities going on or starting soon at GRE, so please make sure you are reading the Thursday folder email and the information on our Principal's Blog.

Reading
As mentioned in my August 20th post, we are focusing our reading strategy work right now on making connections.  This will also be discussed as using our schema, and activating our background or prior knowledge.  Right now we are focusing on our schema of different genres of text and how making new connections in any text adds to, modifies, or confirms our schema.

The best thing you can do at home with your child in reading is to support all kinds of reading activities!  Talk to your child about what they are reading and what you are reading.  Ask them about the plot, what is surprising, what predictions they have, or how the character is acting or changing.  Go to the library together, read news articles together, create a parent/child book club, and/or listen to audiobooks in the car or while you make dinner!  The more that students are thinking about text, what they already know about a subject, what is new, etc... the more they are thinking about what they read.

Writing
The students finished their "10 Question" articles last week and they are wonderful! The students did such a good job of coming up with creative questions and topics to interview themselves about.  We are now generating ideas for our personal narratives unit.  These are stories from our own lives, sometimes called "small moments".  You can support this work at home by reminding students of funny, exciting, sad, or milestone moments they've had in their own lives.  Help your child add details to the story as they retell it out loud.

Spelling
This week we are practicing how to do a Words Their Way spelling sort.  This is an activity that most students will be doing as spelling practice at home starting next week.  I will send home ways to practice these sorts with their first lists next week.

Math
We are focusing our mathematical minds right now on multiplication strategies.  The goal is for students to truly understand what multiplication represents and how to manipulate the numbers mentally and when solving on paper.  We are analyzing where in the world we use multiplication, what the numbers represent in our solution strategies, and multiple strategies to get to an answer.

We added math fact practice to our homework routine this week.  Students are expected to do 30 minutes of math fact practice at home during the week and record it on their reading and math log.  We are discussing ways to practice this each day in class.  Students have access to some great games through our Pearson website that students can access through any computer from here or our Google Classroom site.  We also have played games that students can play at home, and have discussed how to even do it orally.  Yesterday in the car, I practiced facts with my own daughters for 10 minutes by asking them to count by 12, 9, and 8; find all the factors of 96, 100, and 48; and did a random set of multiplication facts.

Dates to Know About:
Western Night - Sept. 15th
Teacher Professional Development Day (no school for students) - Sept. 22nd
Digger Dash - Sept. 29th
Parent/Teacher Conferences - Sept. 27th and Oct. 5th