A Great Week!

Welcome to another fantastic week of 5th grade.  Below is an update on a couple things we are working on.

Special Activities:

I hope to see you at tomorrow's learning luncheon, where we will play - "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader."  This will be a learning luncheon you will not want to miss.  Be sure to bring your lunch.

Don't forget about the parent moving up to Middle School information meeting on Thursday, May 1st at 7pm.  The meeting will take place in the Middle School library.  Come and learn everything and anything about our wonderful Middle School.

This week is the New York State Math assessments. The children will take the tests Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning with their math class.  We are confident that every child will give the assessment their very best!

We will continue practicing for our lip synch skit this week.  Don't forget lip synch will take place on Monday, May 9th at the Middle School.

We were unable to start DARE last week due to a scheduling conflict with our DARE officer.  Our first DARE class will be on Wednesday of this week.

Writing:
Last week we started our informational writing unit.  The children will be writing a non-fiction book on the Westward Expansion.  Last week each child chose 5 mini Westward Expansion topics that they wanted to research.  They are currently in the process of researching their topics using note cards that we organized in class.  I will eventually teach the children how to turn this research into their very own informative book.

Reading:
This week we will start a synthesizing unit in reading.  Synthesizing is a higher level reading skill where a student merges new information with prior knowledge to form a new idea, perspective, or opinion or to generate insight. We will practice this skill by reading different informative pieces in reading.  The children will of course work in reading workshop where they will continue to read their literature circle and independent books.

Science/Social Studies:
This week the children will finish up their science unit, Mixtures and Solutions, with Miss. Longton.  We will go back to social studies where I will finish some major concepts in US history.  We will then complete a quick unit on Canada.

Please let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for your support!

Andrew