5th Grade News
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Recent Newsletter
John’s (Yet to be named) Fifth Grade
Elysian Charter School
Week of September 24th
Dates to remember:
3rd, 4th & 5th grade parents - Coffee with Carol – Monday, October 1st (8:00am OLG)
OLG Back to School Night – Wednesday, October 3rd (6:30pm-8:00pm OLG)
In-class Scholastic Book orders due – Friday, October 5th
No School (Columbus Day) – Monday, October 8th
Field trip - Liberty Science Center – Thursday, October 11th
Dear fifth grade families,
We finished our second FULL week of school and find ourselves done with the month of September! We spent this week working on multiplication strategies in math, planning and drafting our story ideas in writing, responding to questions for reading, breaking down the five food groups in health, shopping at the book fair and saying “cheese” for our class photos.
Please feel free to contact me at the OLG building or through e-mail (johnrutledge88@aol.com) if you have any questions or concerns throughout the year.
MATH
This was, once again, a very busy and productive week in math class. We first broke into small groups where students represented and solved multiplication problems. Students then compared these representations and shared strategies they found useful and effective. Students used arrays to represent different ways of breaking up a problem. Playing the game, Multiplication Compare, students estimated and compared products involving multiples of 10. We continued working on puzzles with four math clues. The clues focused on the multiplication vocabulary words we’ve been using in class for the past few weeks.
WRITING
The Writer’s Notebook continues to be a focal point of our day. This week was spent planning our writing and starting the drafts. We discussed and shared examples of timelines and planning boxes for the planning portion of our writing. Using one of these formats, we put our stories into an order we felt comfortable writing from. The class focused first on ways in which to start their stories. I shared examples from our class library, we made a list of different beginnings and then each student created two different beginnings. Once they chose their beginning was finalized, the drafting began. We’ll draft our story for another day or two and then we’ll begin revising. This is always the most challenging part of the writing process for a student to master. We’ll spend extra time on this step! Keep an eye out for information regarding our first Publishing Party which will be sometime in early October.
READING
We continued reading the book Wringer by Jerry Spinelli. We are about half way through the book. It is a story of a 10 year old boy dealing with friendships, fears, and the one challenge that has haunted him for years. The class really seems to be enjoying this book. Ask them about it!
We also continued meeting in small (1/2 class) reading groups. Our book choices are designed to accommodate various levels of reading interest and ability. The first two books we are reading both intertwine with each other. We are reading The Hoboken Chicken Emergency and Summer Reading is Killing Me! The Hoboken Chicken character makes and appearance in the other book which is why I choose to read these two books simultaneously. During these reading groups we discuss, among many things; plot, the underlying message, character development and description and theme. We are just about through both books. Once complete, we’ll move onto two new books!
HEALTH
We continued our health study this week. Our second activity centered on nutrients and the health benefits of eating a balanced meal. We read a little more about Arianna Bones and Marcus Muscleman, rapped out some lyrics on health benefits and completed an activity displaying each health benefit throw pictures.
This week we began tracking our daily (in-school) consumption of fruits and vegetables. We set a class goal of 500 servings of fruits and vegetables. We set a goal to complete this task by October 23rd. As of today, we have eaten just over 100 servings. Keep up the good work!! This activity continues to be a fun way to encourage healthier eating on a daily basis. Feel free to send in fruits and vegetables with your child at any time.
SOCIAL STUDIES/SCIENCE
Our first major study in social studies and science will begin next week. We are going to begin by working with rivers, more specifically the Hudson River. Over the next month or so we’ll look at the river from a science standpoint (water cycle, parts of a river, pollution, life) and also from a social studies standpoint (people, economics, culture, history). I look forward to exploring the huge flowing body of water that is right at our doorstep!
SNACK SCHEDULE
Thanks so much to Carina for bringing in snack this week. Next up is Jake.
FIELD TRIP
We are all set for our first class field trip to Liberty Science Center on Thursday, October 11th. If you haven’t already, please return the permission slip by next Friday. A bag lunch is required for the trip. If you ordered lunch from school, a bag lunch (sandwich, drink, chips and fruit) will be given in its place.