Wow! We have had quite a productive week in fifth grade! Our kindness boomerang is nearing completion. We cannot wait to share it with you. Your children blew us away with the improvement they made from the first take to their second take today. We are hoping to be able to film a final version on Monday if all students are present.

We also had many students join in on the playscape for Drums and Donuts with our very own music teacher, Mr. Santulli, on Tuesday. This is always such a fun event. Please be sure to check out the Fall Carnival Flyer sent home for the Fall Carnival. This is always a fun way to start off fall and for our Lower School students to participate in homecoming weekend.

Please do not forget to sign up for a parent conference. We hope to be able to meet with every parent! You will find the sign up sheet under the Upcoming Events section to the right or you can click HERE to sign up. Thank you to all who have already signed up!

Reading: Our main goal this week was to finish working on our Genre Group Projects and to practice writing effective summaries for works of fiction. Being able to summarize the key components of a story in your own words is a vital skill (and one of the most important pieces of their Genre Project), so we practiced honing our abilities through a Somebody-Waned-But-So-Then structure.

Though we had hoped to begin the student presentations this week, we’re confident that the extra work time will result in even more polished and comprehensive projects. Many of the students have drafted cue cards and begun rehearsing with their other group members. We’re really looking forward to seeing what they’ve come up with next week!

History: Just as we worked on summarizing works of fiction in our Language Arts class, in History this week, we practiced summarizing nonfiction texts. Being able to recognize the main points of nonfiction (such as online articles, biographies, newspapers, etc) and put their respective information into our own words will be essential as the students begin their Landmark research and take notes next week.

Math: In math this week we have been working on learning a set of divisibility rules. These rules will be helpful with so many topics of math for years to come. So far in fifth grade these rules have been a huge aid in finding factors and multiples of various numbers. Next week we will practice using prime factorization to find ALL the factors of larger numbers. Keep an eye on your child’s agenda, as we will have a test on Factors, Multiples, Prime and Composite Numbers at some point next week. This is in addition to the weekly review quizzes we usually take on Fridays.

Have a great weekend!

Kimberly & Tim

Thank you to all who came our for our Back to School Night on Thursday! If you were not able to attend, please know we sent a packet of all the handouts home with your child Friday.

Be sure to check the Reminders and Upcoming Events tabs to the right. There is a link to sign up for Parent Conferences under Upcoming Events. We hope to meet with each and every one of you!

You should be receiving a weekly email called the FA Weekly. This is a great way to find out what is going on around campus. Also, there are links to various ways to help out with the Parent Faculty Association. We are so thankful for all the work this great group does for our school!

This week in fifth grade we have continued our kindness theme, as we worked on the class Kindness Boomerang. Please be sure to ask your child about this creative project. In our core classes we worked on the following this week:

Reading: As we mentioned in our Back-to-School night presentation, being able to discuss and express ideas about a work of literature is going to be a crucial part of our studies this year. Using Langston Hughes’ seminal short story, “Thank You Ma’am,” we defined the difference between round and flat characters, collectively summarized the story’s narrative structure, and used evidence from the text to show how the main character, Roger, develops over the course of the tale. Finally, we concluded with a short quiz based on the text and our week-long discussion. Though this quiz was merely practice, your student can expect the quizzes that follow to be quite similar.

History: This week, we continued preparing our research skills and our abilities to recognize credible and non-credible resources. Though many students have done research projects in the past, being able to quickly and effectively identify trustworthy online sources of information will be vital, not only for their Landmark Projects, but especially as they transition into middle school. We’re aiming to start out next week by practicing some effective note-taking skills so that they’ll be more than ready to start digging into their Landmarks!

Math: I feel confident I am not alone in saying that solving word problems was an area of difficulty for me as a student in elementary school math. I was taught to memorize certain words to equate to specific mathematical operations. When one of those key words was not in the problem, or there were several key words within one problem, I was lost. One of the goals of fifth grade math is to truly understand problem solving rather than memorizing steps. During our daily word problems we are using the three read strategy:

1. Read just to grasp an idea of what the problem is talking about in general.
2. Read the problem paying attention to important information, making annotations if needed.
3. The goal of the final read is to come up with a plan and solve the problem itself.

I have also stressed to the students that the number is only part of the answer, so it is important to answer word problems with a complete sentence. We will continue our practice of solving various word problems throughout the year. This past week we dove into prime and composite numbers, factors, and multiples. We will continue to practice identifying relationships between whole numbers next week as well.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Kimberly & Tim

It has been a fabulous short week here in fifth grade! We hope your child is having as much fun as we are getting the year started. During music class this week, both homerooms participated in an instrument petting zoo. Check out the photos link (under “Links and Resources” at the top of this page) to see our students in action. We have also created a spot for important dates to the right called “Upcoming Events”. Be sure to check that section as we have several events happening next week- the beginning of after school strings, picture day, and back to school night. Lastly, be sure to ask him or her about the “Kindness Boomerang” we are creating!

Reading: This week, we began working on our Reading Kickoff Project. Based on your child’s favorite genre from their summer reading, they’ll collaborate with a small group to give a slideshow presentation on their shared literary genre and their individual books. The plan is to continue working on these slideshows in class and during our Work Time periods over the next week and a half, culminating in some wonderful and informative presentations.

History: Similarly, we began our history unit by diving into our Landmark Projects. This week, each student signed up to be the sole researcher for their historic landmark in and/or around The National Mall of Washington DC. For the next several weeks, we’ll learn and practice good note-taking skills, compile our research, and draft an essay that they’ll present during our field trip to DC near the end of October. We’re all very excited to see these 25 projects come together over the next month and a half!

Math: We continued to learn about the pieces of the puzzle that make up each routine in class this week. All students have been fabulous participants in each math class. I very much enjoy hearing them explain their thinking as the strategies used during our “number talks” have been varied and show a great number sense foundation. Adding on to our discussions about growth mindset, we have also talked about the importance of retrieval practice. The homework pages we do nightly aid in spiraling our review by practicing the retrieval of previously learned topics. Next week we will dive further into number theory such as prime and composite numbers, factors, and multiples.