Welcome Back! We hope everyone has had a wonderful break celebrating with family and friends. It is so hard to believe we are in a new decade, and that this fifth grade year is over half way over. 

There are some exciting events happening this month through our Enrichment program here at FA! Click here to find out more information about:

• Upcoming enrichment sessions include band, continued strings, knitting, magic, ballet, nutrition and cookie making. Registration closes for this session at noon on Thursday, so be sure to check out it soon!
• The monthly Parents’ Night Out is coming up on Friday. Drop off the kids at FA and enjoy an evening out in Fredericksburg! 
• February 8th there will be a dance for Lower School students to enjoy a night out with a special adult in their lives. Desserts, a craft, dancing, and a DJ will be provided!

Definitely also check out the great pictures and videos that have been uploaded for the month of December to our 2019-2020 Photos folder. December sure was a whirlwind of a month, with a heavy focus on performances of many types by our creative and talented students!

Language Arts: In our first school week of 2020, we will be focusing on persuasive writing. Though many of the students have written persuasively before, it’s an incredibly valuable skill to hone, and we’re going to take it to some new and challenging levels this week. So this week, we’ll be covering the core elements of this kind of writing (your stance on the topic; appealing to your audience; choosing your best points; etc) and looking at a number of examples, ranging from the persuasive texts they see everyday (such as commercials and ads) to brief, student-oriented essays.

Since the students will be gearing up to write their own persuasive essays, we’ll conclude this week with a brainstorming session where they’ll choose their own prompts to respond to next week. Having a strong, personal investment in what they’re writing about will vitally empower the students, allowing them to think of their most essential persuasive points and write a compelling, convincing argument.

Math: Our focus this week in math will be visualizing equivalent fractions through various models. We will decompose fractions into smaller unit fractions, and connect our knowledge of multiplication as repeated addition to fractional reasoning. Another very important concept to grasp is why we multiply (or divide in the case of simplifying) both the numerator and denominator by the same number. It is crucial for students to understand they must not write (or say) ” ¾ x 2 = 6/8″ (it would actually equal 6/4), but rather “¾ x 2/2 = 6/8″. Multiplying by a form of 1 proves the equivalency between ¾ and 6/8. While students may have heard of the identity property of multiplication before, it is new to them to think of 1 in an alternate form. As students gain familiarity with the use of fractions and decimals in problems they have previously solved with whole numbers, they need to use their strong number sense foundation we have been building all year and throughout previous years. By the end of the week, we also will be using the benchmark values of 0, ½, 1, 1 ½, and 2 to compare fractions and place them on number lines.

Science: This week, our six scrum teams will begin their work on our project to revamp the Playscape Garden in the spring. Students will find out who their teammates will be, as well as the topic they will focus on. Before the break, each student filled out a survey ranking the following topics from their top choice to their last: Planning & Design, Plants, Animals & Habitats, Health & Humans, Environmental Impacts, and Soil & Water. The focus this week will be on teambuilding and sharing their own background knowledge of their topic.

History: Continuing from where we left off, this week, we’re working through the Midwest states and capitals in our US Geography unit. On Monday, the students worked through stations to fill out their study guide, which they’ll use to prepare for their quiz on Friday. After this week, they’ll only have Southwest and West regions left (both of which we’ll tackle next week) before we pull it all together.

Have a wonderful week!

Kimberly & Tim