Halloween was a little wild and fun as usual. It is always so great to see the whole school come together to embrace the craziness and strut their stuff during the parade. We are excited to have a fairly “normal” week this week.

Please remember there is no school on Monday, November 11. The second trimester will begin Tuesday, November 12, and information regarding access to student report cards should be coming out from all Lower School teachers toward the end of next week. If you have not yet accessed your Veracross parent portal, you might want to search your email for information from Terri Kuckuck, our network administrator, with directions and your login information.

Here’s what we have in store this week in our academic classes:

Reading: This week, we’ve been working with a smaller chunk of Holes (albeit one with quite a cliffhanger) in order to prep the students for their last quiz of the trimester. For this quiz, they’ll need to be familiar with the main events from chapters 16-32; a vocabulary list compiled by the students themselves; and be able to recognize and explain relevant literary terms (such as setting, themes, and symbolism) from these chapters. As the students prepare themselves, they may ask you to help with flashcards or other effective studying techniques–we definitely invite and encourage the help!

Lastly, a number of students are opting to memorize a poem to recite in class over the next two weeks. This is a purely optional task, but we’re so glad to see that a majority of our students are taking the initiative to give this a try. As they practice and commit the lines, rhymes, and imagery to memory over the next several days, we’re sure they’d love to have you and your family as preliminary audiences.

Math: While a few students are still wrapping up their work with long division, we are charging ahead this week as we conquer the order of operations. I challenged the students today to ask the adults in their lives what comes to mind when they hear “order of operations”. My suspicion is the first thing that will pop into everyone’s head (if you have grown up in the United States) would be “P.E.M.D.A.S.” or “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”.

That mnemonic device was ingrained in my head for so many years. I doubt I am alone! We had a good time talking about several problems that have gone around on social media over the past few years. This problem caused a discussion with myself and a handful of other adults that occupied us during a stressful time for well over an hour. What answer do you get? Check with your children to hear what all the confusion is about!

I must also point out that I have noticed many students struggle with organizing their work neatly, with labeled problem numbers, in a very orderly fashion on a sheet of notebook paper. While the mathematics lesson is important, the ability to successfully master this organizational skill is crucial. It will serve them well in sixth grade math and beyond as they have to prove and show steps in algebra and beyond.

Science: This week in science we are continuing our unit on the scientific method. We started a lab on Friday which we completed today. The rest of this week we will focus on understanding the difference between scientific observations, inferences, and opinions. A key component of understanding scientific observations will be differentiating between qualitative and quantitative observations.

Have a wonderful rest of this week!

Kimberly & Tim

We are excited to see all of the Halloween costumes tomorrow! Our annual Halloween parade will be at 9 a.m., but the remainder of the day will be fairly normal. We have reminded our students of the following guidelines throughout this week:

• Costumes should not be too scary and cannot include any weapons.
• Students are able to wear masks for the parade and at recess, but other than that they must remove any masks and/or hoods.
• Halloween candy should not be brought to school. We did say they could bring a piece to enjoy as part of their dessert at lunch. Any other excessive candy will be donated to the third grade’s Treats for Troops candy drive (see below). We encouraged students to bring in any of the candy they do not like to donate to the cause!

Treat our troops to a sweet treat! The third grade is partnering with Soldiers’ Angels Treats for Troops Program to ship donated candy to deployed service members around the world. Please drop off any candy (including extra Halloween candy!) to a third grade classroom, the Falcon’s Nest, the LS front desk, or with Mrs. Walsh in the US. We are collecting until November 5^th.

Please do not forget to click on “Links and Resources” at the top of this page. Here you will find the folder which has all of the photos we take throughout the year. Check back often, as we will continue to upload photos all year!

Here’s what is going on in our classes this week:

Reading: This week, the students will be completing Part 1 of Holes, which will require a bit more reading than we’ve done in the previous weeks. That said, I’m confident the students will be more than capable of handling the volume and turning their experiences into various creative products.

By the end of the week, the students will have to choose three of seven possible assignment prompts to respond to, ranging from rewriting a scene/chapter from another character’s perspective to visualizing and articulating similarities between our main antagonist, The Warden, and other characters they’ve encountered in other texts.

As the students are reading and working independently, I’ll be facilitating small group discussions to help gauge comprehension of the main narrative and our handling of the literary devices relevant to our work with Holes, primarily theme, characterization, and symbolism. The work we do this week will culminate and help prepare the students for a Part 1 quiz early next week.

History: We’re so glad that so many of you were able to join us for a great field trip this past Friday. With their Landmark Essays and Presentations in the rear view, the final part of their projects will be to complete a short reflective essay outlining various aspects of their experience preparing for and participating in the trip.

This is a much shorter, low-stakes form of writing than their research essays, so expect your student to have this completed by the end of the week. That said, the skills and benefits of reflective writing should not be understated–allowing the students to step back, think about their subjective experiences, and articulate those thoughts into ways to improve or guide their future work will be paramount as we continue on through the year.

Math: While some students are still working on long division, overall we are really focusing on problem solving this week. Word problems always tend to be a tricky area for many students. Of course it is important for students to be able to compute efficiently and accurately, but it is crucial they are able to do this beyond “naked math problems” (as one of my former college professors called them). The world is made of problems full of curve balls that take a lot of thinking to navigate. It is a mission of mine to help every student become a flexible thinker, capable of tackling whatever problem life throws at them- mathematically or otherwise.

Science: With the incredible landmark field trip behind us, we have finally begun our first science unit! We are diving a little deeper than students have before into the scientific method. We will quickly review the six steps of the scientific process, and then move on to writing a testable question and hypothesis. Friday we are looking forward to our first lab! Students will put their learning to the test as they investigating the effect of activity on their heart rates.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend! Don’t forget to turn your clocks back Saturday night!

Kimberly & Tim

Field trip week is finally here! We are all super excited to hear everyone present their research as we check out the sites of Washington D.C. As of right now, we have three forms that need to be returned, and just three seats left on the bus. If you have already returned your form and said you would like to ride the bus, we have a seat for you! Please note, each student who returned a form so far has had only one parent listed as coming with us, so if there are two parents planning to join us, we may need to make arrangements to meet you in D.C. If this is the case, please email us ASAP.

Click here to see the presentation order as well as estimated walking times. Since we are a large group, we will need to stay focused and walk at a reasonable pace to ensure that we hit each location.

Field Trip Reminders:

• In order to have enough time, we need everyone in the classroom at 8:15 a.m.
• The bus will leave FA promptly at 8:30 a.m., leave D.C. at 2 p.m., and will return to campus before 3:30 p.m. for carpool.
• Your child is responsible for his or her belongings and should bring a bag to carry their lunch, water, and snacks.
• Students may not have any electronics.
• Check the weather, dress in layers, and wear extremely comfortable shoes.
• Please pack a healthy lunch so you and your child are energized for the second half of the tour. We will picnic in Pershing Park.

Here is what is going on in our classes this week:

Reading: This week, we’re continuing on with Holes. The students had a riveting discussion today, specifically on the side story of Elya Yelnats and Madame Zeroni, which segued into our early work with symbolism. Collectively, we discussed the multiple meanings that Elya’s pig is essentially charged with as practice for when, on their own, students will end up identifying and deciphering other symbols in the larger work.

History: We are working on the finishing touches of our Landmark Research Project. At this point, I feel confident in saying that any and all parents who join us this Friday will be impressed with the work and devotion each of our students have put into this project. We cannot wait to see many of you on Friday!

Math: We are continuing our work with division this week. Do you remember when we learned long division and you (or maybe it was just me?) had that separate piece of paper that you did a bunch of different multiplication problems on to see how many times ____ went into ____? The partial quotient method removes the need for doing all that side work! Students use flexible thinking, compatible numbers, and facts they can easily recall to subtract groups in parts. This is a huge help not only in that it shows an understanding of division (repeated subtraction of groups), but it really helps those who do not yet have all the multiplication facts on automatic recall. If you have not seen partial quotients yet, I encourage you to ask your child to show this method to you. Also this week, we are continuing our discussion of the two types of division problems; fair-share division and measurement (or quotative) division. In general, we tend to think of division as the fair-share type of problems (dividing a set number of items equally up into a set number of groups). Unfortunately, students are typically not as familiar with measurement division (dividing the items into groups with a set number in each, thus finding how many groups can be made). This terminology is not necessarily important, but it IS important to realize not all division problems fit into the same mold. This will become especially important as we move to dividing decimals and fractions. Dealing with numbers beyond whole numbers are an exciting challenge ahead, so this is a great time to reprogram students’ minds about how the larger number is not always divided by the smaller number. Gasp! I cannot wait. 🙂

WOW! What a wild and wonderful couple of weeks it has been in Fifth Grade!

During Spirit Week, our Kindness Boomerang was finally completed and shared with the Lower School at our Community Meeting. Click HERE to watch this awesome video. Many of the third grade students felt such an impact from the video that they wrote letters to our fifth grade students. It was wonderful to hear the third grade students share their letters with our fifth graders last week.

That same afternoon,  we enjoyed our first pep rally of the year and to top it off, several of our students “worked” the Fifth Grade Tailgate BBQ during the homecoming games. The fifth grade students worked so hard and earned just under $750. Incredible! We are looking forward to using some of those funds to treat our students to a special breakfast during our overnight field trip. Our class will also brainstorm some ideas of how we can use the rest of the money to do something special for our school and/or community.

Please keep an eye out for the information coming home this week about our Landmark Field Trip next Friday, October 25. We hope you will be able to join us!

We truly enjoyed getting to talk with so many of you during our parent conferences last week. As always, please let us know if there is anything we can do to support your child as they learn and grow throughout fifth grade.

Here is what has been going on in our academic classrooms:

Reading: Last week, we really dug (ha) into Holes and worked with the first five chapters in a number of ways. The students had four different approaches to choose from, including character portraits, letters to home from the perspective of Stanley (our main character), and summary slideshows. The week culminated in a comprehensive quiz, in which the students did really well!

History: With much of our research coming to an end, we’ve now turned our efforts towards organizing our information and writing the first draft of their Landmark essay. Over this week, we’ll continue working towards a final draft, as well as individually conference with Mr. Barzditis to address any questions or concerns.

Math: In preparation for our BBQ sales, we learned a lot about creating a business plan and running a business. Our students calculated all of the final expenses, revenue, and overall profit for the project. We also practiced multi-digit multiplication, starting with accurate, but inefficient methods (partial products and the area model) which better show the reasoning behind the traditional algorithm. After building this solid understanding, we transitioned to more efficient strategies, such as the traditional or lattice methods. This week we are continuing in this same fashion with division. We will build conceptual understanding with less efficient strategies before moving to more efficient traditional algorithms. Please allow your child to go through this process rather than skipping to “the way we learned it”. Building this solid foundation will benefit them greatly later in the year when we head into decimals and fractions.

We hope everyone had a fantastic fall break. Time is going so fast!

Enjoy the short week,

Kimberly & Tim

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.

Welcome to your first fifth grade newsletter!

This blog is where we will post our weekly newsletter as well as any additional information we need to pass on to you. Please sure to subscribe to it so you can stay up-to-date. To subscribe, type your email address in the box on the right and click the Subscribe button. You will then receive an email each time we post something new!

Email is the best way to contact us. You can reach us at: KMcGehee@fredericksburgacademy.org and TBarzditis@fredericksburgacademy.org.Since we team-teach every fifth grader, please be sure to include both of us in any email correspondence.

We are excited about completing our first full week of school! Everyone is doing a fabulous job adjusting to the new school year, such as reading for at least twenty minutes each night, completing nightly math homework, and having a parent sign their agenda. So far, most of our class time has been all about getting to know the classroom and introducing the routines we will follow throughout the coming year. 

This week, each of our students have also applied for and received their first classroom jobs. These jobs will rotate every month, as it is our hope that each student will have a chance to try their hand at each of our classroom’s roles. Since one of the most prominent fifth grade responsibilities is the raising and lowering of the  flags, earlier today, Mr. Evans taught us about proper flag etiquette to help get us started.

Reading: This week, we spent some time reading, discussing, appreciating, and illustrating two classic poems–one by Emily Dickinson and the other from Elizabeth Bishop. Throughout the year, we will return to poetry and the skills we practiced this week, as much of the close reading and interpretive work we did together will be valuable as we continue our reading and writing. Also, when you get a chance, ask your child if you can see their illustration or hear their “found poem.” I think you’ll be impressed with what they came up with.

Looking ahead to next week, your child will receive the first project of the year! We will use the summer reading lists to group ourselves by genre. Your child will work with a small group to “sell” their genre to the rest of the class for a group grade, as well as present a book they read from that genre for an individual grade. This is a relaxed project focused on collaboration and will be done completely in class. Your child will have a rubric to work with, which we will go over and discuss together when we come back on Tuesday.

Math: Each day in math, we have introduced a new piece of our math workshop model as well as reviewed topics from previous years. It will take a while to collect all of the puzzle pieces which will eventually make up our typical class agenda, but the time spent learning about each piece will allow our class to run smoothly throughout the year. Next week, we will continue in the same manner, as we further build our understanding of having a growth mindset (not only in math, but in everything we do). 

Class Schedule: Click here to see our fifth grade schedule, but please understand that our schedules are subject to change. The first page is Mrs. McGehee’s homeroom, the second is Mr. Barzditis’ homeroom, and the last page is a quick list of the days of our specials.

Reminders:

• Please send your child to school with a reusable water bottle daily. They are welcome to leave their water bottles at school for the week.

• Please be reminded for the dress code policy for Grades K – 5: 
  • Clothing with logos is permitted provided the logo is appropriate for school. 
  • Bare midriffs and low necklines are not permitted. 
  • Crop, tank, or halter-tops may not be worn. 
  • Form-fitting pants may not be worn unless an over-shirt covers the hips. 
  • Camouflaged clothing may not be worn. 
  • Opened-toed footwear, Croc-style shoes, shoes with wheels, or clogs should not be worn, for reasons of safety. 
  • Dresses, shorts, or skirts must be no shorter than mid-thigh. 
  • On physical education days, students must wear shorts or sweat suits and non-marking athletic sneakers. There will be no dressing out except for swimming. 
  • Fridays are denim days. Clothing made of denim may be worn on these days only.

Important Dates:

Thursday, September 12 at 7 p.m. is Back to School Night. 

Friday, October 25 is the tentative date for our Landmark Field Trip to D.C. This is a fabulous day that we invite every parent to attend. Please put it on your calendar as you will not want to miss it.

Have a wonderful long weekend and be sure to ask your child about their first full week of school!

Take care,

Tim and Kimberly