Happy Short Week! We hope you all enjoyed the long weekend and are staying warm and healthy. Please know, there have been several students and staff out sick this week and last week. Please be sure you and your children are all getting plenty of rest, drinking lots of water, and washing hands often!

Language Arts: This week, we are moving onto our next novels–three different works by Jerry Spinelli: Stargirl, Maniac Magee, and Jake and Lily. Though we will often come together to discuss what’s happening in each novel, the students have been organized into small reading groups that will focus on their selected text for the next several weeks.

After previewing each of the books and discussing some inferred similarities between the three, they each began reading the first thirty pages or so. As we proceed through each novel, the students will study relevant vocabulary, meet with each other for small-group discussions, tackle comprehension checks, and interpret the text through a variety of activities and small projects.

We know they’ve been eager to begin their next novels, so, like the titular character of Maniac Magee, fifth grade is gonna hit the ground running with these ones.

Math: Building upon our work with equivalent fractions last week, our focus this week is on addition and subtraction of fractions and mixed numbers. Students must be able to quickly rename fractions so they have common denominators in many instances. Having fractions that “look” different but actually are equivalent is a tough concept to grasp for a lot of students. The use of models and number lines definitely helps to explain various forms of equivalent values. This concept has also been very important in understanding how to regroup in order to subtract mixed numbers. Our many discussions about decomposing numbers this year have served as a great foundation for being able to regroup. For example, 4 ¼ can be renamed as 3 + 1 + ¼, which can then be renamed as 3 + 4/4 + 1/4, and finally 3 + 5/4. The goal is to be able to work through all of that almost immediately in their heads, but it is important to show how 4 ¼ comes to be rewritten as 3 + 5/4.  We have also been using these skills to practice converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa.

History: As many of you likely saw this week, the students did EXCELLENTLY on their South/Southwest region quiz from last Friday. That brings the individual region work to a close, which means that next Friday, they will conclude our US Geography unit with a final quiz. Unlike the quizzes, the students will only be responsible for knowing the states and their location on the map.

Additionally, in the coming days, the students will be presenting their States Research Projects (which we’ve joked has been a “two-year project,” now). To add another element to these presentations, yesterday, we brainstormed a massive list of songs that made us think of specific states or the USA as a whole, whether because they directly reference the state(s) or because of the “feeling” they give us. Kimberly and I will sift through these suggestions and curate a final “playlist” that we’ll have in the background as the students present their states research. They had a lot of fun thinking about all the songs that reminded them of the United States, so seeing them present to the tunes of Frank Sinatra, Oklahoma!, and The Osbourne Brothers should be quite a sight to see.

Science: Mixed between our states and Martin Luther King, Jr. activities, our scrum teams have been talking about what roles they each play within their area of expertise. They will be researching activities which correlate to their group’s focus, and ultimately, will share the activities they choose with the rest of the class. It would definitely be nice to get a little warm blast to make going outside a little more appealing!

Have a great week!

Kimberly & Tim

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

The countdown is on for your children to finish out 2019. There is a lot of excitement in the air, but also lots to do in the next week. Please be sure to check the Upcoming Events portion of this page (to the right) for important dates!

Also, please note that Beginning Band starts for 5th grade students in January. You can find out more and register for band and many other wonderful after school enrichment programs for the next session here. 

Reading: This week, we have finally been dealing with the concept of irony and how it applies to the stories we’ve been reading and our own writing. Specifically, we’ve been covering three main types: verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony. After having an overview lesson of all three yesterday, we spent today practicing our ability to recognize ironic situations and explain how they know which thread of irony it is. Throughout the rest of the week, we’ll spend some time reading and discussing O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” (a holiday-inspired short story that’s infamously ironic), and apply our skills to the whole of Holes (which, as we’ve mentioned before, is a story rife with irony).

Finally, we’ll conclude with a viewing of Disney’s Holes, the 2003 adaptation of Louis Sachar’s novel. The film is rated PG, so you should expect to receive a permission slip from your student tonight. If you are comfortable with your student watching the film, then please have them return the signed slip as soon as possible.

Math: This week in math we are shifting gears to fraction foundations. This will help as we begin to understand the relationship and equivalencies between fractions and decimals. Students have been using “tape diagrams” to show the decomposition of fractions into unit fractions. It is difficult for many students to grasp the fact that decimals and fractions can be written in several equivalent ways, and that they occupy the same position a number line. For this reason, we will spend several weeks of class moving between fractions and decimals in order to make more sense of this abstract concept. As we work through these next units, I highly encourage you to talk with your children about fractions and decimals as they relate to money. This helps them make an abstract concept become more concrete. For example, pointing out that 1/2 of a dollar is the same as $0.50 whether that is in the form of 5 dimes (tenths of a dollar), or 50 pennies (hundredths of a dollar). Another helpful discussion is how 1/4 of a dollar is the same as $0.25 or 2/10 and 5/100.

History: This week, your students will be working their way through the Southeast Region of the US, which will culminate with another State/Capital quiz on Friday. As they prepare in class and at home, they will also be finishing up their first individual State Project (which they began last week) and move onto researching their second state. Though it doesn’t appear that we’ll make it through each of the US regions before Holiday Break, we’ll pick right back up with our remaining states in January.

Science: As we continue our planning for our garden project, we have been discussing some main areas that will need to be studied and addressed. A few of these topics are planning and plantings, soil composition, and environmental impacts. In order to simulate an engineering type project management system, students groups will be using “scrum teams” in order to become experts within their assigned topic area, and will need to use their knowledge to explain their portion of the project to the other teams. Teams will then need to work together to decide on each next course of action for the good of the greater project.

Hold on to your hats folks! This year we have a REALLY quick turn around between Thanksgiving Break and the Holiday Break.

THANK YOU so much for the wonderful birthday surprise! The cards, gifts, flowers, and cupcakes were such a wonderful, unexpected treat. – Kimberly

Below you will find a few pictures of things that have been going on in fifth grade recently.

Decorating the Gingerbread Houses for the PFA’s Holiday Breakfast (We hope to see you there THIS SATURDAY- see flyer)

*Special thanks to our room parents who were able to come in to help with this project!

An afternoon game of Codenames- if you have not checked this game out, you definitely should. We both highly recommend it!

Congratulations to Cabell and Elizabeth on a wonderful job in the latest CYT production, A Christmas Carol!

Here is what we are up to in our academic classes this week:

Reading: Though we finished reading Holes before we departed for Thanksgiving Break, we have a few more upcoming tasks and activities I’d like to do before saying goodbye to Stanley Yelnats. Firstly, the students will put the finishing touches on their Peach Recipe Projects so they can present them between Wednesday and Thursday. Once each group has presented their recipe research, my goal is for them to vote on the recipe they’re most interested in so that next week, we can put on our chef hats and get in the kitchen.

We’ve also been looking at the ways in which justice (and its nasty inverse, injustice) is a key theme of the book. We began by looking at the ways in which wrongs have been enacted upon our main characters, how these wrongs influence their decisions, and determining whether they’re redeemed and justified by their narratives’ end. Determining whether some characters and actions are justifiable becomes a little murky and abstract, so we’ll continue with this theme throughout the week.

Math: We have been working on strengthening our understanding of patterns. Students have been using a rule to generate and analyze patterns. These patterns are then plotted as an input (x) and output (y) on a coordinate grid using the format (x,y). This is the beginning steps of the algebra we remember from our school years. I love teaching this unit because it really leads students into seeing relationship between math and science. We have been using Khan Academy as a tool in class as well. There is so much to learn right at our fingertips with this site. You just might find your children looking to learn chemistry, art history, or any of the other many “courses” listed on the site!

History:

Before the break, we took a pre-test to see where each of the students were at with their knowledge of US States, but now that we’re back, we’re hitting the ground running with this unit. Today, we identified the eleven states (and their capitals) in the Northeastern Region (New England down to Maryland) and practiced identifying each on blank maps. Tomorrow, they’ll have these maps handed back to them which they should use to study for the region quiz we’ll have near the end of the week.

On Wednesday, we’ll also be introducing our State Project, in which each student will be responsible for researching and compiling information on their assigned state, such as their state flag, bird, motto, and drink, for example. Once each student has completed their research and created slides with their information, we will assemble a slideshow of all 50 states for them to use as we progress through the unit.

Science: Our scientific method unit has technically come to a close. Your child should be asking you to sign and return their science test tonight a part of their homework. Once I have checked off the parent signature for them, please know that the test will be in the science section of their binder should you wish to look it over more closely with your child. Just because we have finished our unit, does not mean we are “done” with the scientific method. As I am sure the students are well aware, this is a topic that repeats throughout all scientific investigation.

We are in the beginning phases of our garden project as well. Soon six work teams will be developed to work on specific goals in relation to revamping of the garden in the Lower School Playscape. We are looking forward to hearing all about their research and designs with this yearlong project!

Have a wonderful (short) week!

Kimberly & Tim

It is so hard to believe we only have this week and half of next until Thanksgiving Break! Please remember students will be dismissed on Wednesday, November 27 at 11:55 a.m. for the long holiday weekend. School will resume Tuesday, December 3.

If you have not yet logged in to Veracross to see your student’s report card and comments, please do so. Your child now receives letter grades for all core subjects. It is important that students understand how their daily homework, classwork, and assessment grades affect their overall letter grade this year rather than next year in middle school. You should have received an email from Mrs. Estes on Friday with directions for accessing the report card. If you need help logging in to your Parent Portal, please let us know. 

Along the lines of grades and report cards, please help us support your child by signing their agenda each night after looking to see that they have completed their homework. The homework we assign is not lengthy or difficult. Many times, when we sign off on students’ agendas in the morning, we find agendas are signed even though homework is not complete.  As we discussed with the class during our morning meeting today, it is not necessary for you to check for accuracy, but we would like homework to be completed before they ask you to sign their agenda. Thank you so much for holding our students accountable with this.

Here’s what we have planned in our classes between now and Thanksgiving Break:

Reading: This week, we’re recapping last week’s eight chapters of Holes in a slightly different way than before; your students will be acting the chapters out for each other, giving their own personal spin on the main events we read about. Much of today was spent on the limitations, angles, and opportunities each group has with their material, as well as rehearsal time. We aim to have each of the groups present for their homerooms tomorrow, allowing us then to smoothly move onto the selected chapters for this week.

Additionally, in the same groups, the students will be collaborating on a project that allows them to research various peach-themed recipes and come up with their own new spin. In Holes, one of the characters was “small-town famous” for her spiced peaches. This research/creative project will not only allow each group to add a new layer to the story, but it also may result in some tasty treats before we head off for Thanksgiving.

Lastly, we’ll be introducing the concept of irony (and its variants) and applying it to the major events and locales of the story. Holes is simply teeming with irony, and while many of the students have picked up on some of its various absurdities and misnomers, I’d like to focus on extracting these moments so that we can work through their implications before we finish the book next week.

Math: This week we are continuing to work on solving word problems. We are building on this skill by writing expressions and equations that represent these word problems. Students are beginning to grasp the concept of using variables in place of unknown values. When given the value of a variable, students are learning they can substitute that value in for the variable in order to evaluate the expression. Many students have enjoyed seeing the trajectory of math ahead of them as we have solved a few tougher equations. We have also reviewed the commutative and associative properties (of addition and multiplication), as well as the distributive property. These mathematical properties will serve as basic tools in students’ toolboxes not only in mental math, but also as variables become more prevalent in students’ future math work. As a former middle school math teacher, it is exciting to see students constructing an understanding of basic algebraic foundations.

Science: We are wrapping up our scientific method unit this week with a quiz on Friday. Students will be given a list of terms they must be able to define, identify, and use in context in order to help them study. Please know, one of the questions will be to place the six steps of the scientific method in order. All concepts should be found within the science section of their binders. Next week we will do a few fun activities to discuss safety as well as learn some of the names for common tools used in science.

S.T.E.A.M.

This past Friday the class was given a challenge to work in groups to create a marble run that could reach the length of their tables using only paper towel cardboard rolls. It was so fun to see the kids attempting this team building S.T.E.A.M. exercise! Although no team officially conquered the challenge, it was a good way for them to see firsthand the importance of listening to each other and working together. We are looking forward to challenging them again soon, and we are especially excited to see their teamwork grow throughout the year!

Have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Kimberly & Tim

Trimester 2 started this week. Please look for an email from Mrs. Estes Friday afternoon regarding how to access to your child’s report card. In fifth grade, report cards include letter grades and are posted on Veracross. They can be printed or saved as a PDF for your records.

Wow! This year is really flying by; I wish it would slow down! Surely I am not the only one thinking this! Right?

Please read below to hear what has been going on in our classes this week.

Reading: In addition to reading up to Chapter 40 in Holes (we’re in the final stretch!), we’ve been focusing on some of our writing and grammar work this week. Specifically, the students have been reviewing compound sentences, as well as learning to identify coordinating and subordinate conjunctions. Though some of this will feel rather familiar to your students, being able to rely on acronyms like FANBOYS (for coordinating) and WASABI U (for subordinate) will make conjunctions far easier to remember and use in their own writing. We’ll wrap up our work with these concepts this week and use what we’ve practiced in a way that connects back to our reading in Holes.

The other big note to be aware of is that your students will be showing you their second Holes Reading Quiz from last week. This quiz had a lot more parts involved than the first (such as key vocabulary, themes, and symbolism), but by and large, the students did remarkably well with each of the new components. You should expect your student to show you the quiz and ask for your signature (along with their agendas and reading logs, of course). We’ll have one more Reading Quiz with the final chapters of Holes, but based on what I’ve seen with these, then they’ll be more than ready to dig up the answers.

Math: This week in math we have been moving from evaluating order of operation problems to writing them. Earlier in the year several students were questioning whether or not math is a language. This week we are proving that it is by translating words into numerical and algebraic expressions. This requires thinking through what is actually being asked, and in what order the symbols and numbers need to be placed. We are discovering the importance of parentheses, and learning that subtraction and division are not commutative. The properties we are discussing this week (commutative, associative, distributive) play a big role in algebra. When we are only dealing with numbers properties like the commutative property of addition basically just make expressions easier to evaluate. However, in algebra, properties allow us to simplify expressions and solve equations. Our class discussions have even led us to think about negative numbers, as well as the point of math or history beyond memorizing dates or procedures.

Science: As we continue our unit on the scientific method, we have been focusing on the two different types of data (qualitative vs. quantitative), as well as the difference between observations, inferences, and opinions. We will close out the week identifying independent and dependent variables within an experiment, and using them to write a clear hypothesis. We will most likely have our first science quiz of the year on Tuesday, so please keep an eye on your child’s agenda for confirmation.

Have a great rest of the week and stay warm!

Kimberly & Tim

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. 🙂