5th Grade Newsletter

November 14th-November 22nd

Religion –Our Liturgical Seasons Unit is well underway.  We’ve been learning about the different seasons in the church year as well as the colors and symbols that coordinate with each season.  We anticipate completing and assessing over this unit before Thanksgiving Break.  Following Thanksgiving, we will begin a unit titled the 25 Days of Christ.  We will be using this theme to learn about 25 major events in Christ’s life.  We are learning about these events through scripture, art, videos, and individual reflection.  Please feel free to visit this website for more information.  http://25daysofchrist.com/pages/the-25-days-new-testament-edition

We will continue with these lessons through Christmas.  Advent Prayer Services will be held on Nov. 28 at 8:40, Dec. 7 at 2:50, Dec. 16 at 8:40 (5th grade leads), and Tues. Dec 20 at 2:50.

Reading/Language Arts – Conferencing and letter writing continue to go really well!  Many students are well on their way to their 40 books!  Keep on reading!  Following Thanksgiving Break, we will begin the whole class book, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  This will be able to count as one of the 40 books students need to read by the end of the school year.  We will complete some comprehension activities as well as engage in some Christmas fun that relates to the book.  We will also still offer independent reading time so that the students can continue working on their 40 books!

Math – We continue to work in Unit 3 - Geometry.  Lots of new vocabulary is being introduced.  Your child can review his/her spiral each night to reinforce the concepts covered in class.  Continued practice of basic math facts will improve accuracy and speed.

Social Studies - Students (Mrs. Anderson too) had fun learning about the electoral college when we voted on Pepsi vs. Coke.  Coke seemed to be the winner here at SFA.  Students should have showed you a map of how this turned out.  We assessed over The Constitution today using our online TCI social studies curriculum.  Students should already have their scores to share with you.  We will get back to science next week, discussing Force and Motion Matter.

Language Arts – We are wrapping up our personal narratives.  We hope to have these completed before Thanksgiving Break.  Following break, we will begin a unit on nouns as well as an informative writing unit in preparation for an informative paper in January to be written about MLK (his life and legacy).

Spelling – Spelling words next week will consist of words with the prefixes in-, im-, mis-, il-.  There will not be a spelling list the week of Thanksgiving.

5th Grade Newsletter

November 7th-November 11th

Religion – Our Wax Museum was a success!  Thank you so much for supporting your child by helping to put together a costume and listening to him/her practice his/her speech!  We are so proud of all of the students!  We also started our unit on the Liturgical Calendar in preparation for the church new year beginning the first week of Advent.

Reading/Language Arts – We began and we will continue with mini lessons on main idea next week.  Conferencing and letter writing continue to go really well!  Many students are well on their way to their 40 books!  Keep on reading!

Math – We continue to work in Unit 3 - Geometry.  Lots of new vocabulary is being introduced.  Your child can review his/her spiral each night to reinforce the concepts covered in class.  Continued practice of basic math facts will improve accuracy and speed.

Social Studies - Students began working on a group musical rap project about the 3 branches of government this week.  We have had a lot of great discussion and questions on this topic, some of which I have addressed and others I have instructed them to ask you, as their parents.  We are discussing the PROCESS of the elections next week as opposed to personal candidate opinions.

Language Arts – We have finished up our notes on sentences, and we will review everything on Monday before taking our test on Tuesday. We took a break this week from Daily Language Review because of Iowa Assessments.  In Writer’s Workshop, we continue to discuss all of the elements that go into their personal narratives, and they seem to really be getting the hang of it!

Spelling – We did not have a spelling list this past week because of Iowa Assessments. We will begin a new list on Monday that focuses on irregular plural words.