5th Grade Newsletter

January 9th-13th

Religion –Our 25 Days of Christ has wrapped up this week.  Next week we will begin learning about the seven sacraments and relating them to scripture.  Students will be in charge of creating a google slide presentation about the seven sacraments.  We are asking that students include personal photos of themselves or family members receiving the sacraments.  Any photos you may have can be uploaded directly to your child’s google account.  If it is easier to email them directly to your child’s teacher, please feel free to do so.  If your photos are hard copies, simply take a photo of the photo with your cell phone and email or upload it.  Thank you!  We will also have generic photos of the sacraments for any student who does not have a picture for any particular sacrament.

Reading/Language Arts – We have finished reading A Christmas Carol.  This was a wonderful whole class book that exposed all of the students to some quality traditional literature.  Throughout the month of January, we will read various books and articles about MLK and reinforce a number of comprehension strategies during this unit.  There will still be time for independent reading and conferencing to reach that 40 book mark at the end of the year!

Math –  Our Unit 4 test over division will be on Thursday, January 12, and Friday, January 13.  Your child has the following study items to help him/her prepare for the test: red spiral of notes, completed studylinks, and a review sheet.       

Social Studies - We have started our unit on Iowa History this week and will continue next week.  Students have chosen the manner in which they have decided to present their information; google slide, book, or a play presentation of their information.  We also spent time practicing our geographic knowledge with the geographic Bee.  Students completed this today and some students have moved on to the next written round that will be given by Mrs. Larson Monday after school.  STUDENTS know who they are.  We will start preparing for BizTown when we return from Christmas break.

Language Arts – We are continuing to work on our 3rd round of informative writing.  The students had to choose a location for Santa to vacation on Dec. 26 or a gift (product) to purchase for Santa.  Research had to be completed on a location or product to complete the written piece.  We also discussed how to choose reputable sources and how to cite our sources to avoid plagiarism.  We spent this week after break polishing up the work prior to break.  This piece should be completed next week.  This practice will lead up to a graded informative writing piece about MLK’s life and legacy.

Spelling – We ended up squeezing in a spelling test this week.  The list consisted of contractions.  Contractions should be simply have been a review of words mastered in 3rd and 4th grade.  Next week we will complete a list of words with the silent g sound.