5B Activities for the Week of 4/1/2013

Hello Parents and Students, 

WELCOME BACK!  I hope that you all enjoyed your Spring Break.  I sure did.  Monday begins the start of the 4th Quarter of school.  Let's stay strong this last quarter. 

Just a reminder that report cards go home this Friday, April 5th.  Please check your child's backpack.

Here's what's going on in 5B this week:

Spelling:  We are on Unit 25 this week.  The pretest will be on Monday and the test with be on Friday. 

Language Arts:  During language arts this week, we will be finishing up some things that we didn't quite finish up before break (Digestive System brochures) and we will be starting some new activities.  This week, we will begin working on picture book mash-ups.  Basically, this is a creative writing activity in which the students choose two pictures books to read and decide how they want to combine the two books to create a new story.  This activity is always a lot of fun for the students.  I will allow them some time to choose their picture books, discuss various ideas with their peers and begin organizing their thoughts.  We will also continue our 40 book requirement.  Many students have surpassed this goal (WOW!) and others are moving along at their own pace, which is fine.  As usual, I will continue reading conferences with each student and we will continue to have our silent reading time. 

Math Accel:  We will be starting Unit 6 this week.  As a review, we will be working on multiplication of fractions and mixed numbers.  This should be review for most students unless they were moved into math accel. just this year.  We will then continue on with division of fractions and mixed numbers and then addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers.  We will be moving along fairly quickly now as this is the last quarter of school and I'd like to cover as much material as possible before the students move onto Hill next year.

Science:  It will take us about three to four days to finish up our Digestive System brochures this week.  We started this activity just before Spring Break, so we will need some additonal time to finish it up.  The students have learned a lot about the Digestive System.  The brochures are looking fabulous!
After we have finished that, we will begin discussing Space and the Solar System.  We will watch a couple of informative videos to introduce this topic and then begin working on vocabulary with visuals. 

It's going to be a busy quarter!  Enjoy the last day of break!  See you soon!

Mrs. Bennick  :-)