5B Activities for the Week of March 23, 2015

Hello Parents and Students,

Here are the reminders for this week: 

1.  Culver's Night is this Wednesday night.  I will be there from 4:00-5:00.   Hope to see you.

2.  There is no school this Friday for students.  It is a School Improvement Planning day.

3.  Spring Break is next week.  There is no school for students beginning this Friday, March 27th through Sunday, April 5th.  School resumes for students on Monday, April 6th.  I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable Spring Break!

Here's what's going on in the curricular areas this week: 

Word Study:  We will continue our study of Latin and Greek roots.  We will be working on the roots
-sym, -carn, -corp, -ped and -pod.  The words have been posted to the blog and the test will be on THURSDAY.

Math Acceleration:  We are moving along in our Geometry unit.  This week we will be studying the area of trapezoids, area of regular polygons, composite figures and problem solving changing dimensions.  Hopefully we can get through all of this.  My plan is to begin volume after break.

English Language Arts (ELA):  We will continue working on text-dependent questions and journaling  responses for our anchor text, Red Kayak.  We will finish this book shortly after we resume from spring break.  We will also be studying and writing about pictures from the Revolutionary War. Social studies and ELA are weaving together nicely.  Also, students are continuing to do research on their historical event which is part of their newscast assignment.  We will begin presenting these this week.  This activity is part of our performance task.  Just after spring break, we will be researching our historical figure and preparing an interview about this person.

Social Studies:  Much of what we're doing in SS is overlapping with ELA.  We will be using SS time to complete our performance task activities such as researching our historical event and figure and preparing both a newscast and an interview.  We will then be presenting these.  Most of us will finish the newscast this week.  My plan is to work on the interview following spring break.  Also, there will be a test covering the events leading to and including the Revolutionary War on Tuesday.  The students have a study guide for this.

That's it for now.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Bennick :-)

5B Activities for the Week of March 16, 2015

Hello Parents and Students!

Reminders for the week:

On Friday, March 20, we will be having another Marble Jar celebration!  The students have decided that they would like to bring in crafts, stuffed animals, gum, electronics and they may also wear their pajamas, if they'd like.  :-)

Here's what's going on in the curricular areas this week: 

Word Study:  This week we will return to Latin and Greek Roots.  We will be focusing on -mit, -miss and -tract.  The words have been posted to the blog and the test will be on Friday.

Math Acceleration:  We started the Geometry unit on Friday!!!  Our first lesson was on types of triangles (equilateral, isosceles and scalene).  We also learned about types of angles (acute, obtuse and right).  This week we will continue to find the area and perimeter of triangles, the area of parallelograms and also the area of trapezoids.  It's going to be a busy week in math!

ELA:  This week in ELA we will be participating in a close reading from our anchor text.  We will also be working on text-dependent questions and vocabulary for Red Kayak.  Our narrative poems are finished and we will be reading them aloud to the class for a speaking/listening grade.  Also, we will be writing two opinion writing pieces that go along with the short story, Potatoes, Eggs and Coffee Beans.  We will be comparing /contrasting ourselves and characters in books to this story and how we are more like one or the other.

Social Studies:  We finished our comparison of King George III and George Washington, We have been discussing the events that led to the Revolutionary War.  We will actually be discussing historical events during this time period and historical figures who helped shape our country.  This will lead perfectly into our performance task which will include creating a newscast about a historical event and interviewing an historical person.  Social studies is very involved right now.

Science:  We will be able to use the laptops again this week because PARCC testing is over except for make-ups.  Therefore, we will be able to finish up those digestive system brochures if the kids did not have an opportunity to do so yet.

Another busy week ahead!  The days and weeks are flying by!

Please email me with any questions.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Bennick :-)

5B Activities for the Week of March 9, 2015

Hello Parents and Students,

There are no reminders for this week! 

PARCC testing for Grade 5 has been completed! :-)  Make-ups for students who were absent last week will occur this week. 

Here's what's going on in the curricular areas this week: 

Word Study:  We will continue our study of the R-Controlled syllable type.  We will also be working on homophones this week.  The words have been posted to the blog.  The test will be on Friday. 

Math Acceleration:  We will be testing Unit 5 on Tuesday this week.  Students received a study guide last week and should be studying it and all of their notes/homework papers from Unit 5.  We will be starting Unit 6, which is Geometry, most likely on Friday.  Remember, we have the PA math test on Thursday this week.  The Geometry unit is slated to last approximately three weeks.  Our first few lessons will be finding the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals and polygons.  

ELA:  We will continue studying our anchor text, Red Kayak.  It is so good!  Students have been introduced to the vocabulary words for chapters 13-15 and will have a short quiz on these words late in the week.  We will continue brainstorming ideas for our narrative poems.  This week, students will be using a graphic organizer to help prepare them for writing their poems.  The organizer will help the students to identify the character(s), setting, event(s) and plot.  They will then use this information to write their poems.  My plan is to have the students finish their poems by week's end.  We'll see how this goes.  If there's time, we will begin reading a short story entitled, Potatoes, Eggs and Coffee Beans.  This lesson will most likely take place the following week. 

Science:  The students took the Digestive System test at the end of this week.  The tests have been graded and will be coming home on Monday along with other graded papers.  Most students did very well.  Also, students should continue to work on their Digestive System brochures. These will be due in a couple of weeks. 

Social Studies:  We have been studying events leading to the Revolutionary War and important people of that time.  We did a comparison of King George III and George Washington and discussed the choices that they made and how those choices led to the United States becoming its own country.  We will continue studying main events such as the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party and the trouble with taxes.  

That's it for this week.

Please email me with any questions. 

Thank you!

Mrs. Bennick :-)