Week 3 September 23-27, 2024
Important Upcoming Dates
Oct. 9 (W): Yearbook Club in Room 17, 2 pm-3 pm
Oct. 16 (W): Leadership Club in Room 18, 2 pm-3 pm
Save the Date:
May 27-10 (T-F): Outdoor School @ Camp Tamarack
Announcements
Counselor sessions with Mme Rachel
5th grade practiced carrying on a conversation. We practiced doing this by asking follow up questions to show interest, showing a friendly face such as smiling, and even slight body language such as facing the person and nodding along. Students then worked on a partner activity where they sat, back to back, and had to try to create the same picture using 12 images. One student gave the directions while the other asked follow up questions for clarification. At the end, they shared their picture with each other to see the results.
Water Access - Still having numerous students without water containers
Each day, remind your scholar to bring a full water bottle. We have a water bottle filler in the 5th grade, but it's the 5 gallon type that runs out rather quickly. We sometimes have mini cups, but they too run out quickly. If your family needs support providing a water bottle, let us know.
Snacks
We have independent snack time in the morning anytime after 9:30 am. Please ensure your child is relying on whole foods, protein rich, or fiber rich foods rather than sugar heavy or nutrient deficient foods. We do not have an afternoon snack time for the whole class.
Opportunities
Your scholar has been given opportunities that include leadership club, yearbook cover contest, EWEB art contest (see last year's contest here), fiction fantastic story writing contest, and Kid Governor. The last two require family support to complete, so talk to your child about them.
Request for materials
I (Mme McLaren) love to recognize student engagement during games with fun, academic and silly prizes. However, I don't want to spend any money or purchase trinkets that aren't gently used. I usually hunt over the summer for garage sales or ask for donations. I often use BINGO variations as a way to review conjugation or grammar concepts in French, and it has historically been a big motivator for students that otherwise may not be as excited to participate.
Examples of gently used prizes that I'd like to collect:
silly glasses, costume jewelry, small art objects or plastic figurines, keychains or magnets
gently used Charlemagne t-shirts (that may no longer fit your child, for example), water bottles, stickers
fun school supplies (ex: cute sticky notes, stickers, decorative pencils)
science-themed curiosities (ex: kaleidoscopes, little puzzles or tangrams)
fidgets that don't make noise (ex: smooshies, tangles, stress balls)
You're welcome to send them in a sealed plastic bag with "prize box" written on the side. If you're not sure if it would be a fit, just send them anyway! I will prescreen prizes to make sure they are appropriate. Prizes will be put in student back packs and asked to go home with them at the end of the day.
Math
Students differentiated between rectangular prisms and composite rectangular prisms by building some based on a specified volume for a video game simulation. They also began looking at how the commutative and associative properties of multiplication can be utilized when determining volume of rectangular prisms.
Here is a video that shows how to tackle the 5-A-Day Math review.
ELA
In ELA class, we learned how the lives of Native Americans were before the new settlers arrived and the impact of the new settlers arriving. Students also wrote a full expositiory paragraph to explain how Native American tribes were living in the West before the new settlers arrived. This was their first expository paragraph. We only took it as far as the rough draft. I will provide feedback that will help on next week's paragraph completion.
Here is a video that shows how to access and complete the 5-A-Day Grammar review.
Quoi de neuf en français? (What’s new in French?)
In conjugation, we took notes on how to conjugate regular verbs in the 1er (-er), 2e (-ir), and 3e (-er) groups. We practiced with a fun conjugation game as a class.
Week 3-4 Study Guide
Every other Monday, I will send your child home with a study guide previewing the content we will be working on for the next two weeks in class. This is a “birds eye view” version of the grammar concepts, science content, verbs we will be conjugating (and in which tenses) and vocabulary that students will need to master to understand the texts we are reading in class. This should come home with your student in their homework folder on a green sheet. I have designed this to be printable at home, instructions written in English so you can support your child even if you don’t speak French, and available both digitally and in print form so that you can share it with a tutor if you so choose.
In conjugation, we reviewed how to conjugate être and avoir in the present tense. We added aller, vouloir, fair, venir and pouvoir to the list of irregular verbs. We also continued to categorize verbs into groups by endings -- 1st group (-er), 2nd group (-ir), and 3rd group (-re).
In grammar, we reviewed how to identify the subject (a noun), the verb and adjectives in a sentence.
In writing, we studied the following commonly confused homophones in written expression: et / est, son / sont, à / a, and on / ont.
In science, we observed our sundials (les cadrans solaires) and traced shadows throughout the day. We observed, measured and recorded 1) the length of the shadow with a ruler, 2) the direction with a compass, and 3) the angle of the shadow with a protractor. We also traced our shadows in chalk on the playground to see how the length and direction of our shadows changed over the course of a day.
In vocabulary, I pre-taught many technology vocabulary words that will be helpful for a text that we will read next week, as well as for the technology homework. Students will learn digital citizenship next week, as well as have the opportunity to create some animations in Scratch through coding in French, all of which require understanding of some very key tech vocab words.
In small groups, Mme McLaren met with each student at least once for 20 minutes to develop the routine of meeting in reading groups during “ateliers” (independent work time where students have the opportunity to practice skills in games and with partners). Mme Charlotte met with all students once for a conversation group, where students asked questions about her presentation last week. Our 5th graders were so engaged and excited to get to know her better in a small group setting!
In art, students sketched spheres using their understanding of shadows on Friday to create a 3-dimensional illustrations, mimicking the way the Earth experiences day and night. We simulated different effects in our drawings, moving around the light source.
