5th grade English
5th Grade ELA program
5th Grade ELA is broken down into two major components: the Writing Workshop and the Reading Workshop. The Writing Workshop consists of Units of study: Unit 1: the Personal Narrative; Unit 2: Opinion; Unit 3: Information and Unit 4: Argument. These units correspond to Massachusetts ELA Writing Standards 1a, 2a, 3 and 5, 6 - 9 and Language Standards 1,2, 4 & 6. The systematic daily habit of journal writing and mini-lesson take-aways, allow students to consistently look at their pieces with new eyes, encouraging them to invest themselves personally in the art of story-telling or informational writing.
The Reading Workshop addresses Reading Literature Standards 4 - 10, and Informational Standards 3 and 10. Independent reading challenges the students to look for what they like in different genres, and then to reflect on how they can stretch their minds to take on more challenging books with more complicated themes. Through daily mini-lessons students are invested in looking for character development, connections between characters and real life; author’s craft in constructing plot, setting, character, , theme, etc. Through reflective writing on independent reading, students are spurred to make inferences and deductions inside and between themes and characters in their stories, as well as larger comparisons across genres.
5th Grade ELA also incorporates whole class chapter book reads. This allows for the essential development of class dialogue and argumentation. Children listen to one another while finding the main idea, changes in character, theme, setting, plot, etc.
newsletter
September
Dear Parents,
As we ease into the first weeks of the school year, this is the time to see if routines are working both at school and at home. Please ask to see your child's Assignment Subject Notebook and compare what they have written to the list below to see if they are writing all the homework from the board and collecting all necessary books/papers in order to do their work.
1. First your child should have prepared his/her assignment notebook for this week so that he/she could write down homework as it is assigned by class. The main subject areas are English/Math/Social Studies/science.
Homework from the Board
All this week your child should be reading for 20 minutes and filling in their Independent Reading Log in their Reader Response Journal. You need to sign at the bottom of each daily column to confirm that they read and wrote something about what they read.
Your child will write out a Dictation on Exercise 46 tomorrow which tests him/her for spelling, capitalization and punctuation. Your child should have Exercise 46 with him/her unless he/she tells you there are no difficult words - in which case your child should get a 100 on the dictation!
Binder signature - since I was not in on Friday and did not remind students to take their binder home for a signature, I told them to take the binders home today and get them signed.
Write a story about someone who is important to them like Mom, Dad, brother, sister, friend, etc. in their journals. I shared with them some of the special people in my life and some events that stand out in my memory. Your child should zoom in on one particular moment and describe it in detail. Your child should not spend more than 15 minutes on this piece of writing unless your child really wants to - he/she can keep working on the story this week. I would rather see 15 minutes well spent setting up the moment than a brief overview of the entire event.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Chiodini
