#17 This Week in 5th Grade

WHAT WE'RE LEARNING IN CLASS

Math: We started our unit on patterns and order of operations. We will primarily using multi-step word problems to write and evaluate numerical expressions.

Literacy (Reading & Comprehension): We are focusing on Main Idea again. For the next month, we are going to be learning a lot about refugees. A big focus this time around is previewing the text and text features (maps, graphs, photographs, captions, bolded words, headings). Previewing text helps readers to gather understanding and make connections before reading. We've then been reading articles and determining the main ideas and important details for the different sections. To determine the main idea, we have been using the 5 W strategy (answering who, what, when, where, and why) to construct a main idea statement.

Writing: As stated above, we are learning a lot about refugees right now. This week, the class read an article on a refugee and used it to write a key word summary. In order to have a complete summary, they wrote 1-2 sentences summarizing each section, and combined it into one paragraph.

Science: This week we began our electricity unit! We started by imaging our lives without electricity. We did two experiments using friction to create a charge: the first was rubbing a comb on our heads and holding it to a cheerio tied to a string. The second was rubbing a comb on sand paper and holding the comb near pencil shavings. In both experiments, the students discovered that the comb attracted the cheerio and pencil shavings. That led us to learn about the components of an atom and the science behind how that creates static electricity.