#23 This Week in 5th Grade

Announcements/Important Dates

Below is important information regarding Clear Creek and Hope of America:

*The Hope of America sign up deadline is the TODAY! If you haven't signed up your student please do so ASAP so they can get a good count. The following is the link to sign up: Hope of America. Please note that you will need to sign up online AND turn in the green permission slip. Even if you are not going, please indicate that on the green form and send it.

*Please turn in Clear Creek permission forms with $30 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you haven't already. We are planning Clear Creek on March 4th. If we do not have everyone's money turned in by them, it will be very difficult to plan. Please keep in mind that if we do not get enough permission slips with money included, it will be very difficult to pay for the bus and buy the supplies needed. Clear Creek is such a great experience, but it does require a larger budget to make it happen.

Friday February 28: Hope of America sign up deadline - *see information above

Monday March 9: Professional Development Day - no school

Friday March 13: Minimal Day

  • Early Bird schedule 8:00-11:30, Later Gator schedule 9:15-12:45
  • Lunch will be served at school

Thursday March 26 - Friday March 27: Clear Creek 5th Grade Camp! On Monday, we will be sending home a Clear Creek permission slip that has general information for Clear Creek.

April 6: Snow Make-up Day

April 7 - 10: Spring Break

Thursday May 7: Hope of America Performance - please remember to register online if your child will be performing with us at the Marriott Center at BYU. I am still missing a lot of permission forms from students. I need them back, even if you are not attending. If you need another form, please email me.

WHAT WE'RE LEARNING IN CLASS

Math: We are continuing our adding and subtracting fractions unit. During this unit, we will be adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike fractions, as well as mixed fractions. We will also be learning how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers.

Writing: We are working on our Animal Adaptations/Trait essay. I am so impressed with everyone's writing! We took a Rise benchmark on writing recently, and our 5th graders are already ahead of the district on their writing scores. That is such a huge success!

The format for an informational paper is as follows:

  • Paragraph 1: Introduction Paragraph
    • Hook: 2-3 sentences that grab the reader's attention
    • Background Knowledge: 2-4 sentences that give background knowledge about the topic being written about
    • Thesis: 1 sentence that states the topic and 3 sub-topics
  • Paragraphs 2 - 4: Body Paragraphs
    • Topic sentence
    • Text Evidence
    • Explanation of text evidence
    • Examples
  • Paragraph 5: Conclusion
    • Restate thesis

Science: We have started our chemical reactions unit! To begin our unit, we generated observations and questions about why stone gargoyles seem to disappear over time. We read four different hypotheses, and throughout our unit, we have been conducting experiments to see which hypothesis explains why gargoyles seem to "disappear" over time. This week we conducted experiments to see what substance makes a penny shiny again, if a substance can turn an object "gold", and an experiment where we mixed different substances together to see which substances are instigators and which are acids.


CLASS NEEDS

If you are wanting to make a donation to our class, we are running very low on:

  • We are good for now! - thank you so much to those of you that have contributed to our classroom!

Have a wonderful weekend! - Jackie

These pictures show the class mixing different substances (baking soda, baking powder, cabbage juice, vinegar, and water) to determine if the liquid is an acid. We also tested a couple of "mystery liquids" (Fresca and lemonade) to see if they were an acid as well. We had a great time experimenting!

We finished up our Animal Traits informative essays this week, so today we did an art project showcasing our animals!