This week, we read our final folktale, Blancaflor.  This is a story from Spain that tells about Prince Alfonzo and his loyalty to keeping his promise after he is helped to find a cure for his father's illness.  The students read the story and spent time thinking about the themes in the story.  This next week leading into break, we will be doing a short poetry unit focusing on reading for meaning, style and sound,

Our 5th graders are concluding the calendar year with one final narrative.  This time, they picked from a variety of  fun holiday prompts.  I am meeting one on one for writing conferences each day to discuss with each child his/her strengths and goals based on the last two narrative prompts that were written.  This way, I hope to encourage them to focus on just the things he/she needs to work on rather than being overwhelmed by a list of all the components that make up a good story.  We are also focusing on adding sensory detail to our stories and have had a lot of fun writing creative settings and embellishing our characters.  Those writers who finish early will get to illustrate a scene from their narrative on Canva.

We have begun our work in fractions.  This week, the students have been adding and subtracting unlike denominators, which has been tricky to get the hang of.  There are so many steps to remember!  They are taking notes and learning how to find the least common denominator.

We have begun our study in the Age of Exploration.  In this unit, we will be meeting European explorers, learning about the technology that went into exploring, which routes they took, how they interacted with the Native Americans, the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Columbian Exchange.  We will be participating in a lot of fun activities throughout this unit!