February 1, 2019

Dear 5B families,

This week Terry Wolkowicz from the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra visited us for the second time. This year's awesome music-science connection topic is recycling and reusing. The musical connection is to Beethoven and how he recycled and reused pieces of his work, which was a revolutionary idea to the classical music world at the time. Below are a few photos of her visit on Monday. We will take a field trip to the NBSO for a special performance on Monday, March 4.

This week students also spent several social studies periods working on their Wax Museum projects. They made great progress on their research which will prepare students to write their speeches. They are definitely already becoming experts on their historical figure!

In math students presented the Mondrian art that they began in small groups last week. The goal was to make less than half of the piece color, and all groups had no problem doing this. What was so interesting was that they all came up with different methods of making sure and then proving that their art was less than half color. It was great to see the various different ways our brains work to solve problems!

We also practiced adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators and simplifying fractions. Soon we will continue with mixed number addition and subtraction. We will then have an assessment on adding and subtraction fractions. And after that we move on to multiplication and division of fractions!

I hope you all have a great weekend! I hear there's a big game on? ;-)

Best,

Rebecca

January 26, 2019

Dear 5B families,

What a week we've had! We began delving more into our independent study preparation, started Wax Museum, began discussing the ERBs, and had an interesting day on Friday! And all in only four days! Please read on to find out more about our week...after a few house-keeping notes :)

• FriendsFest is coming up! The last day to get a free t-shirt is February 4. I hear the shirts are extra great this year! Here's the link.
• Brrrrr cold weather! We still go out in the cold (as reasonable!) so please make sure your kids come to school with coats, gloves, hats, etc. When the snowy weather really hits us, kids are going to need their boots as well.
• ERB testing will begin at the end of next week. There are 8 tests that 5th graders have to take, ranging from 25 minutes to 45 minutes. We do only one a day. I will send home the schedule next week so it's not a surprise. We will practice for about an hour before we take them, covering basic test taking skills like being silent, not getting up, filling in bubbles, and trying our best but not worrying about the tests. During the ERBs students will have very minimal homework, primarily just reading.

Mr. Murdock came in on Wednesday morning to talk with us more about Independent Study. He began the process as a fifth grade teacher several years ago, so he's definitely our expert! The goal of the independent study is for each 5th grader to learn about themselves as a learner. They can choose anything they're interested in. So far we've got a lot of interesting ideas that the kids are floating around: studying mushrooms, making a chess set, learning about basketball shoes, painting techniques, baseball stats, Harry Potter, song writing, and more! These ideas aren't necessarily fully hashed out yet, and that's ok! We've been talking a lot about being okay with flexibility and not knowing what the end product will look like, as long as students are excited and have questions about their idea. They've been working together to ask questions and give each other feedback so that their ideas start to become clearer.

I've assigned them an official proposal to help them clarify their ideas (and again, it's okay if their idea changes later!). The proposal is due on Friday.

The actual project, which will be due in May, will involve multiple components: their process of the project (which will be kept in their notebook), a visual component, a written component, and a community piece. The community piece could be teaching something to others in the school, performing, finding information that is useful to others and sharing it, or any other number of possibilities. They may need help coming up with ideas for this community component, and Mr. Murdock and I will be happy to help them.

On Friday students arrived at school to discover that they were being taxed! In a simulation to help them understand the feelings of the colonists under King George's Intolerable Acts, they were given a cup of 20 Skittles, only to lose them over the course of the day as taxes for any number of things. For example, they were taxed 2 Skittles for sharpening their pencil, using their computers, and uninvited speaking, 1 Skittle every time they went to the bathroom or got water, and 3 Skittles for having sweets for snack. They even had to pay a recess tax! The kids thought this was all so unfair, especially the bathroom and water tax! Thankfully, King George repealed that tax after recess...only to replace it with the Untidy Tax! Suddenly students were being taxed for leaving anything on the floor, wearing jeans, and leaving their closet doors open! Some students even had the audacity to rebel against the taxes! Some refused to pay their bathroom taxes in the morning, throwing their Skittles away, or eating them.

At the end of the day we debriefed on how the colonists must have felt, especially after these taxes had been going on for a long time. They could see why the colonists revolted.

Best,

Rebecca

January 18, 2019

Dear 5B families,

It's been another busy week! Read on to find out what we've been working on!

On Monday we launched our dystopian novel book clubs! Dystopian fiction is Ms. Randenberg's favorite genre, so we let her launch it with an awesome slideshow presentation! As a whole grade we learned the history and features of dystopian literature . Dystopian fiction, we learned, will have some of the following characteristics. Some may have all of them!

• There is an illusion or impression of a utopia
• Propaganda, or certain information, is used to influence people
• Uniformity, or sameness, is expected; individuality and dissent are bad
• Free thought and access to information is restricted
• People are under constant surveillance or think they are
• People fear the outside world
• People worship a leader or concept
• People are dehumanized. Their choices are dictated by the government

Since the launch, groups have met twice to begin their novels. Besides reading, we are taking notes on how the book matches dystopian characteristics. I have heard from kids that they are really enjoying their books and discussion groups!

In Social Studies we are leading up to the Revolution and the Wax Museum project by learning about the 13 Colonies and the French and Indian War. We are also working on actively reading nonfiction texts through current events.

In math we are beginning our fraction unit. Over the next month or so we will be adding and subtracting fractions, making equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions, and finally multiplying and dividing fractions. This week our focus was on estimating addition and subtraction of fractions to help build our number sense on fractions.

Fifth graders loved making snowflakes to demonstrate fractions. They stretched their brains by coming up with their own strategies for determining the approximate fraction. Some students grappled with discomfort since I didn't give them example strategies to get them started, and we reflected on how real life involves discomfort, but that's how

I hope you enjoy your three day weekend!

Best,

Rebecca

January 11, 2019

Dear 5B families,

I hope you all had a wonderful two weeks off. We have had a very productive week back in 5B!

One big heads up is that there is homework this weekend! Mr. Murdock came to visit us this morning to launch Independent Study, a fifth grade tradition which allows students to study something they are passionate about! Anything! The possibilities are endless! They will work on their independent study for 4 months (it's not due until May!), and it will culminate in them sharing a product of their study. However, the focus is really on the process, not the product. We want fifth graders to learn what type of learner they are, and to also work on their own time management. Most importantly, it's supposed to be fun, independent (it's not your job to help them in big ways, but they definitely might need some support), and a learning experience! The homework assignment is to brainstorm two ideas for the independent study. This is due on Tuesday.

Read on to hear a bit more about what we've been up to this week!

Math

In math we learned about prime and composite numbers. Focusing our discussion around patterns, fifth graders investigated the Sieve of Eratosthenes, which demonstrates that all composite numbers are multiples of 2, 3, 5, and 7. The class also realized that all prime numbers end in 1, 3, 7, or 9 (except for 2 and 5!). It's so great to see them making these connections and noticing patterns! And it's so much more meaningful than simple memorization, not to mention much high order thinking! Get those synapses firing!

Math specialist Dave Lobato spent a period with us on Wednesday, and he shared some fascinating details about some of the longest prime numbers and why prime numbers are special and useful. He also taught us about the Great Mersenne Prime Search, and the brand new Mersenne prime number that was found in December. Jaws dropped when Mr. Lobato explained that writing out the entire number would take as many pages as the entire Harry Potter series!

Language Arts

This week fifth graders have been working on essays on Winnie, the protagonist of Tuck Everlasting, and how and why she changed throughout the book. This essay has been a bit more challenging than our first essay because we are asking students to explore the why, not just the how. They have been working so hard on them, both inside class and at home, and we will be finishing them up in class next week.

We have also been practicing some common homophones. Ask your fifth grader if they remember the difference between the following homophones!

• their, they're, and there
• you're and your
• too, two, and to

Social Studies

This week in social studies we reviewed King Phillips War and began discussing the French and Indian War. We are practicing important skills such as highlighting, note-taking, and marking up our articles with comments, connections, and questions.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Rebecca