OCTOBER 14, 2022

It was great seeing you at conferences last week to discuss your student's academic and social emotional progress. I loved that I was able to learn more about each student through the conversations we shared! Now that we're deep into the first grading period, I am excited to see how much more the students will grow throughout the year. There is so much to teach and so much to learn but so little time!

Here are the concepts we will focus on as we work through over the next couple of weeks:

Literacy

We started our new shared text, The Road to Freedom. The story is narrated from the point of view of a young girl, Emma, who is traveling on the Underground Railroad with her mother in hopes of making it North to freedom. Our students are highly engaged throughout text and are having many great discussions related to topics raised within the story. Using this shared text, we will work on literacy skills such as summarizing and identifying narrator's point of view.

Writing

We started to lay the ground work for analytical writing this week. We revisited the differences between opinion and informative writing and will start to plan our first analytical paper, focusing on the topic “The Benefits Of Cell Phones In Schools”. Students will work through the writing process step by step, writing the introduction, working on body paragraphs, and then crafting the conclusion. They will end with editing their work.

Math

We are continuing to focus on fractions as we make our way through our second unit in math. Our students are starting to move away from utilizing money and time to model the operations and are learning how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators by finding common denominators and equivalent fractions (5.NF.1). Over the next two weeks, we will apply and stretch our knowledge in order to solve fractions story problems (5.NF.2).

Science

We wrapped up our discussions about ecosystems. Over the last couple of weeks, we learned about consumers and the flow of energy through an ecosystem. We learned that consumers must eat other animals in order to survive. We also learned that the flow of energy starts at the sun and flows to the producers and then to the consumers. Various discussions, activities, and investigations allowed us to create food chains that show the flow of energy from the sun to the owl.

Social Studies

This week, we started our new social studies program! The program focuses on students' voices, choices, and the ability to connect to their own experiences and interests. Through the inquiry-based learning model and engaging investigations, our students will build knowledge in history, civics, geography, and economics. Our first discussions have focused around the perceptions of Indigenous American Cultures and learning how to formulate questions to help guide our students' learning on how to better honor the cultural heritage of this land.

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday, October 25 - Early Release (Dismissal @ 2:05 PM)

• Monday, October 31 - Halloween Parade and Parties

• Tuesday, November 1 - PTO Special Lunch

• Tuesday, November 8 - No School (Election Day)

Friendly Reminders

• Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night

• Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!

• Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts up to 12

• If your child participates in orchestra or band, please remind him/her to bring their instrument on their lesson day