Curriculum at a Glance
Language Arts:
Due to departmentalization in the district fourth and a fifth grade teachers will be specializing in either Math or Reading. I am thrilled to be the fifth grade Math and Science teacher this year! Mrs. Newcomb will be your child's Social Studies teacher.
This year your child will be participating in Reader's and Writer's Workshop.
There are several units of study :
Interpretation Book Clubs
Following Characters into Meaning
Tackling Text Complexity in Non Fiction
Fantasy Book Clubs
Argument and Advocacy
The flexibility of Readers' Workshop also lets me design units based on student interest.
1. Mini Lesson
Each Reading Workshop session will begin with a mini lesson that lasts approximately 10 minutes. Each mini lesson will focus on a reading strategy. There may be times where a strategy will be studied over the course of several days, in which case the mini lessons that week will be related to that strategy.
2. Independent Reading and Practice
Children are engaged in private reading time. Students that are NOT reading with Mrs. Newcomb are reading leveled books independently or practicing the reading skill or strategy that we went over in the mini lesson.
During this time the teacher is doing the following:
Reading conferences – Mrs. Newcomb will listen to students read from any one of their books. She may choose to do a running record, or just document our conference together. She always look for strengths and offer a compliment of something great she has noticed, and then provide instruction that can help them become a better reader.
Guided Reading Group – During this time, each child will be given texts to read that are at their instructional reading level.
3. Sharing Time
During this time the class might: Meet as a whole group to refer back to the mini lesson and think further. Another activity may be to meet together as a whole group or with a partner to think about and respond to questions such as:
"What did I learn about reading today?"
"What did I learn about yourself as a reader?"
Why Is Reading Workshop SO Great?
Readers have time to read just-right books independently every day
Readers select their own appropriate books
Readers take care of books
Readers respect each others' reading time and reading lives
Readers have daily opportunities to talk about their books in genuine ways
Readers don’t just read the words but also understand the story
Readers' work in the independent reading workshop is replicible outside of the classroom
How Will Things Look Different at Home?
The books that your child brings home may be those at their independent/just right reading level. Or they may be books that were used in a guided reading/strategy group that are at their instructional reading level. As always, listen to your child read their book(s), be sure to ask them lots of questions, if you notice sticky notes, highlighting tape, etc. in their book(s) ask them why it’s there. Although not expressly written in their planners, it is expected that students are reading 20-25 minutes a night!
Writers' workshop is structured very much the same way, however during writing time, students are writing and practicing the given skill from the mini-lesson or working on individualized writing goals. The teachers will be conferring with students to strengthen and help guide their writing pieces during conferencing time. Students will focus largely on the 5 stages of writing. Organization or writing, word choice, conventions of the English language and taking pride in their work will all be major focuses for the year. We will write a variety of pieces from Narratives, to non-fiction and persuasive essays.
Social Studies: A few years ago the district adopted a new Social Studies curriculum. For the past 7 years or so, Social Studies has been taught in a cross curricular format through the language arts curriculum. Due to the move towards the workshop model, many educators felt like the important concepts covered by the social studies curriculum were getting lost in the shuffle. Fifth Graders this year primarily focus on world and US history. We cover a great deal of material during the course of the year covering everything from the "Dawn of Time" to Immigration in late 19th century. Students can expect to be asked to complete a variety of both Science and Social Studies research projects through out the course of the years that will be completed at both home and school.
Math:
I will be your child's Math Teacher This Year. They will be using Go Math! as the math program again this year. You can expect to see a lot of the math at Think Central.com
As you may have noticed, math these days is not being taught the same way you and I learned math. Math today, encourages students to not only be able to compute numbers but to be able to understand why they are performing those operations and furthermore explain in depth their mathematical thinking. For this reason TRUST your child. If they come home and are showing you some new fangled way of solving a problem, please do not rush to show them a simpler way. While your simpler way, or the algorithm, is a quick and easy way to solve the problem, it teaches the students nothing about the more in depth mathematical thinking required and will not allow them to analyze the problem down the road. The district has adopted a new math program this year. Students will be primarily using Go Math by Houghton Mifflin. The program covers the new common core and promises to teach them through the Five E's. Students will be Engaged in a math problem and then allowed to Explore. They will ten be required to Explain and Elaborate and finally teachers, students and parents will be able to Evaluate their learning. The program uses a variety of digital and print resources.
Science - We have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards/Stemscopes Program. Here we focus on Hands-On, Small Group, Individual and Whole Class Lessons. The benefits of this new program include the following:
- Online Subscription
- Totally digital
- No text books
- current /up to date
Students will be focusing on the 8 Science & Engineering Practices :
1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)
2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
Our Units of Study include:
Unit 1: Properties of Matter
Unit 2: Changes to Matter
Unit 3: Energy and Matter in Ecosystems
Unit 4: Water on the Earth
Unit 5: Earth Systems
Unit 6: Interactions within the Earth, Sun and Moon System