Mrs. Sadowsky's 4th/5th Grade Class

News for the Week of October 19-23

General School Information  

Battle of the Books

Battle of the Books is a trivia-style game in which students answer questions about books they have read from the VCOE Battle of the Books list. The event encourages students to read a variety of genres and books and have fun! 

We are looking at selecting 4th and 5th grade students to represent La Mariposa in this year’s competition.  Our team will compete in our PVSD Battle of the Books after winter break to select the 2 PVSD teams to move forward to the VCOE county wide competition at the end of April.  

Please complete the google form (https://forms.gle/SM2Z1iFpoGKQgngW6) by Friday, November 6 if your child is interested in participating and can make the commitment to read the books on the list.  A packet containing permission slips to participate will be sent home with your child following your completion of the google form.

Next, have your child read Old School, Pocket Bear, The Detective’s Assistant, and Will’s Race Home between now and December 2.  On Wednesday, December 2, students wishing to make the team will take a test on these four novels at lunch in Room D7.  The top 7 scores will earn a spot on our team coached by Mrs. Sadowsky.

Halloween Costumes:

Yes, 4th and 5th grade students still enjoy dressing up for Halloween and will participate in our school’s Halloween parade.  Students should wear their costumes to school as our parade begins at 8:30.  Costumes need to be in good taste and follow our school’s dress code.  We will also have a class party that begins at 11:00.

Save the Date:

Wednesday, October 21  Picture Day

Monday, October 26 No School/Staff Development Day

Tues.-Fri. October 27-30       Red Ribbon Week 

Friday, October 30 Halloween Parade 8:30/Class Party 11:00

Friday, November 6 Dance-A-Thon

Shared Lesson(s)

Language Arts:  

      Students will complete the final draft of their mystery object stories this week.  They will then be given the beginning of a spooky house story and write the main action and ending of the story on their own.

4th Grade Specific Curriculum News

Language Arts:  

      This week the students continue their first novel study with Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  We will wrap up Part 5: Justin and then take the Parts 3-5 Test on Wednesday, October 21.  We will then begin Part 6: August.  Students will work on using context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.  Additionally, they will continue to describe characters based on their words and actions in the text and answer text dependent questions.

Our spelling will focus on words with the prefixes trans-, pro-, sub-, super-, and inter-.  The grammar will focus on using precise language and writing in complete sentences.  Look for the grammar/spelling packet to come home on Monday.  It is due on Friday.

Math:  

      We will continue with  Module 2: Place Value Concepts for Multiplication and Division.  In Topic C, students divide two- and three-digit numbers by one-digit numbers.  As the topic progresses, students learn to break apart, or decompose, two-digit and  three-digit totals into a number of tens and ones. They begin by representing this strategy with a number bond and an area model.  Students then transition to using another model—the place value chart—which is familiar to students as a way to represent  multi-digit addition, subtraction, and multiplication. In the final lesson of the topic, students represent division scenarios with tape diagrams and identify whether the unknown is the number of groups or the size of the group. Then they determine the quotient by selecting a representation for the break apart and distribute strategy.  They will take the Topic C Quiz on Friday, October 23.

Science:

This week fourth graders will wrap up our Amplify Vision and Light Unit chapter 1. Students made vocabulary flashcards on Friday to study for their first quiz.  They will also use what they have learned so far to design an experiment to see how our class hamster Oreo uses his senses to locate food.  They will then start chapter 2 and read the book I See What You Mean.  

We will also visit the Makerspace this week for a Mystery Science lesson from the Human Machine Unit.  In this lesson, students discover the basics of how their eyes work, and figure out some of the causes of vision problems. In the activity, Eye Model, students develop a working model of a human eye. They use a magnifying lens as a model of the cornea to explore how the structure of this lens is related to the function of our eyes. This will help them as they learn more about vision in our Amplify Science Unit.

5th Grade Specific Curriculum News

Language Arts:

The students will continue the book The Landry News by Andrew Clements.  This week they will continue to describe characters by their character traits with specific evidence from the text.  They will use context clues to determine the meaning of specific vocabulary words.  These words will appear on their reading assessments.  They will have a test on Chapters 12-16 on Tuesday, October 20.  They will then read chapters 17 and 18.  They will have a last set of vocabulary that will cover chapters 17-20, answer text based questions that require citing evidence, and work on identifying character perspectives.

Math:  

  This week students wrap up Module 2, Topic B and will take the Topics A and B Quizzes on Tuesday, October 20.  They will have a review page from Topic A as well as work in their homework books on Monday night to help review for the quizzes.

We will then move into Topic C.  In topic C, students apply their understanding of making like units with fractions to making like units to add and subtract mixed numbers.

Science:

This week we wrap up chapter 2 of our Patterns of Earth and Sky unit and will take the Chapter 2 Quiz on Monday, October 19.  

We will then move into chapter 3.  In lesson 1, students plan an investigation and conduct systematic observations in the Patterns of Earth and Sky Simulation. Students critique a fictional student’s flawed investigation plan, then work with a partner to devise their own plans to systematically collect data.  We then skip to lesson 4.  In lesson 4, students read Dog Days of Summer with a partner, using the strategy of visualizing to help them understand the complex ideas in the text. They then apply what they learned about the Dog Star to discuss where that star would be located in the classroom model. We will finish out the unit with identifying the missing piece of the artifact in the science notebook using what we have learned in this unit.  Students will also make vocabulary flash cards to help them study for this test as well as have review homework on Wednesday night.  Students will take the Unit Test on Friday, October 23.

School Supplies

Wondering what supplies your child might need this school year?  Check out our PTA website with links to our suggested supply lists for each grade level.