Happy Monday, 5B families!
After our assembly today, we learned about prime numbers, prime factorization, and making “factor trees”. Students who requested a chance to redo the multiplication quiz should study at home this week in preparation for the Friday rewrite. Thank you so much to families for supporting this practice at home—see our past blog posts for studying tips.
In Language Arts, we began our new novel study on “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen. I introduced the book with this example of “Book Talk” below, which also served as an example of the book talk assignment that students will be doing in March.
I will support our class in working through a “Study Guide” on Hatchet that will help promote reading skills, critical thinking, and dialogue, while also teaching enrichment vocabulary.
In addition to this ongoing study guide work, after we complete the last chapter of Hatchet, students will demonstrate their depth of understanding of the novel through writing a reading response paragraph (a criteria sheet and template will be provided). As well, students will be writing a poem inspired by the novel and then work with a small group to create and present a “book talk” about it.
Here is a sneak peek at the self-reflection students will complete at the end of the novel study unit…
In Spelling, this week we are studying the following 25 words, and will have our test on Friday. We will continue to work in class with these words this week, yet I asked students to take home their Spelling duo-tangs today so they can study as well at home.
AGENDAS:
I thank you in advance for continuing to encourage your child to use and bring home his/her agenda everyday. (I do “spot checks”, but do not do personal agenda checks every day; so that is another thing parents can support their children at home.)
Students at the grade 5 level are expected to develop their personal organizational skills and take responsibility for learning.
As well, if families solely rely on the class blog for important homework and dates, then students who have additional personalized homework written in their agendas for extra support will miss those details.
Also, the practice of daily agenda use is important because agenda use will be vital in future grades and they could be the main (or only) form of communication coming home to parents.
We appreciate you so much for your help in fostering this valuable life skill!
Tiffany Poirier 