I want to thank all of you for attending the parent-teacher conferences. I hope that the discussion we had was beneficial and that it gave you some insight into your child's learning so far this year. We have moved forward in a steady direction all quarter and will continue to do so for the rest of the year.
One common theme throughout most of the conferences was in regard to the improvement of writing. This is an area that takes years of learning and practice to become really good at and the expectation each of year of school is that students will get better and better. In grade 5 we do a lot of writing in the forms of reports, non-fiction writing, fiction stories, biographies and presentations. We study words, look at spelling conventions, grammar and learn more about writing in paragraphs - including transitions between paragraphs. This is the first year that students are going to learn about researching and obtaining information about topics they are working on.
This week there are several important things happening. Here are the students who are in charge of current events;
Tuesday - Leo
Wednesday - Cici
Thursday - Ada
Friday - Angel
Wednesday - Cici
Thursday - Ada
Friday - Angel
Friday is also the annual Jedi Jugglers event. It starts at 7:00 in the evening in Gym 2 and I hope that many of can take the time to come and watch/support these wonderful students. They have been practicing for the last two months and really put on a great show.
We will complete our biographical sketches this week. This is the culmination of research on a specific person and has included how to write up a bibliography. We have used books, videos, databases and websites to gather the information on four questions that were determined by the class.
This week will also continue our exploration presentations. I am hoping to have the class complete their presentations by the end of the week. The students have four choices in the presentation they complete - book launch, news report, drama/puppet show, infographic or exploration brochure. It will be interesting to see what they choose and how the present their research.
IN math we are continuing with our look at multiple operations in expressions. These include a continued review of the exponents we used in the last module. Problem solving continues to be at the forefront of our math learning. Having covered eight of the ten strategies, we will learn the last two in the coming weeks.
As always, if there are any concerns or questions you have, please let me know and I will gladly find a time that we can meet.
