What Is Happening in 5F

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend! I hope you got outside and enjoyed this spring like weather we are having today. I know I did! Trey and I played with our dog, Rocky, in the yard. Also, my family and I took a nice long walk through our neighborhood. It was great to be outside enjoying this beautiful weather.

It was another busy week in our classroom. In math we continued our module on adding and subtracting fractions. Students learned how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. The students are enjoying this module on fractions and everyone is understanding how to turn fractions with unlike units into fractions that have like units. :) it is great to see how well they are doing in this module.

                         Students show their mathematical thinking on the SmartBoard

                          Georgia and Kunsang hard at work on their problem set

                                                     Ashley works on her math

In Writer's Workshop students wrote their flash draft ( first draft) of their westward expansion research project. The next few weeks will be spent on the hard work of adding information where it is needed, revising, and rewriting. There may be days this upcoming week when the students will have writing homework. Students may be asked to simply work on their writing for twenty minutes or asked to revise a section of their writing at home. 

                                  Students working hard on their flash draft

In Reader's workshop we are coming to the end of non-fiction unit. In this unit students learned how to determine main idea and supporting details, how to write a summary, how to determine text structure, and how to use context clues to determine the meaning of  known words. Students will be taking an end of the unit assessment on Tuesday. This past week in Reader's workshop we compared and contrasted non-fiction texts. We compared not only what information was presented, but also how the information was presented. (Text structure)

In science we started a new unit on geology. We started the unit by learning about weathering and erosion.  Two processes that change the earth's surface slowly. We started with a hands on experiment that uses a sugar cube to show the processes of weathering and erosion. We also watched a video on weathering, erosion, and deposition. Students worked in groups to sort cards that had scenarios on them. They sorted the cards into groups based on whether the card was describing weathering, erosion, or deposition.

The book review for the month of March is fantasy. Look for the book review assignment to come home with your child this week.

Enjoy your Sunday evening!