Weekly Update

What wild weather we had this week! The snow on Thursday was beautiful! I hope it is sign of things to come, I absolutely love winter!!

It was another busy week in 5f. Here is the weekly update of what is happening in our classroom.

In math this week we learned strategies to solve multi-digit multiplication. First we continued our work with multiplying by powers of tens to help us solve multi-digit multiplication. For example, if we know that 242 x 4= 484 that can help us solve the problem 2,420 x 400. We also used the distributive property to help us do  mental math with multi-digit multiplication. For example, I can solve 20 x 19 by thinking (20 x 20) - (20 x 1). This upcoming week in math we will continue with multi-digit multiplication. Students will earn three different strategies to solve multi-digit multiplication problems; partial products, the area model, and the standard algorithm.

Tyler and Julia Playing Dare to Divide in math workshop

Tenzin and Ethan playing a game during math workshop

In Reader's workshop the focus of the week was theme or author's message. Students learned that when trying to decide what the theme of a book is, it can be helpful to ask yourself the following questions: "What lesson did the character learn in the book?" and "What did the author want me to learn from reading this book?" Students also learned that we need to support or thinking about theme with evidence from the text. The evidence can be an event from the book or a direct quote from the book. Students also learned that they need to explain how their evidence supports their theme. As a class we decide the theme for our class read aloud, Home of the Brave, is that you should never give up hope, even when life gets tough. As a class we looked for both events and direct quotes from the story that supported our thinking about theme. Then we explained how that evidence supported our thinking about theme.

Our Thinking about theme in the book, Home of the Brave

A guided reading lesson

Students During Independent Reading

This week in Writer's Workshop we continued revising our narratives. Students worked on writing a beginning that grabs the reader's attention and also gives hints of the problem/challenges the character will face. Students also worked on writing an ending that ties up loose ends. This upcoming week students will begin editing their piece of writing.


In Social Studies we are learning about the Bill of Rights and the first ten amendments.

Students work in small groups on a Social Studies project

On Thursday the Sunderland Fire Department visited the fifth grade to teach about when and how to call 911. Students learned what happens when they call 911and how to call 911. Students role played situations in which they would call 911 in an emergency.

Recess Fun!!! :)