Dear families,

I can't believe that October will be here this week! I love the cooler weather and this time of year. October is also the time for parent-teacher conferences. I have only heard from two parents about signing up for a conference, but I need to meet with everyone. Please click THIS LINK to sign up for a conference.  

Students have gotten a flyer for another Scholastic book order. These will come home monthly. Feel free to participate as you like - you are not required to purchase! This month, students have received coupons; if they purchase $10 or more in books, they receive a free $5 book. See the coupon for details. These orders are due on October 10th. You can go to scholastic.com/readingclub to order online. Our class code is J39FV. 

This Tuesday is our service learning day for September. We'll be researching a little bit about childhood cancer and how laughter can help take away pain. I have a friend whose infant son, Asher, has cancer, so we are going to do an activity for him on Tuesday. If students want to send in any donation towards childhood cancer, I will take those. Students are not required to send in money to participate. CAA parents have already done a lot for childhood cancer this month - and we thank you! :) In addition to learning about childchood cancer, we are doing the #whippingchildhoodcancer challenge - putting whip cream "pies" in each other's faces to raise awareness for these terrible diseases. Students who wish to participate should bring an extra shirt on Tuesday just in case they get a little messy!

We are using a behavior support system in our class called Class Dojo. It enables me to reward positive points for positive behavior and to take away points for negative behavior. At the end of each day, it calculates the percentage of positive points a student has earned for the day. The kids are responding really well to this program! I personally like this much better than a regular clip chart. On Mondays, students who have high percentages of positive points from the previous week earn lunch in the classroom and/or extra recess.

I am really looking forward to this week! I finished my lesson plans and was just so excited about all we're doing and learning in class! I know it's going to be a fantastic week. Let's check it out. 

Coming Up This Week:

• Mon, 9/29: Class Dojo Reward Day
• Tues, 9/30: Service Project Day
  
• Fri, 10/3: Math test (adding and subtracting decimals); science test (classifying plants and animals); math homework due

Reading/ELA
Standards

• RI.5.2. Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
• W.5.1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

Activities

• Learn about the terms used when determining main idea (main idea, topic, topic sentence, supporting details)
• Read a variety of texts to determine main idea
• Learn how to chart a main idea on a table organizer
• Find (and write) the main idea of short passages using main idea task cards
• Continue to practice theme and conflict from last unit using Bridge to Terabithia
• Learn how to write an opinion paper (and eat Oreos while we learn how to do it!)
• Discuss the difference between fact and opinion - create a T-chart after watching video on cancer (left side fact, right side opinion)

What We're Reading

• "It Feels Good to Laugh"
• "Christopher Columbus"
• various articles on classification of animals (mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and amphibians)
• various articles on Martin Luther King, Jr.
• One for the Murphy's

What We're Writing

• Opinion writing based on our text, "It Feels Good to Laugh"

*Students will be having lunch in the classroom this week as we watch the movie, Bridge to Terabithia - it is based on the book we just finished!

Mathematics
Standards

• NBT.7 Add, subtract...decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. 

We are only working with adding and subtracting decimals for this unit. The test is this Friday. Students will have to add and subtract decimals to/from other decimals and to/from whole numbers. After a quiz last week, the most difficult problems for students are the ones that involve a whole number. We are working with problems like that that this week as we prepare for the assessment.
Activities

• Buddy games: Ten is the Winner and Rolling Around with Decimals (using dice to create decimals to add and subtract)
• Subtracting decimals practice with self-checking kaleidoscope pictures
• IXL: E.8 (smart estimates) and E.4 (adding and subtracting decimals - word problems). If your child is having any difficulty with adding and subtracting decimals, he or she can continue to work on E.3.
• With me, students will be working on practicing whatever skills they still struggle with. Math groups are based on which students need review on which skills.

Science
Students will be finishing up a unit with Mrs. Hawkins this week in science. They will be learning about how to classify plants and animals. To visit the 5th grade science website, please click here:
http://5thscience.weebly.com/ 

Some pictures from Pirate Day:

Dear families,

Thanks to those of you who attended our Curriculum Night on Thursday. I hope the information was beneficial to you! Also, thanks to all of you who sent in snacks for our Pirate Day celebration on Friday. We enjoyed eating piratey snacks during read aloud, and then kids read a little bit about sunken treasure. 

We have a full week coming up, so let's take a peek:

Coming Up This Week:

• Mon, 9/22: FALCAN Food Drive continues
• Wed, 9/24: Stuffed Animals/Caps for CURE ($1)
• Thurs, 9/25: Shurley English Chapter 2 Test; Boy Scouts Sign Up
• Fri, 9/26: Math Homework Due; Reading test (RL.1 and RL.2)

Coming Up Later This Month: 

• Tues, 9/30: Service Project Day
  

Reading/ELA
Standards

• RL.5.10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• RI.5.10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• RL.5.2. Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how a speaker in a poem reflects upon a text; summarize the text.

This Week's Focus
Theme - it's the author's message in a story. It's not specific to the characters, but a more generally applicable life lesson. For example, the theme in "Little Red Riding Hood" might be "Don't talk to strangers."
Activities (Test this Friday!)
Here's what we're doing in rotations for the week:
1. Buddy Work 

• Theme task cards - read short stories, find the theme

2. Exercise Your Brain (Mrs. Thompson)

• Theme cupcakes story board (discuss that theme is like the filling in a cupcake - it's hidden on the inside, but it's the best part!)

3. All by Myself

• Pausing Points - think about our book, Bridge to Terabithia, and determine some themes from the story (most novels have more than one theme)

4. Reading Online

• IXL Language Arts - 4th Grade HH.1 (commas in a series) and HH.4 (commas in direct addresses and after introductory words)

What We're Reading

• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• several short stories

What We're Writing

• Reading response on Bridge to Terabithia

English/Language Arts (Chapter 2 Test on Thursday!)

• Commas (always, all year long!)
• Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Mathematics
Standards

• NBT.7 Add, subtract, multiply and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. 

A Note about the Last Assessment
Some students seemed to have some difficulty with NBT.1, recognizing place value - but it is primarily because they either didn't work out the numbers or they left off the value sentences we've been practicing for two weeks. For students who had difficulty with NBT.2, patterns in multiplying or dividing a number by a power of 10, the main issue was dividing a number by a power of 10. Here's a short video I made about how we did these in class and how to properly work on those standards:

Activities
We are working only with adding and subtracting decimals for the next two weeks. We will test again next Friday, (10/3). Students will need to be able to line up their decimals properly in order to add and subtract decimals. The hardest part for students will be when they add or subtract decimals to or from a whole number. Here's a short video I made to show you how we'll do that:

• Watch videos from LearnZillion (visit www.learnzillion.com and type in these quick codes: LZ546 and LZ547)
• Complete practice pages for our interactive math folders
• Add decimals, subtract decimals, and do both operations with decimals and whole numbers
• Write about our strategies. You may notice that the standard is asking students to WRITE in math - we will be working on that a lot this year!

Here is our rotation work!
1. Buddy Work

• Adding and subtracting decimal art

2. Exercise Your Brain (Mrs. Thompson)

• Practice performance tasks for NBT.7

3. All By Myself

• Math choice boards (based on NBT.1 - rounding decimals, from last unit)

4. Math Online

• IXL: E.1, E.2, and E.3 (students can work on this at home as well)

Assessment

• Next Friday: multiple choice, short answer (write the answer), and performance task

Science
Students will be working with Mrs. Hawkins for the next two weeks in science. They will be learning about how to classify plants and animals. To visit the 5th grade science website, please click here:
http://5thscience.weebly.com/ 

Here are a couple of pictures from last week. Click the "Home" button at the top of the page and scroll down to find the post titled, "Civil War Trunk," and you'll see pictures of the kids trying on and playing with items from the trunk!

Dear families,

THANK YOU so much for sending in donations for our 9/11 Service Project! We packed two boxes FULL for Sergeant Julia who is currently in Afghanistan. We had a few things left over, so we decided we'd send her a box at Christmas as well. Hopefully this will be a nice surprise for her. Thank you for being so generous for our first service project!

There is a very important event coming up this Thursday at 6 pm - CAA is hosting a curriculum night to inform parents about what's going on in each grade level. K-2 teachers will present from 5:30 - 6:00. 3-5 teachers will present from 6:00 - 6:30. Many parents have asked for such information, so we hope this will be a well-attended program. If you are interested in the Title I meeting for parents, that will begin at 5:00. There will be a presentation in English in one room a presentation in Spanish in another. 

Let's take a look at what else is going on in class.

Coming Up This Week:

• Mon, 9/15: FALCAN Food Drive Starts
• Tues, 9/16: School Governance Council Meeting at 2:30
• Wed, 9/17: Silly Socks for CURE ($1)
• Thurs, 9/18: Curriculum Night (K-2nd 5:30-6; 3rd-5th 6-6:30)
• Fri, 9/19: Talk Like a Pirate Day; Math Test; Civil War Test; Chick-Fil-A ($2.50)

Coming Up Later This Month: 

• Wed, 9/24: Stuffed Animals/Caps for CURE ($1)
• Thurs, 9/25: Boy Scouts Sign Up
• Tues, 9/30: Service Project Day

Reading/ELA
Standards

• RL.5.10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• RI.5.10. By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• RL.5.2. Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how a speaker in a poem reflects upon a text; summarize the text.

Activities
We are starting a new "title" for our rotations called Be Excited About Reading! Our rotations will be:
1. Be = Buddy Work 

• Buddy discussions on how characters respond to challenges in the text
• Summarizing a text task cards

2. Excited = Exercise Your Brain (Mrs. Thompson)

• Plot the events in a story

3. About = All by Myself

• Reading choice boards (based on RL.2)

4. Reading = Reading Online

• IXL Language Arts - 4th Grade HH.1 (commas in a series) and HH.4 (commas in direct addresses and after introductory words)

What We're Reading

• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• "Homework Hubbub"
• "News Debate: Tough Cell"

What We're Writing

• Opinion about whether or not homework is beneficial
• Opinion about if cell phones should be allowed in schools

English/Language Arts

• Commas (always, all year long!)
• Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Mathematics
Standards

• NBT.1 Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.
• NBT.2 Explain patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, and explain patterns in the placement of the decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10. Use whole number exponents to denote powers of 10. 

Activities
We are doing similar rotations in math that we are doing in reading. It's called Be Excited About Math! Each day, before we start rotations, we'll have a short whole-group lesson. Then, at the end of each math class, we'll have a quick formative assessment (quiz) or recap what we've learned. Here are our whole group lessons for the week:

• Watch videos from Khan Academy (click HERE to watch the series of videos we'll watch in class)
• Read an article about the Seattle Seahawks NFL stadium and why it's the loudest stadium in the nation; use the decibal scale (which is based on Powers of 10) to answer math questions on NBT.2 
• Comparing the digits in a number based on place value
• Multiplying and dividing by Powers of 10

Here is our rotation work!
Be = Buddy Work

• Multiplying and Dividing Numbers by Power of 10 (whole numbers and decimals)

Excited = Exercise Your Brain (Mrs. Thompson)

• Practice performance tasks for NBT.1 and NBT.2

About = All By Myself

• Math choice boards (based on NBT.4 - rounding decimals, from last unit)

Math = Math Online

• IXL: F.3 (students can work on this at home as well)

Assessment

• THIS Friday: multiple choice, short answer (write the answer), and performance task

Social Studies
Standards
SS5H1 The student will explain the causes, major events, and consequences of the 
Civil War. 

1. Identify  Uncle  Tom’s  Cabin  and  John  Brown’s  raid  on  Harper’s  Ferry, and explain how each of these events was related to the Civil War. 
   
2. Discuss  how  the  issues  of  states’  rights  and  slavery  increased  tensions  between the North and South. 
   
3. Identify major battles and campaigns: Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, the Atlanta Campaign,  Sherman’s  March  to  the  Sea,  and  Appomattox  Court  House. 
   
4. Describe the roles of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson  Davis,  and  Thomas  “Stonewall”  Jackson. 
   
5. Describe the effects of war on the North and South. 

SS5H2 The student will analyze the effects of Reconstruction on American life. 

1. Describe the purpose of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. 
   
2. Explain  the  work  of  the  Freedmen’s  Bureau. 
   
3. Explain how slavery was replaced by sharecropping and how African-Americans 
   were prevented from exercising their newly won rights; include a discussion of Jim Crow laws and customs. 

I have created a website with information your student can look over at home to help better prepare him or her for our social studies unit. Click HERE to view this website! To find information for this unit, click the "Civil War" tab at the top.

Essential Questions
Who were the leaders of the Civil War, and how did they affect its outcome?
How did the 5 battles we study shape the war?
How were the North and South affected by the war?
Activities

• Watch history.com videos about Civil War leaders and battles
• Complete a 5Ws chart for leaders and battles
• Create a Civil War map detailing free states and slave states
• Create a Reconstruction foldable about the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments (this is very difficult for students)
13th Amendment = Abolished slavery / 14th Amendment = Gave newly freed slaves citizenship / 15th Amendment = Gave all men the right to vote 

What We're Reading

• Excerpts from the social studies textbook

Assessment

• THIS Friday: multiple choice questions online (Socrative) and 2 essay questions

Each year, fifth grade borrows the Civil War trunk from the North Georgia History Museum. Kids get to try on authentic clothing from the Civil War era and handle artifacts too!