Grade 5 Update Week of September 4th

Tests, quizzes, projects – we’re really starting to get used to working hard – and the students have been coping well with the workload. Motivation is up and enthusiasm is high. Here’s a run down of what we’ve been doing over the past week.
Humanities

Students are continuing their study of US Geography. We’ve covered the various landforms, the lakes, rivers, climate and even the resources of the United States. This week, students were tasked with looking closer at one individual state. Each student is working on a brochure which will have various facts about their chosen state. They have researched both in the library and the IT lab. Over the weekend, students will be putting the information together to make a tri-fold brochure.

In addition, we’ve continued to look at good organization in writing. By next week, we should be starting to practice writing good sentences and paragraphs individually.

Students have really done well in their reading, too. Quite a few students have reported that they have finished one book independently. On Friday, students began writing about the reading, too. Throughout the year, they will share letters back and forth with me about their reading. This will help me guide students individually through their reading. I’m looking forward to starting this one-on-one process with them.

Math

In Math, we’re still working with decimals. We’re comparing them, ordering them and learning how to say them properly. We played a few reinforcement games in the class like Decimal War and pinning decimals in order on a clothes line. Students also had additional practice writing long numbers by writing cheques out for high-ticket items after a $10,000,000 windfall. After they spent most of the money on themselves, they wrote their last check out to charity.

Science

We finished our first chapter in Science on Tuesday and took our first Science test on Thursday. Students had fun preparing for the test by playing Science Jeopardy. The different teams worked hard beating out the competition. In the end, there was a tie, but everyone won by getting extra practice.
Charity Committee and Student Action Committee

This week the Charity Committee and Student Action Committee had their first meetings. Both of these groups will foster leadership among our fifth grade class. The Student Action group is already planning a bulletin board with a monthly message for the school corridor, and figuring out how to get the school involved in a paper recycling program. There should be some good deeds to report out of these committees. We’re looking forward to their work.
Have a great weekend.
Ms. Larson