Curriculum Update for 11/22-12/3

Hello! Here is an update for the next week of classes:

Reading:

• When we get back from break, students will be presenting the information they have researched on their non-fiction readings. They will present this to the class.
• Students should make sure they have the material they need for class this Monday and Tuesday and then for over break in order to prepare for the presentations on Monday and Tuesday the 29th and 30th.
• We recently studied the word essential and will study more challenging vocabulary.
• We'll be reading a story from our anthology book. The story is an excerpt from the full length story Island of the Blue Dolphins.
• The students have shown great success in writing open ended response essays. We'll continue that next week.
• We will also continue studying how to summarize effectively.

Writing:

• The kids have been enjoying writing so much this year. They are writing a variety of compositions.
• One composition we just started was a personal expository. The work so far has been stellar.
• We will continue studying how to incorporate details and follow that up with elaboration.
• Next week, we'll also study elements of poetry, different types of poems, and more figurative language.
• Students will also continue to work on their own student created compositions. Some include letters, fictional stories, comics, and poems.
• I will conference with students on our units of study like the personal expository as well as their own workshop writing.

Math:

• We've just begun a unit on fractions. This is chapter 5 of our unit.
• Students successfully have understood how to calculate a unit or a fraction of a whole.
• Next we are studying mixed numbers and how they are a number with a fraction, and we will study how to write mixed numbers as fractions.
• We are also going to study how to compare the size of fractions using a variety of strategies.
• Further into December we will study how to add and subtract fractions as well as how to reduce them.

Social Studies:

• We've had a blast in social studies. We kick off each class with current events. The kids are SO engaged with the world around them now, wanting to know more, and bringing in articles. (I'm sure getting a pop motivates them too!)
• We'll continue studying the early English colonies in chapter 5.
• I'm teaching the kids study skills more and more and with chapter 5 it's no different.
• We're also journalling, watching videos, and studying vocabulary.

Science:

• Our science unit on magnetism and electricity will begin after chapter 5 of social studies is finished. Please anticipate this sometime during the week of December 6th.

Spelling:

• I'm teaching more and more strategies to the kids.
• Be sure to check out www.spellingcity.com
• The kids should use the strategies to study for the tests.
• Keep studying! We will start a new unit list when we get back from break.

Nonfiction Project and Biography Project...and book blogging!

Hello again! I want to update you on two very specific projects for this month, both reading related, and the book blogging on the Blackboard program.

Non fiction project:

Important: Kids, let's make sure we don't lose our research. Keep the research in our rough draft pocket of the writing folder from now on. You no longer need your non-fiction book.

The students in 5V all read their non-fiction books for a purpose. First they decided what they wanted to find out or research. Then they wrote down ideas or concepts to research. Next, they found details for those ideas. So they have the information. Now it is time to present it to the class. Presenting the information to the class can be done in almost any style. For example: Poster board project with visuals, singing a song, making a board game, doing a skit, creating a powerpoint presentation, making a movie, using photographs etc...Kids WILL have work time in class to get ideas started and constructing the project. Anticipate 3-4 days before Thanksgiving break. In addition, I'd like all work to be done and ready to present the first Monday we get back from Thanksgiving break.

Biography project:

Important: ALL students should have a biography with them. Bring this to class each day. Do not leave this at home. We will begin some non-fiction work with this during reading and writing class. You won't need the book everyday, but it will be important for you to have it in class everyday in case I teach you a lesson relevant to reading biographies or allow some work time for that biography work.

Kids will have some time in class to do project work-though reading should ALSO be done at home. I don't have an official project yet, but it as always, will be reading based and the completion date will be sometime the first week or early second week of December. We won't start this reading of biographies and skill work until the end of this week most likely.

Book Blogging:

Ah, the Blackboard program! Once I get the password mess straightened out, this will be a go for all students. Each week, once a week at the minimum, students must post a message about the story they are reading in class. The message is to be an opinion of what they have read just recently in their story. The opinion should be backed with evidence and contain support for the statements in the post message.

So, once a week, students will be required to log on to the Blackboard program and post from there. I know some students don't have net usage or computer usage at home, so we can make accommodations for this to be done at school.

Important Dates and Reminders

• Monday, November 8th:
• Return to school from weekend.
• New song for the week.
• Wrap up Spanish Explorers unit.

Tuesday, November 9th:

• Begin drafting ideas for non-fiction project.
• Potential study for Spanish Explorers test (learn how to study at home!)

Wednesday, November 10th:

• Potential Spanish Explorers test (if not on Friday)
• Math review study day.
• Conferences from 4:40pm to 8:00pm.

Thursday, November 11th:

• No school-Veteran's Day (Thank you Veterans!)

Friday, November 12th:

• Publishers from the last two weeks-MAKE SURE YOU TAKE WHAT YOU NEED HOME TO FINISH YOUR PUBLICATION BY MONDAY.
• Math test in 5V (Division focus)
• Potential social studies test (if not given on Wednesday)
• New seats in the class, move desks.

Curriculum Update for 11/8-11/12

Here's what 5V's up to this week:

Reading:

• I hope to get the Blackboard program up and running so students can post their book blog conversations on them. Currently, I have excused students from the assignments because of password errors.
• This week we will read a personal narrative in our reading books called Woodsong. It's about a dog named Woodsong. We'll study major details vs. minor details and draw conclusions about Woodsong the dog based on the details.
• We are going to continue studying figurative language like idioms and similes which we'll analyze through some music.
• The kids will take a break from acting. The skits they put on last week were phenomenal-the vocab skits-they used the context SO WELL to depict meaning!
• This week, they'll learn a new challenge word-ask them what it is!
• We'll continue book conversations in small groups.
• The kids will also begin reading their biography books this week with some kind of purpose-I'm still thinking of a meaningful idea/activity.
• I have some fun non-fiction reading time for the kids and thinking time. They'll be analyzing non fiction in fun and meaningful ways.

Writing:

• Students will continue to publish their own student created written pieces. They will complete this through the phases of the writing process.
• Students will also continue to study the structure and components of an expository essay. They'll use a graphic organizer to get better at writing this type of essay as well as very strong modeling which includes the detail-elaboration combo.
• I'll continue to meet in groups with students for writing lessons.
• Kids will begin thinking about how they want to publish their non-fiction project information. Any type of presentation is accepted to give to the class. More details to come later.
• Students will have lab time and lap top time to finish their publications. There is a group of 7 students who have now had two weeks to publish-YOUR WORK IS DUE NO LATER THAN NEXT MONDAY.

Grammar:

• This week we continue to take a look at the run on sentence.
• We'll also analyze sentence fragments and how to join sentences with conjunctions.
• We will study different types of punctuation as well.

Spelling:

• As we normally do in spelling, I will emphasize spelling strategies like chunking, understanding prefixes and suffixes, and sounds symbol connections.
• A spelling test will be given the following Monday, on the 15th.

Math:

• Anticipate a math test this Friday. The test will mainly cover division.
• We will finish up our lessons on division this Wednesday.
• Most math this week will be conducted in small groups to reinforce particular concepts that some students are needing some extra practice in.
• Other students will work on games or enrichment work of division.

Social Studies:

• We have just finished our Spanish Explorers unit. Wow, the kids were SO engaged!
• A test will be given Wednesday or Friday. It will be an open book test and perhaps even open notebook for evidence usage with the essay question.
• On Monday, students will summarize their feelings and thoughts about Spanish exploration with a neat book cover activity.
• We will continue to have in depth conversations about our feelings toward history and the birth of powerful nations and their dominance over less colony driven civilizations.

iPhone Ugly App Debate Poll 10/29/10

On Thursday, students read an article about a new app on the iPhone that is called the "Ugly Meter App". The app works like this: The app uses facial recognition scanning that scans the structure of the face and then based on that gives a score out of 10. A score of 1 is not ugly and a score of 10 is very ugly. The makers of the app say it's all in good fun, but psychologists and experts say it could be a form of bullying.

As we study bullying and cyber bullying, this issue of the app becomes more relevant as students become older and need to consider the gravity of their decisions.

The purpose of reading the article was for students to determine if the app is harmless fun or simply mean. They highlighted evidence in the article to support their opinions.

We have not had our discussion but the poll results are in:

RESULTS:

The iPhone Ugly App is MEAN: 70%

The iPhone Ugly App is HARMLESS FUN: 30%

Curriculum Update for 11/1-11/5

Hello 5V Families! Here is what we have coming up for this school week:

Reading:

• Students will be studying non-fiction reading this week and reading a variety of non-fiction passages and texts (including magazines and periodicals) and discussing and analyzing them in a meaningful manner.
• Students will also study a variety of figurative language skills like similes, metaphors, personification, and more. We will use some texts and music to study this!
• The kids will also be practicing using vocabulary through vocabulary skits. Some of the vocabulary the groups are using in their skits include: anticipate, imperative, frigorific, potential, ostentatious, cardigan, stiletto, and nonchalant.
• In addition, students will be having book conversations with their book conversation groups and will be engaging in higher level group work and discussion.
• We will continue comprehension assessments and small group work during work time.

Writing:

• Students have been working very hard through the writing process on independently selected published pieces of work.
• Kids will be studying how to craft an expository essay this week.
• I'll continue to meet kids this week in conferences to teach lessons on writing strong memoirs and expository essays.
• The writing blog will be up soon with a lot of previews to student work, so please check that out when I let you know it is ready!

Math:

• On Monday, we have a unit 4 pre-test.
• Unit 4 covers computation with decimals. (Multiplication and division) with decimals.
• Students will study long division as well.
• The Chapter 3 unit tests should be handed back by this upcoming Friday.

Social Studies:

• We are reading about Spanish explorers in social studies. We have studied HOW they have established power in the Americas.
• We've also been studying the local Illinois political races like the governor's race and the U.S Senate race.
• Stay tuned for a great extra credit opportunity on election night. Kids can watch election coverage and earn extra credit or some type of incentive.

Citizenship:

• Recently we studied what gossiping is during our bullying lesson.
• As part of a writing activity we also read an article about the iPhone's new "Ugly App" and debated whether or not the app was just harmless fun or simply mean.
• This upcoming week we will continue to talk about bullying and more specifically, cyber bullying.

Other:

• So far we have had 75 homework assignments.
• We are working on math facts quite a bit and students are trying to up their two minute scores and two minute times on the math fact test.
• I am giving HW incentives for students who have met a particular HW completion rate %.
• The scary story contest winner will be announced on Monday.

Link to the Book Blog

Hi 5V Families. Below is a link to the 5V Book Blog. Students can read book reviews on the blog. The link is also in the links section of this blog.

http://5vbookblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

Mr. Vaid