Dear Parents,
I just want
to take a moment to bring you up to speed on the things going on in our
classroom.
We are just finishing up our Social
Studies unit of Explorers. Your children learned about who the explorers were
who discovered the American continents and why they explored. From here our
focus will turn to the colonies that were established, with the majority of our
time looking at the original 13 English colonies and how these colonies were
set up that lead the to the ideas of self government.
In math we have been working on
fractions. Our time has been spent on finding equivalent fractions, comparing
fractions, and most recently, adding and subtracting fractions with unlike
denominators. The next few steps that we will be doing in fractions is adding
or subtracting mixed numbers and multiple strategies to do that. I have
resources on the blog that can help you if you have any questions.
In language arts we have been
working on many basic skills. In reading we have been using the basic skill of
reading to comprehend the text. We have also learned about making inferences to
look deeper into the text and the author’s purpose. For writing we have been
reviewing how to write complete paragraphs using a topic sentence and the
bigger skill of putting order to a short essay. This is still a new skill to
us, but it will be honed as the year goes on.
Some of the things that we will be
working on in language arts in the upcoming weeks is a unit on figurative
language that we will use in reading and writing. This will be a big focus for
us in 5th grade as we use it to interpret texts and also to make our
writing more interesting.
For science we have been working on
heredity and about observable traits that are passed from parents to offspring
and about learned behaviors and instinctive behaviors. There will be no major
project for this section of science.
Just as a heads up, 5th
grade will be doing the program this year. This will take place on December 2.
More details will be coming, but I just wanted to make you aware of it so that
you can plan it into your schedule.
One last request that I would like
to make is that if you will be missing some days of school please let me know
at least two days in advance and even better if it is a week so that I can
provide the necessary materials in an appropriate manner.
Thanks for all that you do! If you
have any questions or concerns just contact me.
Sincerely,
Mr.
Hart