Explorer Interviews, Equivalent Fractions, and E-Text Features

Our last week before a break brings a lot of new strategies and ideas.  Here's what's going on in Room 32 this week:

Social Studies
Last week we completed our Mini Explorer projects and they look great!  This week we will wrap things up with peer interviews to discover what we have learned about our explorers along the way.

Math
Lat week we finished our LONG module focusing on division (finally!) with an assessment on Friday.  Remember, the assessments that you will get back this week were only graded for goal-setting purposes.  The end-of-module assessments are not graded for a "real" grade, but rather to check how much growth was accomplished since the pretest over a month ago.

This week we will focus on goal monitoring, get a preview of our new Module with a pretest, and start off with FRACTIONS! We on;y have two lesson this week, so expect math homework on Tuesday and Wednesday only.  The homework helper videos are below>

• Tuesday - Lesson 1 - Equivalent Fractions
• Wednesday - Lesson 2 - Making Like Units Pictorially 

Language Arts

Reading

Last we we finished up our Fiction unit with a few epic comparison projects that incorporated all that we have learned in since the beginning of the school year.  Look for the graded projects to make their way home this week.

This week we begin our Nonfiction unit with a review of text features.  The students will be able to create their own computer-based references to print out and use in the classroom.

Writing

Our goal of expressing evidence to support our ideas and interpret those ideas in writing continues, this week we will use the site NEWSela to explore a few informational articles in order to practice these skills.  The kids can access this site to practice as well! Look forward to seeing some samples at conferences next week!

Vocabulary

Our words for the past 2 weeks have revolved around the the root "port", meaning "to carry".  The students have been busy all week using these words in different contexts.  Look for some at-home studying opportunities throughout the week in preparation for the quiz on Friday.

FYI:

• Picture Retake Day is Monday.
• Wednesday is an Early Dismissal at 12:30.
• On Friday, educators from the Robert Crown Center will be in the 5th grade classrooms giving a talk on adolescent health.  The students will be separated for most of the day by gender (girls with Mrs. Kuenstler and Mrs. Giovanelli, and boys with Mr. Hugelier and myself). 

Have a great week.  Check out Twitter and Class Dojo for daily classroom update!