Monday PE | Tuesday -ART -In & About with FG Light and Power -Geek Out | Wednesday ART | Thursday | Friday No School, Veteran's Day Observed |
Reading: Read the newsletter Monday night & review your child's goal reflection (due Friday), Read a book of your choice the other nights. Make sure to record the book in your agenda.
Math: Check agenda or website, but there is daily math homework.
Writing: Spelling! Work on typing up unfinished poetry.
Important Dates
| Volunteer We need supplies for kids to build their prototypes for Geek Out. Talk with your kiddo about what is needed or donate these general supplies: -toy wheels -hand warmers -paint stir stick -leather -play doh -wood blocks |
Kids will be bringing home their first goal reflection on Monday. Please take out the goal sheets that I sent home on Thursday to review the work your child is doing. I don't mean for this to feel like I am checking up on how families are doing--but more as a chance for families to remember what their kiddo is working on and provide support as able. Kids shared interesting responses about conferences:
"It was stressful, and I don't like them."
"I felt more prepared as a 6th grader, like I knew what to expect."
"I think they are important, but I don't really like being in the spotlight."
"I like being able to show my parents what I am doing. I felt proud."
PLEASE, let me know how I can help. I can print you resources, provide workbooks and don't hesitate to utilize me for before / after school to give your child a little extra support. If you want to use my study halls, please send me an email so we can discuss what days / times will be best!
Project
A highlight of this week was our trip to the beautiful Hyla Woods. What an experience meeting with Peter and Pam, two great people working extremely hard to be sustainable foresters! The Merlins were superstars in terms of their behavior and showing respect to our guides. Also, a big shout-out to the parent volunteers that helped make the day a success. To go along with this outing we did a small classroom activity called the 400 acre wood--which helped us figure out what we should do with 400 acres int terms of forest management. Kids could even plug their ideas into an Excel spreadsheet and see if their ideas would make a profit.
Ask, how did you manage your 400 acre wood?
Talk about how Peter and Pam accomplish sustainability with their forest?
Extend the learning by visiting other forest areas and thinking how you would manage the property.
Literacy
The week was so full with our all day O&A and getting ready for the All School Meeting (which we rocked, by the way) that it seemed our traditional literacy slots go filled with alternative literacy activities. We listened to a podcast by Radiolab on forests, we practiced speaking for the ASM. However, we also enjoyed breaking into the world of spoken word poetry and read a bit more in our literature circle books.
Ask, what did you think of listening to a podcast?
Talk about the power of spoken word poetry. How is it different than traditional poetry?
Extend the learning by listening to other spoken word poets!
6th Grade Math
We've started to break into the world of fractions this week! We reviewed concepts like what a fraction tells us (denominator tells us how the unit segment is broken up and the numerator tells us where we're at in the unit segment.) This 3rd block introduces skills that can come in handy with fractions, such as knowing how to find the greatest common factor and how to find equivalent fractions. More to come this week!
Ask, what is the fundamental fact about equivalent fractions ?
Talk about why using the greatest common factor can be handy with fractions.
Extend the learning by seeing how fractions are used in daily life.
5th Grade Math
Mathematicians continued to build skills around decimal place values. We got outside the classroom to try out conversion within the metric system, and practiced reading, writing and comparing decimals. We realized that in many ways, the same math rules apply to decimal numbers as whole numbers! Still, that tiny dot sometimes throws us off! We will keep working on that skill this week.
Ask - Can you round 853.219 to the nearest hundredth? Tenth? One? Ten?
Listen - to your 5th grade mathematician explain how to convert meters to cm. How do you decide whether to multiply or divide?
Extend the learning at the grocery store or by looking at newspaper ads - practice reading & comparing decimals! (Example: 5.21 = five and twenty-one hundredths. Which costs more, $1.89 or $1.98?).