Monday PE | Tuesday Cooking Chemistry at the UCC | Wednesday ART | Thursday ELC | Friday ART Winter Break Movie! |
We will be finishing up our studies to test on water this week and kicking of our next unit on Chemistry! We reviewed watershed info with a jeopardy game and some note taking. The kids wanted a little more time to study, so we'll continue studying on Monday even though we'll also be kicking off chemistry!
Ask what's the hardest concept for you to remember with watersheds?
Listen to your student discuss the jeopardy game we played.
Extend the learning by doing some cooking chemistry with your student over break.
Literacy
As writers, last week we worked on how to take notes and turn them into informative paragraphs as well as learned the recipe to a conclusion. This week we will work more on editing skills and making sure our writing flows from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph.
For reading, we'll continue to make progress in our literature circle books focused on fantasy. Last week we started to look at elements of fantasy and how the story becomes believable. This week we'll finish this up and start looking at characterization.
6th Grade Math
During our short week, 6th graders worked on adding and subtracting fractions. We started by thinking of ways we could estimate addition and subtraction problems that dealt with fractions. Then, we jumped into adding and subtracting with like and unlike denominators. This week we will work on the same concept, but with mixed numbers, and what happens when you need to borrow or regroup. Many students haven't turned in their signed Block 3 test, because it was due on Friday. So, please remind your kiddo to take responsibility for that! Also, those 2 weeks off over winter break are a great time to practice multiplication and division facts, or do other mathematical games! Please let me know if you want resources to help.
Ask, have you turned in your block 3 test?
Listen to your child explain how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators.
Extend the learning to look at how fractions are found in our everyday lives!
5th Grade Math
During what we had of last week, 5th grade mathematicans kicked off the start of our study of decimals with foundation review (what decimal notation means and where it came from, converting a decimal fraction to a finite decimal and reverse). We then looked at the mathmatical justification for the algorthim for adding and subtraction decimal numbers (line up decimal points, add or subtract like decimal is not there, drop decimal down to answer). This week we will continue our work with finite/non-terminating decimals. We will spend more time adding and subtracting decimals and investigate expanded form of and rounding of decimal numbers. Please check with your student to make sure the Fraction Unit test corrections/reflectionshas been returned to me.Ask what is a decimal fraction?
Listen to your child explain Clarius' notation for converting a decimal fraction to a decimal number and back.
Extend the learning by looking for decimals in everyday activities.