Monday No School: Martin Luther King Jr. Day | Tuesday Out and About | Wednesday Art | Thursday Geek Out Soccer at Pacific | Friday All School Meeting |
Calendar Highlights
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Remember to order your FGCS 19-20 yearbooks! Here’s the link!
We are also selling FGCS hats, t-shirts, and hoodies on our school website right now, head over to that page to get some clothes to show off your school spirit!
Homework
Quick reminder that in the event that your student is not able to finish their historical fiction reading during class, or need to catch up in their packet, that will take the place of 20 minutes of free reading. Because we have a shorter week, spelling will be changed a bit. Tuesday will be either sort or alphabetize, Wednesday will be sentences, and Thursday will be to quiz yourself at home or finish sentences from wednesday. Expect math homework each day.
Project
This week in project we continued on with our colonial simulation. Students applied their map skills in order to create a map of a mythical country. The map included geographical features along with an original legend, scale, and longitude and latitude lines. Then, colony groups were officially established, as groups rolled dice to find out if they would be a private company colony, government colony, or a religious freedom colony. Colonies learned that with each colony type came specific benefits and consequences. Colony groups finished the week off by creating a flag that would represent their colonies identity. As we move forward in the simulation next week, students will be preparing to sail to a new land! Stay tuned.
Ask: What kind of colony are you a member of? Government, Private Company, or Religious Freedom? What are some benefits and consequences your colony group might face because of this?
Extend: Play a game of GeoGuessr, and ask what kind of clues help us figure out the locations?
Writing
This week students continued their research on a specific topic related to the colonial era. In further developing their research questions for their topics, students broke their topics up into then and now categories as they worked on finding information to answer their research questions. This helped students guide their research to keep it relevant to their topic. As we neared the end of the week, students began building their slides which will highlight some interesting points they found as they dug into their topics. Moving into next week, students will be finalizing their slides and preparing to share them with the class in a gallery walk style presentation.
Ask: What are two highlights about your topic that you will share on your slides?
Reading
This week we continued to read our historical fiction books and explored setting by thinking about the place, time, and culture/values of the stories. We then went back through all we’ve read so far and found quotes from the book that tell us something about setting and why it is important to our characters. We also grew as readers by crafting engaging discussion questions and posing them to the other members of our group in our first meeting. Next week, we will continue to read our historical fiction books, and move on to focus two, where we will carefully consider how our authors transport readers back in time with writing strategies (secret word) like metaphor and mood.
Ask: What was the most important part of your book’s setting?
Extend the learning: make a list (in your head or on paper) of similarities and differences between the main character of your book, and Isabel, the main character of our class read aloud Chains.
5th Grade Math
This week 5th grade mathematicians reviewed the skills we learned in our place value and decimals unit. After reviewing in class and on our review homework, we had a class game of Kahoot! This gave students a chance to review with their classmates, and to have a friendly game before beginning the test. We then took are skills and put them to the test! Moving forward, we will have a chance to make some test corrections, and then we will be starting our multiplication and division of whole numbers and decimals unit.
Ask: What was the most challenging skill from the place value and decimals unit? What is something you are proud of?
6th Grade Math
This week, we applied what we have been learning about adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers to finding perimeters of different types of polygons, and then finished up block 4 with a review and the test!
Attention All 6th Grade Math Families: With tests in mind, I wanted to let you know what the process is for test corrections and retakes; I know this can get lost in translation sometimes. After the test is finished, students can choose to either make corrections and retry the questions they missed on a test retake, or they can accept the score they got and move on to the reflection. The corrections, retake, and reflection are all completed as homework. Wednesday night, test corrections will be their only homework, and then for the rest of the week, there will not be any more dedicated class work time, and corrections and retakes will be homework in addition to the homework that they will have from the day’s lesson. They will have until Monday to complete the block reflection, and any corrections and retakes they choose to do. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions you may have!
Ask: how many uses can you think of for knowing how to add and subtract mixed numbers?
Extend the learning: measure the length and width of a rectangle in or around your house (a door, a table, the driveway, the yard) and use 2l+2w to find its perimeter!