Keep reading for level 3 announcements, an overview of our learning from the previous week and a preview of next week! Please also remember that reading these newsletters with your student can be a great way to create a bridge between school and home and can set the stage for your student to reflect on their learning with you!
Announcements
- Next Thursday and Friday (10/21 & 10/22) we will be holding fall conferences on Zoom. We are looking forward to seeing you at these conferences. Students will not have school. As a quick reminder, we are asking that these conferences only be adults this year, so that we can discuss your student’s learning without creating more stress for them.
- We have been noticing that students are often forgetting to bring water bottles. Since we no longer have a drinking fountain at school, only water bottle filling taps, it is essential that they bring a water bottle every day.
- If you would like to order scholastic books for your student, please be sure to have October orders in by October 29th. There are also tabs at the top to look at books at lower or higher reading levels, or to shop by topic/area of interest. Here is our level 3 Scholastic site: https://orders.scholastic.com/YJRMF
In project last week, we finished our bean mazes, and watched as our beans began to sprout. We expanded our understanding of systems, exploring a new principle “nature relies on local expertise to make sustainable choices” by discussing the three pillars of sustainability. We also turned in all of our project work from this year so far, in preparation for a new classroom activity starting this week. Our Out and About at the new Boxer Gardens at Pacific University supported a nature principle from last week “nature favors diversity”. Students used 3 ft. square grids placed around the garden to record the diversity in each plot and did some reflecting on the diversity of the ground in the garden. Many students were surprised that the ground had so many different types of organic (and non-organic) matter, even in such a small space. Please see attached photos of some of our plots.
Ask your student about their thoughts on sustainability, and which leg of this stool they think is the most important.
Next week in project we will begin to tie all of our natural principles together, and think about how we can keep applying them to support our natural spaces. We will use all of these principles in a classroom-wide collaboration activity starting this week. We will also think about how things relate to each other in systems by practicing making behavior over time graphs.
Literacy
Last week in literacy, the Merlins finished their second read of Love that Dog. With this, students continued to engage in book club meetings, and discussed what the author believes, and found evidence for their ideas in the book. We also continued to read Pax by Sara Pennypacker during read aloud and visualized the forest views and empathized with the main fox characters. For writing, students received a writer's notebook and wrote haiku and limerick poetry.
Ask your student about the rhythm in a limerick, and see if you can write one together. Some helpful hints can be found in this video that puts limericks to music.
In literacy next week, students will continue to ask what the author believes and apply those ideas to theme, so that we can explore what the theme of Love That Dog is. For writing next week, we will fold alliteration and metaphor into our understanding of poetry by writing odes and animal poems, as well as begin to memorize a poem to recite for the class.
5th Grade Math
Last week in 5th grade math, we engaged in review on rounding decimals and began adding decimal numbers. We engaged in learning multiple strategies for adding decimal numbers including a visual representation on a place value chart as well as the standard algorithm. Next week students will work on subtracting decimal numbers and building strategies for adding and subtracting decimals that are the most efficient (quick and easy) for their personal math style.
Share with your 5th graders some real world examples of when decimals are important!
6th Grade Math
This week 6th grade mathematicians practiced turning ratios into ‘values’ which we all decided look a lot like fractions. We then used that information to simplify ratios with larger number parts. We also realized that when questions use the phrase “for every” instead of “to” in a ratio problem, it’s a clue that the ratio might need to be repeated. We learned how to make ratio tables for problems that require repeated addition, and explored how we could also use multiplication to find larger equivalent ratios. Next week, we will compare ratios using two or more ratio tables, explore double number lines as a way to understand ratios, and then use values of ratios to compare them.
Try it at home! Make a ratio table of a recipe in your home (1 cup sugar for every 3 cups flour) and see how many cups of flour are in a quadruple batch!