Week of September 12-16

Happy Monday!  This week we are wrapping up a few units and beginning some new topics of learning and discussion.  It should be a fun and busy week!

Release Form:  As many of you know, I am working hard this year to earn my National Board Certification.  Today I sent home a student release form asking your permission to videotape your child during lessons I plan to use for my for this process, which requires that the teacher videotape and analyze her teaching.  If you don’t mind allowing me to tape your child for this, please return the form to school as soon as possible.  I would like to record my first lesson this Thursday. 

Math Facts:  On an important note, I’ve been noticing during math class that the kids really need a lot of practice with their math facts.  We’ve had isolated multiplication facts tests so far over the 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s.  The 2’s, 3’s and 5’s were unannounced because I wanted to see if they knew them already.  On each of these tests I’ve had kids who demonstrated a need for further practice.  Thus, this week we are taking a break rather than plowing forward with 6’s and just doing retakes of 2’s and 3’s.  

Please encourage your child to learn his/her math facts.  You can quiz them orally in the car, over dinner, in the morning or they can get on the computer and practice on fun websites like www,funbrain.com.  I’ve even suggested to the kids that they call each other and quiz one another to practice.  Learning these facts is so important and helpful to them in 5^th grade because we do a LOT of work which requires the kids to find factors of numbers such as tonight’s homework over prime factorization.   Any support you can offer in helping your child learn their multiplication facts through the 12’s will be greatly appreciated!

PhotoStories:  Today I told the kids they will be making PhotoStories soon using the autobiography they are going to be writing.  Soon they will come home asking for help putting photos on a jump drive or CD because we will be using these photos to combine with their written autobiography and make a PhotoStory.  If you do not have photos on your computer, that is totally fine too.  We can allow the kids to use pictures from the Internet to represent important events.

Upcoming Tests:

Math Test over Number Theory on Thursday, 9/16

Retake over 2’s and 3’s multiplication facts

This week we are learning…

Social Studies:  We will be finishing up glogs over the U.S. regions and presenting, as well as beginning a new unit over the first Native Americans.  Check back later this week to see your student’s finished U.S. region glog!  I will be linking them to the blog.

Math:  Prime factorization including factor trees, factor strings, and writing the prime factorization of a number using exponents.  A review sheet will come home Tuesday to help your child study. 

Word Study:  The parts of a sentence and what makes a good sentence will be our focus this week.

Writing:  We are starting autobiographies this week. 

Reading:  This week we will go over the thinking strategies of visualizing and synthesizing and review all of the thinking strategies that we can use to improve our reading comprehension.