Ms. Quesenberry - Over the Rainbow

Next Week: January 30-February 3

We had a great 5 day week!  It was nice to be back in our normal weekly routine!  We are looking forward to doing it again next week! Don't forget to send in a signed permission slip and payment for the Chattanooga field trip if you have not yet.  We need to make sure we have enough funds for an upcoming bus deposit.  

Writing:Poetry Cafe is Wednesday, February 1st!  Family is welcome to attend.  We are very excited to perform a variety of different poems for an audience.  We will be moving back to informational writing after poetry.  We will start with an informational piece related to our Social Studies: What caused the Dust Bowl?

Reading: Along with informational writing we will be doing some informational reading on the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.  We will also start the novel The Art of Keeping Cool.  This is a realistic fiction chapter book. 

Math: We are continuing operations with fractions.  Students are building confidence with fractions and we will be continuing this while looking at some word problems and math constructed responses. 

Social Studies: Along with our reading and writing, we will begin studying the Great Depression and the 1930s.  

Poetry Cafe

Constructive and Destructive Study Guide

Students will get a copy of this study guide on Monday, but I wanted to go ahead an share it on the blog.  Our assessment will be Friday, January 27th. 

Here is the guide:  Download Constructive and Destructive study guide

And here are a few online games that you can use for practice at home:

 

A jeopardy review game (this one goes into a little more detail about volcanoes and earthquakes, but there are still some great review questions):

Jeopardy

This is an interactive website that allows students to experiment with constructive and destructive forces:

Interactive Review

This is a prezi (kind of like an interactive powerpoint) created by a teacher that has good review information:

Prezi

Hope you are all enjoying your rainy Saturday!

 

 

Next Week: January 23

Reminder:  We are still collecting money for our Chattanooga field trip March 30th.  We have a deposit due soon for the buses. If you have not paid in full, please start making payments at this time to ensure that the fifth grade will be able to take this field trip.  Let us know if you have any questions about this trip or payment.  

Next week we will finally be back to a full five day week!  Make sure everyone rests up this weekend and gets to bed early Sunday night to prepare for a full week of learning!

Writing: We will continue to study different types of poetry.  We will be looking at concrete poems, limericks, haikus, and narrative poems.  Students will also start picking a favorite piece to prepare for our poetry cafe at the end of the unit. 

Reading: We will also continue reading poetry to study theme, figurative language, and look at author's purpose.  We will be looking at some poems by Robert Frost and Maya Angelou!  Your students are becoming really strong analyzers as we look at word choice, imagery, and hidden metaphors!

Math: Next week we will continue operations with fractions.  Students are building their confidence in adding and subtracting fractions as well as converting improper fractions to mixed numbers AND mixed numbers to improper fractions.  Next week we will start looking at multiplying and dividing fractions as well.

Science:  This week we have had a lot of fun kicking off constructive and destructive forces.  Students did an experiment with milky ways to look at the way the Earth's plates move to create mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes.  Next week we will look at the role humans have had on our changing Earth through things like levees and dams.  Look out for a study guide to go home early next week! 

Next Week: January 17-20

We have made it through a 2 day week and a 3 day week...now we are ready for a 4 day week!  I hope everyone enjoys the 3 day weekend and takes time to reflect on the contributions of Martin Luther King Jr.  We will be reading through his I Have a Dream speech in reading next week!

Writing- We are going to continue studying some "mentor poems" and looking at techniques that poets use to add figurative language and imagery to their works.  We will practice rewriting some poems at the beginning of the week and end the week by trying sonnets and ballads.

Reading- As we are writing poetry, we will also be reading it!  We are going to do some close reading of Langston Hughes's poems. We study his contributions to the Harlem Renaissance in Social Studies as well.   

Math- We have started working with fractions.  We will be looking at converting mixed numbers to improper fractions and improper fractions to mixed numbers.  We will also work with equivalent fractions and finding common denominators as we get ready for adding and subtracting fractions.  

Social studies and science- At the beginning of the week we will wrap up World War I and the Roaring 20s.  This unit has been split up between breaks so we will not have a summative assessment on this topic. We have had several formative checks along the way.  On Thursday, we will kick off our next science topic: Constructive and destructive forces.  

Friday is hat day if your student would like to participate!

Let us know if you have any questions.  Thank you for your continued support!

Back to routine

Well, last week was a 2 day week, this week will be a 3 day week and next week will be a 4 day week!  We are definitely easing back into routine.  Because of the shortened week we will be postponing our Mentor Sentence in Grammar until next week and pushing our Math Test back until tomorrow (Thursday, January 12th).  

However, we will go ahead and get back into the routine of weekly homework and vocabulary.  The words for this week are: alliance, trench, Lusitania, submarine, neutral, treaty, assembly line, Jazz Age, and Harlem Renaissance.  These words are all based on our World War I and Roaring 20's unit that we started in December so they should be familiar to students.  

We are kicking off our poetry unit today. I have my beret on and it should be a great day back at school!  Let us know if you have any questions or concerns.  Thank you! 

Second Half of the Year

I hope everyone had a great break!  My time off was very restful AND productive.  Teachers are back at word today and I have just finished sketching out a general plan for the rest of the year.  Wow!  We are going to be busy!  Quarter 3 is going to cover so many standards from poetry to informational responses, Plant and Animal classification, and we will travel in history from World War 1 through World War 2.  This Thursday and Friday back we will be reviewing procedures and expectations, setting New Years Resolutions to finish the year strong, building back reading stamina, reviewing in math to get ready for some new standards, and diving into World War 1.  

For our first full week back (January 9th) we will start our regular homework again.  This will be vocabulary and math just like before.  Don't forget to record your reading time on your Six Flags Reading Log! This will be due back February 17th.  

We are looking forward to a wonderful 2017 and a great rest of fifth grade.  As always, don't hesitate to ask us any questions or let us know of any concerns.  Tell your students we will see them tomorrow bright and early!