Math
Unit 7: Exploring Parks and Playgrounds – Multiplying and Dividing Fractions
Soon we will be starting our second context unit, “Exploring Parks and Playgrounds”, which extends the students’ experience with multiplication and division of fractions. Students are working with partners to solve challenging word problems. After creating a poster with their partner that shows how they solved the problem, we have a Math Congress. During the congress, students share their strategies and ask questions about each other’s work. It’s quite exciting to see the many different ways that students can solve the same problem – what a great way to learn from one another!
We also continue to emphasize the math practices (habits) are throughout this unit. For example, when students find that the first strategy they tried does not work, they must persevere and try another strategy. In addition, because all rational numbers can have multiple interpretations, students must make sense of numbers by precisely identifying the unit. Students are consistently reasoning and explaining their work and thinking to their partners as well as the whole class. As the unit progresses, students should start to notice how strategies from one problem can be used in the next. We take time at the end of every class to reflect on which math practices were demonstrated each day.
Math Practices:
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Attend to precision.
Reason and explain my thinking.
Model my thinking and effectively use tools.
Use what I already know to help solve new problems.
Writing
Unit 3: Research-Based Argument Essays
Arguing (in the appropriate context) is an essential skill – we all need to have the ability to weigh conflicting views and decide thoughtfully on our own position. Then, we need to articulate that position in a way that is convincing to others. This is precisely what the fifth graders will be doing in the argumentative writing unit.
Our mentor topic: Should chocolate milk be served in school cafeterias?
After completing some initial research and notetaking on a variety of issues, students chose their claim (position) and supports, then used evidence from their research to support their argument. We’ve since taken a closer look at the evidence used and started to revise by considering questions such as these: Have I used the best possible evidence? Did I explain/analyze the evidence for the reader? In which order should I write my evidence? Can I use quotations from experts as a type of evidence? Writers are also refining their arguments even more by including counterclaims and rebuttals. This means they’ll need to consider what someone taking the opposite position might argue.
Throughout the unit, we’ve also been connecting argumentative writing skills to those used in narrative and informational writing. For example, as with other genres, argumentative writing needs an introduction that gets the reader’s attention and previews what will be written. Conclusions need to wrap up the writing and leave the reader with something to think about.
Be warned, your child may come home with an improved knack for arguing after this unit!
Series of Writing Units Throughout the Year:
Narrative Writing
Literary Essay
Nonfiction Writing
Fantasy Craft
Opinion/Argument Craft
Reading
Unit 3: Fantasy Book Clubs
Fantasy novels teach kids to be better readers. Because of their exciting plots and young heroes, these novels make children want to read. Fantasy novels also teach readers to deal with complexity through complicated characters, multiple plotlines, shifting timelines, and symbolism. This unit aims to help create lifelong readers of the fifth graders. It is also meant to instill an eagerness in the fifth graders to tackle more complex texts by giving them the tools to be able to do so, both now and in the future. As with interpretation book clubs at the beginning of the year, a large part of this unit will focus on discovering the theme, or lesson, in fantasy books. Students will ask themselves, “What does the author what me to learn from this book?” and “What techniques did the author use bring out this lesson?”
A large part of this unit will also focus on students having literary conversations with their book clubs. Students are expected to be prepared for their book club meetings by completing the self-assigned reading each night and preparing thoughtful responses to their reading.
Series of Reading Units Throughout the Year:
Interpretation Book Clubs
Argument and Advocacy
Nonfiction Reading
Fantasy Book Clubs
Author Study
Science
Unit 2: Keeping Track of Matter
In this unit, students investigate how matter has weight, takes up space, and can be too small to see as they investigate phase change and transformation of water as it freezes, melts, evaporates, and condenses. Students measure weight of matter as evidence matter is conserved through transformations, both at the macroscopic and microscopic level.
The students will work to answer the following questions:
What makes up matter?
What happens to the weight and volume when water evaporates, condenses, freezes or melts?
How can something that is invisible be matter?
Social Studies
Unit 3: Development of the 13 English Colonies
In this unit students will learn about the goals of English settlements and what factors impacted their success or failure. They will also learn about the groups and leaders responsible for founding the 13 colonies and how regional differences in the colonies shaped the economics. Finally, students will learn what happened when English colonists and Native American cultures interacted.
Important Words: colony, Pilgrims, Puritans, Separatists, settlement, trade
Unit 7: Exploring Parks and Playgrounds – Multiplying and Dividing Fractions
Soon we will be starting our second context unit, “Exploring Parks and Playgrounds”, which extends the students’ experience with multiplication and division of fractions. Students are working with partners to solve challenging word problems. After creating a poster with their partner that shows how they solved the problem, we have a Math Congress. During the congress, students share their strategies and ask questions about each other’s work. It’s quite exciting to see the many different ways that students can solve the same problem – what a great way to learn from one another!
We also continue to emphasize the math practices (habits) are throughout this unit. For example, when students find that the first strategy they tried does not work, they must persevere and try another strategy. In addition, because all rational numbers can have multiple interpretations, students must make sense of numbers by precisely identifying the unit. Students are consistently reasoning and explaining their work and thinking to their partners as well as the whole class. As the unit progresses, students should start to notice how strategies from one problem can be used in the next. We take time at the end of every class to reflect on which math practices were demonstrated each day.
Math Practices:
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Attend to precision.
Reason and explain my thinking.
Model my thinking and effectively use tools.
Use what I already know to help solve new problems.
Writing
Unit 3: Research-Based Argument Essays
Arguing (in the appropriate context) is an essential skill – we all need to have the ability to weigh conflicting views and decide thoughtfully on our own position. Then, we need to articulate that position in a way that is convincing to others. This is precisely what the fifth graders will be doing in the argumentative writing unit.
Our mentor topic: Should chocolate milk be served in school cafeterias?
After completing some initial research and notetaking on a variety of issues, students chose their claim (position) and supports, then used evidence from their research to support their argument. We’ve since taken a closer look at the evidence used and started to revise by considering questions such as these: Have I used the best possible evidence? Did I explain/analyze the evidence for the reader? In which order should I write my evidence? Can I use quotations from experts as a type of evidence? Writers are also refining their arguments even more by including counterclaims and rebuttals. This means they’ll need to consider what someone taking the opposite position might argue.
Throughout the unit, we’ve also been connecting argumentative writing skills to those used in narrative and informational writing. For example, as with other genres, argumentative writing needs an introduction that gets the reader’s attention and previews what will be written. Conclusions need to wrap up the writing and leave the reader with something to think about.
Be warned, your child may come home with an improved knack for arguing after this unit!
Series of Writing Units Throughout the Year:
Narrative Writing
Literary Essay
Nonfiction Writing
Fantasy Craft
Opinion/Argument Craft
Reading
Unit 3: Fantasy Book Clubs
Fantasy novels teach kids to be better readers. Because of their exciting plots and young heroes, these novels make children want to read. Fantasy novels also teach readers to deal with complexity through complicated characters, multiple plotlines, shifting timelines, and symbolism. This unit aims to help create lifelong readers of the fifth graders. It is also meant to instill an eagerness in the fifth graders to tackle more complex texts by giving them the tools to be able to do so, both now and in the future. As with interpretation book clubs at the beginning of the year, a large part of this unit will focus on discovering the theme, or lesson, in fantasy books. Students will ask themselves, “What does the author what me to learn from this book?” and “What techniques did the author use bring out this lesson?”
A large part of this unit will also focus on students having literary conversations with their book clubs. Students are expected to be prepared for their book club meetings by completing the self-assigned reading each night and preparing thoughtful responses to their reading.
Series of Reading Units Throughout the Year:
Interpretation Book Clubs
Argument and Advocacy
Nonfiction Reading
Fantasy Book Clubs
Author Study
Science
Unit 2: Keeping Track of Matter
In this unit, students investigate how matter has weight, takes up space, and can be too small to see as they investigate phase change and transformation of water as it freezes, melts, evaporates, and condenses. Students measure weight of matter as evidence matter is conserved through transformations, both at the macroscopic and microscopic level.
The students will work to answer the following questions:
What makes up matter?
What happens to the weight and volume when water evaporates, condenses, freezes or melts?
How can something that is invisible be matter?
Social Studies
Unit 3: Development of the 13 English Colonies
In this unit students will learn about the goals of English settlements and what factors impacted their success or failure. They will also learn about the groups and leaders responsible for founding the 13 colonies and how regional differences in the colonies shaped the economics. Finally, students will learn what happened when English colonists and Native American cultures interacted.
Important Words: colony, Pilgrims, Puritans, Separatists, settlement, trade