From your 5th grade
teachers...
Mrs. Steele:
Our
second full week is complete. Students are building stamina during our Daily 3
rotations in math. We try to rotate through three stations each day: Math with
Teacher, Math with Someone, and Math by Myself. During Math with Teacher, there
are about 5-7 students in each group that get more individualized attention and
we are able to discuss challenging problems. Math with Someone sometimes
involves a math game with one, two, or three others. Math by Myself is usually
the problem set of the day. In our Math by Myself, we will sometimes use
computers, where students will use several online math websites.
Speaking
of computers, students in 5th grade will be issued a computer, just
like a textbook, for their use at Mulberry.
The computer will NOT go home, but will be housed in a cart overnight to
recharge. 5th graders will
need to be very careful when transporting it to and from each of our
classrooms, as well as careful when using them.
All three of us will be pressing upon students the importance of digital
citizenship.
The
past two weeks in math, we’ve learned how to multiply a decimal by 10, 100, and
1000. We are also investigating dividing by 10, 100, and 1000. The “new math”
places much emphasis on understanding why
and how. So, we’ve covered this concept
using the place value chart. Feel free to quiz your child with an example, such
as 4.568 times 10, times 100, times 1000. See if she/he can explain why the
digit 5 in 4.568 moves from the tenths place to another place (value). We’ve
also worked with exponents.
Examples: 4.5 x 102 4.67
x 103 1,000,000 = 106
= 10x10x10x10x10x10
45.6 ¸
102 7895 ¸ 103
We
also perform “Math Sprints.” Sprints are
timed fluency practice. Students are given Sprint A, then we talk about
patterns, mark our correct answers, and then they’re given Sprint B. We compare how well we improved, and
celebrate the improvement. The students
have really enjoyed these!
Similar
to last year, the district’s 5th grade math teachers are only to
grade assessments. I still keep track of daily work, but it won’t be figured
into the overall grade. We haven’t had any assessments yet, but have had 2
practice assignments so far. If a student doesn’t get 100% the first time on a
formal assessment, I pull him/her back to work with me during Math with
Teacher, or during our Intervention time. After 4 times of extra help, if 100%
still isn’t achieved, I will put the final score in the grade book. At any time
throughout the quarter,
if a student wants to raise that score, they can make an appointment with me
before or after school, or during afternoon recess (when I’m not on duty) to do
the exit ticket again. We will also have quizzes that cover multiple concepts
as we progress. It is very rare to score a 4 in math. A “3” means proficient – that’s what we’re
aiming for. A “2” means we’re still a
work in progress, and a “1” means the student is struggling and needs much
help.
Mrs. Day:
In science, we have
been introduced to “systems” (think ecosystems). Students will eventually build a redworm
habitat, and recycling. In ELA, students
have been working diligently to learn their spelling words! They’re also
learning to write different sentence types and short stories.
Mrs. Curry:
We’ve been working on
theme and irony in literature. Students
have also been doing something called “6 minute solutions” where they are
building fluency in reading. Our first FAST (reading measurement test) test is
next week.
Please contact us if
you have questions or concerns.
Mrs.
Steele
Mrs.
Day
Mrs.
Curry
P.S. Please join our Remind text messaging remind
service if you haven’t already.
Text
@mul5 to the number 81010
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