Week 18!

Another busy week has come and gone in 5L.  We worked really hard all week and I was so impressed with the level of thinking and hard work I saw.  Check out some of the happenings below:

*Math:

• students took a pre-assessment covering all topics for our new fraction review unit 
• pre-assessments were sent home to show you what topics your child could use extra practice with at home (these do not count towards their math grade)
• this week we learned about fractions as division, improper fractions, mixed fractions and how to convert a fraction into simplest form

*Literacy:

• we began our final bend of research report writing this week by choosing to zoom in on a topic we were already writing about, or choosing something more interesting for readers
• brainstormed subtopics, wrote mission statements focused on text structure and intended audiences as well as worked on reading more complex texts
• we spent a great deal of time talking about what good researches do, and ways to chunk, re-read and understand difficult texts

*New Years Resolutions: students worked on an art project centered around some of their goals for the upcoming year.  Ask your child what some of their resolutions were!

*Social Studies: we will begin learning about colonization next week.

*Important Information: there have been a few changes in 5L as we begin the second half of the year and prepare for middle school demands.

1. Math homework completion now counts towards 10% of final math grades.  If your child forgets to hand in their homework, it will affect their grade.  
2. Expectations on transitioning and behavior have been raised.  If your child is not prepared for a lesson, is off task, talking when I'm teaching or transitioning slowly, they will lose part of their recess.  
3. For each new math unit, I will now send home pre-assessments.  These will show you what new material your child will be learning in our upcoming unit, as well as give you a pulse on which areas they could use extra practice with.  Oftentimes, the scores on a pre-assessment are very, very low.  This is normal, material has not been taught yet!  However, pre-assessments give us an insight as to which topics your child might already have mastered and which ones they could use extra help.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs. Loh