How is it the end of February already?!

 Hey Families,

No shortage of things going on here at school despite the unexpected days off due to weather and such. Here are some of the highlights. 

Audubon Trip

We recently went for our Winter trip to the Audubon and learned about animal tracking. Encourage your child to be on the lookout for prints in the snow and ask them does it look like a walker, bounder, or waddler. 

Spelling Bee

We had our team spelling bee which determined who Wizards would send to the school bee. Emmy and Jacob were our team winners with Mac as an alternate. Emmy placed 4th in the school bee!!! An impressive feat for a 5th grader! 

Team Time

We try to dedicate about 30 minutes most Friday afternoons for Team Time where we have fun together and work on team building. This past Friday Mother Nature threw us sunshine and packable snow so we did our Snow Sculpture "contest."  Ask your child what their team created.

Language Arts

Last month we did a focus on homophones through a daily joke. This was a fun and quick way to review words that sound alike but that are spelled differently and have different meanings. Hopefully, your child came home and shared them. (At least I encouraged them to share the jokes with you each day.) During WIN they played homophone matching games as well. 

Currently, we are doing a read-aloud of The Benefits of Being an Octopus.   We are focusing on many reading and writing skills during this novel study. Students are practicing their ability to make a claim and defend it with relevant evidence from the text. (This skill is used both in our discussions and when they are doing writing assignments.)  We are very much focusing on character development. 

We also use Signposts to help us think more deeply about the novel as we read. Signposts help the reader "watch out" for clues about characters, conflicts, themes, etc.   The kids are doing SO MUCH BETTER at inferencing AND finding relevant evidence now because of our work with this novel! 

We are also using Plot Mountain to chart the course of the novel.  They will have a better understanding of plot in general and what each part means.  

I almost forgot! We are reading The Benefits of Being an Octopus not only because it's an excellent instructional novel but also because the author Ann Braden will be coming to CBMS in March for an in-person author visit!! 

Social Studies

The students in SS with Mrs. Michael are working on Map Skills.  Each day they are sent on top-secret "missions" to learn more about reading maps.  If you want to know more you'll have to ask them about their classified missions.:) 

Math

In this unit, students find the product of two fractions, divide a whole number by a unit fraction, and divide a unit fraction by a whole number.  We use models to build conceptual understanding before we look for patterns that help us to generalize patterns that lead to an algorithm.  

In the pictures below, students designed a mosaic with fractional side length that they then had calculate the area and the cost.

Science

Our second science unit explores how Mt. Everest is both increasing in height and moving northwest each year.  Students are exploring data, modeling to explain, and are learning the difference between cause and correlation.