January 31, 2018 Newsletter

Daily 5/CAFE: This week students will complete the menu entitled: “Fantasy Texts”. Students will analyze chapters and add a new chapter to their fantasy text.  They will also read a poem and determine the theme of the poem and how the speaker reflects upon the topic.

Writing: Students are working on their drafts of their fantasy stories.  They are using dialogue, description, and pacing to show the responses of their characters to situations in their stories.

Math: We are continuing to work our fraction unit. Students are learning to interpret a fraction as division of the numerator by the denominator (a/b = a ÷ b) also solving word problems involving division of whole numbers leading to answers in the form of fractions or mixed numbers, e.g., by using visual fraction models or equations to represent the problem. The students are also adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators (including mixed numbers) by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions in such a way as to produce an equivalent sum or difference of fractions with like denominators. For example, 2/3 + 5/4 = 8/12 15/12 = 23/12. (In general, a/b c/d = (ad bc)/bd.) Next week we will be moving into multiplying fractions by whole numbers and fractions by fractions.

Science:  Students are learning about 7 body systems over the next week. They are working on our Human Body web quest. Students are becoming experts on a body system and finding out the important organs and functions of the system, how it works with other systems and what steps they can take to keep their system healthy. They were, also given a study guide last week over this unit. It is due Wed. January 31st.  We will be reviewing the material in class and the Human Body assessment will be Friday, Feb. 2nd. 

*Information about the Human Growth and Development part of this unit will be going home via email, next week.