What a busy Week in 5C as we get ready for our Industrial Wax Museum presentations!

Writing: Students are continuing to work on their persuasive essays and will have completed their hooks, introductions, and background information for their essays.  This week we will be moving on to the sections of the essay discussing their figure's invention, social contributions, and the long-term impact this figure had on society.  We are also beginning to write our speech for the Wax Museum, which is next Friday.  Students have been referring to this as their "ditty" and they will begin writing it this week and finalizing it the following.

Social Studies: Students will continue to read their Industrial Revolution text book and will learn the impact that this time period had on society back then and today.  We will have an assessment on the Industrial Revolution on Monday, November 21st, which will cover the terms that we have been discussing and various important figures of that time.  In addition we will be visiting the Pullman neighborhood on Tuesday, Nov. 22nd, so that students can get a better understanding of the effect the Industrial Revolution had on various communities throughout the country.

Language Arts: Everyone should have begun reading a biography, the genre choice for our November "book blurber".  In addition, students are continuing to work with their novel study groups to gain a better understanding of people's lives during the Industrial Revolution and to use the assigned text to work on reading and comprehension strategies. There will be an assessment on the overall comprehension of their novel on Friday. In Grammar, plural and singular nouns are the focus and students will have a spelling test on Friday.

Math: In Math, we have jumped into our unit on finding fraction and percent equivalents. Students are comparing various fractions and figuring out the order of fractions from least to greatest.  The fraction-percent equivalent chart can be located in their Math folder and has the percentages that correlate to a fraction, for example 1/4 = 25%, 1/2 = 50%, etc. Please work with your child and help them learn this chart so that they can get a better grasp of correlating fractions to percents.

Have a wonderful week!

Upcoming dates:

* Thursday, November 10th - Breakfast with Books (Rules)

* Friday, November 11th - Veterans Day Breakfast led by Student Council

* Friday, November 11th - Movie Night - Gnomeo and Juliet

* Friday, November 18th - Industrial Revolution Wax Museum (1:15 - 2:45)

It was so nice seeing everyone at conferences last week and I am so excited that we are back to a regular schedule here at 5C!

Language Arts: Tomorrow we are kicking off our Industrial Revolution novel groups where students will be given one of the following texts, Lyddie by Katherine Paterson, Missing from Haymarket Square by Harriette Robinet, or Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop.  All of these novels show what a great impact the Industrial Revolution had on society as a whole.  I am looking forward to the deep discussions, connections, and analysis the students will be a part of for the next few weeks.  In addition Book Blurbers are due this Friday, and are also on a historical fiction selection.

Math: Students are continuing to work with a partner on plotting landmark numbers on their 10,000 chart.  They are using this chart to better understand the relationship in adding and subtracting larger numbers.

Writing: This week everyone will be choosing one of their short journal entries and will begin the complete writing process.  By the end of next week students will be ready to publish their first long piece, a personal narrative.

Social Studies: Everyone has compiled a list of resources to use for the research of their Wax Museum figure.  This week students will be transferring their research onto a graphic organizer that includes various information from their inventor or activist, such as their social contributions, long-term impact, and biographic information.

Upcoming Important Dates:

October 27th - Author Keir Graf visits Avoca West

October 28th - Orchestra Field Trip to the Chicago Symphony

October 31st - Halloween Parade and Party

October 28th -

Welcome to a week of conferences!  I look forward to meeting all of you and discussing your child's academic progress and goals.

Although this is a short week there is plenty going on in 5C.

Language Arts: This week we are studying vocabulary words beginning with the prefix ab- and ad-.  Students are becoming experts in sorting their words to match the definition and then utilizing them in forming sentences.  In Grammar, we are studying dependent and independent clauses along with simple and complex sentences.  In honor of the author, Jordan Sonnenblick's visit, we are reading Dodger and Me, a story about the adventures of Willie and his imaginary blue chimp friend, Dodger.  Ask you child about the plot of the story and some of the trouble Willie has gotten himself into on account of Dodger. Finally, the students read a short story from our Storytown series titled Line Drive, and worked on detailing the plot events of the story.

Math:  We have begun the 3rd unit in the Investigations series, titled Thousands of Miles, Thousands of Seats.  In the first investigation, students will use place-value relationships and multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000 to add and subtract large numbers.  They will be working with a 10,000 chart which will help them gain a better understanding of computing larger numbers.

Writing:  Students are utilizing their jots to write longer entries in their journal.  This week they will be learning how to take a big idea, "the watermelon", and break it down into "seeds", smaller moments that will bring out more descriptive writing.

Social Studies:  The class will continue to research their Industrial Revolution figure and will be transferring their information to an organizer that helps students practice their note-taking skills.

Looking forward to conferences and a wonderful week!

I am so excited to be up and running with our class blog!  Although we had no school on Monday and a field trip on Thursday we have a very busy week in the classroom.

Language Arts: During Reading , for this and the next few weeks, our focus will be on the skill of identifying the elements of a story, introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.  We will identify these elements in various reading materials, such as our independent reading book, short stories, our historical fiction books, and our read-aloud.  In addition, we are introducing the importance of using visual strategies so that students are better able to create a mental image when reading which helps with increasing comprehension.  In Grammar, we are learning to identify prepositional phrases and how to utilize them in our own writing.

Social Studies: Students are on their way in researching their important figure for the Industrial Revolution Wax Museum.  This week we are finding outside sources so that students can be well prepared to begin the research process.

Writing: In writing workshop, students have been working on where writers get their ideas.  For example they may get inspired to write something from a moment with a special person, or a memorable place, an object they cherish, or a book that they've read.  These brainstorming lessons have helped students write longer journal entries on things that truly matter to them.

Math: This week we are wrapping up our unit on volume.  Students have enjoyed creating different sized paper boxes, which help them discover the volume of these items in relation to height, length, and width.

Science: The scientific method has been our focus, and the importance of coming up with a question so that we can perform an experiment and analyze our data.

IMPORTANT DATES:

October 13 - 7:30 Breakfast With Books - Al Capone Does My Shirts

October 13 - Robert Crown Field Trip

October 19 & 20 - Early Dismissal (11:45) and Parent Conferences

October 21 - No School - Institute Day