May 30th Homework

Grade 5s, this week you have been working through the writing process by developing the protagonist in your fantasy story. Please login to Khan Academy and search for Pixar in a Box. From there, go to The Art of Storytelling. Here you will find all of the video lessons and activities that we've been working through.

Tonight for homework, you need to start lesson #3: Story Structure. Please watch the videos: Introduction to Structure, Story Spine, and Theme. Also, please complete Activities 1 and 2 that correspond with the videos. Put all of your writing/ideas in your writer's notebook.

STUDENT SAMPLE: BOOK REVIEW POST

I recently read the realistic fiction book Wonder by Raquel.J.Palacio. Wonder is about a kid named August who was born with ‘facial issues.’ Because of this, Auggie has not yet gone to school, that is, until now. Auggie will be starting school in the 5th grade at Beecher Prep. And for those of you that have been the new kid, you know it’s hard! But with Auggie's ‘issues’, it is going to be really tough. Not only does he have to deal with normal middle school drama, he also has to deal with everyone’s reactions to his appearance. The thing is, Auggie is just an ordinary kid, but with an extraordinary face. Can his classmates look beyond his appearance? Will they ever truly accept him? Read to find out how Auggie’s journey unfolds.

Published on February 14th, 2012

Wonder was written by R.J. Palacio. She was born in Queens, New York but now lives in NYC with her husband, two boys and two dogs. R.J. always wanted to write novels. And one day, in front of an ice cream shop, she saw a boy with an extraordinary face who became her inspiration for the main character in Wonder. From that moment on, she started writing the book.

Because this book is realistic fiction, everything that R.J. writes can actually happen. I really like her style of writing because she writes in a way that every sentence is engaging and emotional; the book is a real page turner. This is a warm, uplifting story that will have you laughing one minute and wiping tears away the next. Additionally, R.J. also tells the story through the point of view of 7 different characters, including the Julian chapter. I think this is not only creative but also interesting to read.

I think Wonder is worth reading because it is a story which you read to understand the world a little better, and I think it gives you a better sense of middle school. Wonder pushes its readers to become more compassionate, empathetic, and accepting of differences.  I recommend this book to anyone who loved Mockingbird, The One and Only Ivan, or Stargirl, because these books all follow similar themes.

Overall, with its realistic family interactions, interesting school scenes, and short chapters, Wonder is accessible to all readers 8 years old and up. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Math Assessment on Thursday - Study Guide @Sanchez and Kitto´s classes

Grade 5 students are working on pages 411 and 320 on their math journals as a study guide for their last math assessment this Thursday. Make sure you write down all possible questions and doubts so we can solve them tomorrow during class time.




Want to extend your learning?

• Review pages 340, 417, 374, 388.
• Multiply decimals 1 (practice) | Decimals | Khan Academy
• Area challenge (practice) | Khan Academy
• Points on the coordinate plane (practice) | Khan Academy
• Volume with fractions (practice) | Khan Academy
• Volumes of cylinders (practice) | Khan Academy

Fantasy Writing in Ms. Patrick's

This week, grade 5s will begin the process of writing a fantasy story. Writers will spend time thinking of characters, settings, and problems that fantasy stories include and will then make thoughtful choices to piece them together. Writers will want to try some of the craft ideas they read in fantasy stories such as fantastical worlds and magical objects or non-human characters. This is our final unit in humanities class! Over the next three weeks, writers will draft both handwritten pieces as well as pieces using appropriate technology.

To kickoff the brainstorming process, grade 5s will go through a series of lessons from Pixar storytellers. After each video lesson, students will be guided through an activity that will help them to develop their characters, settings, and structure. Please click on the link to see what your child has been working on...

The Art of Storytelling - Pixar

Learning about Volume!

Experience life in 3-D! 
Students are leaning what a prism is, what shape the sides are, and how prisms are named. They are finding out about several types of prisms that they’re probably already familiar with, and explore the formula for the volume of a prism and a cylinder after working through a few sample hands-on problems with various types of prisms. 

• Volume with unit cubes 1 (practice) | Khan Academy
• Volume 1 (practice) | Khan Academy
• mj 324, 325, 325A, 325B

• Volume with fractions (practice) | Khan Academy
• mj327, 328, 329,

• Volume word problems: fractions & decimals (practice) | Khan ...
• mj334A,334B, 386,387

Our Math Candy Store Update!

Grade Five has been busy learning all about Area!
Your child can teach you the basics of geometry, the branch of math that’ll help you do just that! 

We have reviewed the difference between a point and a line, what two-dimensional figures are, and what it means for an object to have length, width, and depth. 
Finally, students reviewed some of the basic physical tools we can use to measure things like angles.
on the following MJ pages: 

Students can also play Pyramid Panic or Sortify, and watch this sort video.

Interested on extending your learning?

• Circle basics
• Area and circumference of circles
• Area of trapezoids & composite figures
• Area of triangles
• Perimeter
• Area of rectangles

Language Arts Centers

Today we started centers in Language Arts class. Please refer to these videos at home to help support you during in-class work time.

Username: graded2
Password: graded

BrainPop - Roots, Prefixes, & Suffixes

 

BrainPop - Antonyms, Synonyms, & Homophones

BrainPop - Etymology

BrainPop - Idioms

Analogies are like puzzles! So, how do you do an analogy problem? Watch the video to find out...

You're Invited...

* If there is unpleasant weather, the family movie night will take place in the Black Box theater.

5th Grade STEAM Fair

After five weeks of learning about Model and Design our Fifth graders were able to present their work at our Fifth Grade STEAM Fair.  I was thoroughly impressed by students' enthusiasm about STEAM, along with their articulate ways of explaining their problem, process, thinking, and ingenuity over the course of the project. It's wonderful to see how they cultivated their passion in Science and beyond, as well as tapping into their personal interests.

Thank you for your dedication and patience working with your child at home.  Please take some time to look at the STEAM Fair Pictures.

Candy Store Project

On Friday Grade 5 launched the Candy Store Project that will cover the last math unit for this year.

Grade 5 students are now choosing a theme and  name for their candy store. After that, they get to choose what candy to put in it! They will add candy displays to their store using the dimensions and requirements given.

During this sweet project, kids will practice graphing points on a coordinate plane, fractions, decimal operations and develop geometry skills.

Below is the criteria for the the first part of the project.

LS Grade 5 Math Candy Shop Sign Rubric

Directions for the sign of the Candy Shop. This is an individual part of the project and students will have plenty of time to work on it during class time, however they could need extra time at home to finish it. Please, use the assignments planner to manage your time wisely.
Store sign:
Whether it's jelly beans, chocolate or bubblegum, people young and old, in large metropolitan cities and small rural areas enjoy eating candy. Candy stores are a business that can be run in many ways, and it is a feasible venture to start for both new and experienced entrepreneurs. Running a candy store can be exciting and profitable, but to be successful, you must carefully plan the launch and growth of your business. Once you have selected a theme for your candy store business with your team, (for instance, you can specialize in selling organic candy, gourmet chocolates, homemade confections, or old-fashioned and nostalgic candies.), you are going to design the store sign. Each candy store will have as many signs as team members. Have in mind that good retail signage tells customers what or why they are looking at a selection of merchandise. A great store sign has to capture the customer’s interest enough to read it; just like a great email subject line gets someone to open it, a great headline in a newspaper gets someone to read it or a great magazine cover makes someone buy it. Here is your rubric to create a compelling retail signage
Be short and to the point. Customers are in hurry; respect that.
Make sure the fonts you use are easy to read. Clear font characters - without curly-cues and multiple colors - let the customer’s attention first gravitate to your message and then to your product. If customers can’t quickly read it (see above), they’ll move on.
State the customers’ reasons for buying your product or service. What is the customer buying this for? To be a hero to his son? To look fabulous for a date? To have easy-to-manage hair? Then tell them, “Be a hero tonight with this.” “Make heads turn!” “Manage curly hair with this.”
Less is still more.A recent article in the Wall Street Journal said people were shortening text messages down to a of couple words, a couple of initials, or a single emoticon. We are all getting used to short, succinct messages.
Test your sign. Ask a friend to tell you what your sign is about. If they can’t get it - edit, edit,edit.
Have fun. Boring signs are, well, boring. Remember, your goal is to grab a casual buyer's attention. Use color.
Your sign should be presented as a triangle on a 8 1/2 x 14 plotted in graphing paper - provided at school - showing the ordered pairs
The area of the triangle must be at least 13 square in and no more than 130 square cm.

F&P Reading Levels

Many parents know their child's reading level, but few know what that reading level actually means. Today's blog post will give you a better understanding about the levels and its grade-level equivalent. 

Fountas & Pinnell created a text leveling system that ranges from A-Z, with A being the easiest, to Z, being the most difficult text. You can search for the reading level of your favorite book using the website: Scholastic's Book Wizard

Your child was given his/her most recent independent reading level. Please talk to them about their reading level, search for appropriately leveled books, and read together as a family. 

The F&P grade level equivalent will show you if your child is reading at the 5th grade level. At this point in the school year, a level V means your child is meeting grade level expectations for reading. Anything above a V exceeds grade level expectations, and anything below V is not yet meeting grade level expectations. 

Puberty Lessons in Counseling

Dear Parents,

Puberty is an important, exciting, and inevitable phase that everyone goes though. It is the transition between child and adulthood. It is a time of many changes - both physically and emotionally. It is also a period filled with new challenges.

Starting next week the 5th grade students will be learning about the physical, social and emotional changes related to puberty. We will also discuss other topics such as personal hygiene, healthy habits (nutrition, rest and exercise) and peer pressure.

Boys and girls will be covering the puberty curriculum in their counseling classes. They will be learning the material in small groups divided by sex. The material covered will be developmentally appropriate for their age level.  The people facilitating these lessons will be either Ms. Beckley, Mr. Boisjoli, Ms. Bobbie, or Ms. Heidi.

For an overview of some topics that might be discussed in class, please click on the links to access the girls’ and boys’ booklets.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this issue or would like to know more information about the material that will be covered in class, please contact me via email, heidi.pierce@graded.br or phone, 3747-4800, Ext. 429.

Sincerely,

Heidi Pierce

Lower School Counselor

Fantasy Reading Unit

In our new reading unit, grade 5s will become deeply immersed in the fantasy genre and further develop higher level thinking skills to study how authors develop characters and themes over time. This week, students will read analytically as they consider how authors begin a book by establishing the setting as both a physical and a psychological place.

 

Grade 5s will also learn to think metaphorically as well as analytically, and I will teach them how to explore the quests and themes within and across their novels.

 


Later in the unit, students will focus on dealing with the challenges that harder novels pose. Kids will work on their habits as readers—going outside the book to build knowledge, or studying how authors introduce hard words, and using strategies to learn new vocabulary as they read. In addition, readers investigate fantasy as a literary tradition and study how the thinking developed through reading fantasy novels will apply to other genres.


You can support your child at home by talking with them about their novel each night. Grade 5s should also be writing about their reading for homework, so please check their reading journal throughout the week. In case of an absence, grade 5s can catch up with missing work by contacting other book club members/friends and by using the Fantasy Reading Google Slideshow.

A Special Guest Architect-Mr. Stark!

This week Grade Five had a special treat! Mr. Stark, Rome’s father came to talk the entire grade about his life as an architect, his passion, and how he uses his  skills to make the world a better place. He also presented the shopping mall he designed here in Sao Paulo, where the final product ended up exactly the way he imagined it.  

He showed us a powerpoint that documented his experiences and how he included his passion and incorporated into his projects. He highlighted many of the important skills that we will be using during our Model and Design unit.  

Some of them were :

• Include feedback from others
• Manage your time
• Problem solve often
• Try to preserve nature

Here are some reflections from the students:

"It was interesting that it took three days to build something so great."Joao L.

"It was so cool seeing all that he designed."Rachel

"Every one can be inspired even if they don't succeed." Luca

"He inspired me to follow my dreams."Tommy

"He is so passionate moving from place to place doing what he loves."Lucia

"Everyday day is a new chance to succeed."Victor

Kitto & Patrick: Fantasy Reading Book Series

Earth Day 2017!

EARTH DAY IS APRIL 22, 2017

On the  6th of April the students in the High School will be hosting a special event after school for 4th and 5th graders in preparation for Earth Day. During the event, children will be participating in activities with recycled materials (such as empty toilet rolls, recycled paper, cans, etc) to make their own artistic trees. The children would be expected to then decorate the trees and write possible solutions on them as a way to raise awareness about issues such as environmental pollution, deforestation, global warming and the endangerment of the world's flora and fauna. Students are encouraged to participate in this activity to learn more about Earth Day and the environment in  a creative and collaborative manner.

The activity would last from 3:15 to 5pm (at the latest) on the 6th of April and will be held in the Lower School Courtyard. If needed, students will be able to take the 4:15pm bus (please ensure you arrange with the transportation department). Otherwise, they are able to stay until 5 pm but must have personal transportation arranged in order to be picked up from school.

If you would like your child to participate in this activity, please ask your teacher for a permission slip. Please return this form to your child's homeroom teacher by April 4th.

Model and Design Unit

Our class is beginning a new science unit using their FOSS Models and Design Unit. We will assume the roles of scientists as we try to figure out what hidden systems look like and how they work. We have an interesting and exciting couple of months ahead!

To prepare for this your child was given the opportunity to use their imagination and passion to brainstorm ideas they would like to design.  

After we tackle models and expand our points of view and ways of thinking about systems, we will become engineers who design and create products. We will be designing and building carts from sticks, paper clips, wine, rubber bands and the like. With each passing investigation students face more demanding engineering challenges, and I expect to see a lot of creativity.

Stay tuned for the weekly Blog posts that include deadlines, rubrics and expectations.

Grade 5 Retreat Day

Growth Mindset: Ms.Kitto's Retreat Day Video

On our retreat day, Ms.Kitto shared a video that prompted a lot of discussion, thinking and reflection on how we talk to ourselves and believe in what we are capable of accomplishing.

By request of several students I'd like to share the video with you to spark discussion at home.

Check out these great ideas to coach a growth mindset. They can be used at home, in the classroom or anywhere! 

Credit goes to @growthmindset 

Share in the comments your ideas on how you use growth mindset to push yourselves further and believe in yourself. Show your parents and ask them to comment their experiences with "fixed mindset" and "growth mindset".

Government Unit

Grade 5s, you will begin a new unit in humanities class on Wednesday - Government!

After this unit, you will understand:

• People in all countries are interdependent
• Nations must cooperate with each other
• Different peoples and countries have different problems to solve
• Governments have developed differently in different parts of the world

You will also be able to discuss these questions:

• What purpose do governments serve?
• Where did we get our ideas about government?
• How do citizens influence the government?
• How do governments balance the rights of the individual vs the rights of the common good?