Tomorrow (Wednesday), the students will be presenting their ELA Allegory projects.  We will take both ELA and Math periods to present them. They have worked hard on their projects and get to share their work with their peers. If we have additional math, we will play fun math games to celebrate all that we have learned.

 

It has been a pleasure teaching your students ELA and Math.  I am so excited to see them move onto 6th grade.  Have a wonderful summer!

 

 

This week we will be having a few special days. Monday 5/11 is our Health Day all day.  5/6 students will be rotating through teacher led stations throughout the day.  Science is the theme. There will be a variety of activities planned and students will be separated into grade groups (boys and girls) for the health day.

 

Tuesday, May 12, we will be going on our field trip to Majestic Nature Center.  Students will need to bring a sack lunch. We will be out most of the day, returning to campus around 2pm.  Students should be wearing comfortable shoes appropriate for lots of walking.  Students should be prepared for a day outside and bring a water bottle.

 

In ELA, we will be working on writing argumentative essays, finishing up Module 10 in HMH, and doing DIBELS reading testing this week.

 

In Math, students will continue working in Chapter 8 on fractions.  Students are learning to simplify and reduce fractions.  

We will begin our chapter 8 on fractions in Big Ideas.  This should go relatively quickly since I have been teaching fractions and decimals together the past few weeks.  We will have MAP testing in Math this week.  I am hoping to also carry out review this last month of school. 

Module 10 in HMH.  Here is the link for the Module 10 family letter.  We will spend the next 4 weeks on Module 10- The Lives of Animals.  We have MAP testing, DIBELS (reading) and a few days of field trips and such.  This will be our last module in HMH for the school year. Module 10 Family Letter

We are continuing working on Chapter 7. We have been working on decimal division. In this chapter, your student is learning about division of decimals. The first lesson shows patterns for dividing by powers of 10. The next lesson uses 
compatible numbers to estimate quotients. Using models helps students to 
make sense of quotients involving decimals. Your student will learn how to place the decimal point in the quotient and how to work with zeros in the dividend. 
Finally, your student will solve multi-step word problems to apply what he or 
she has learned. 

There are many situations that you can use to help your student understand 
division of decimals. 

• Measure the length and width of a room in meters. Multiply to find the 
area. Give your student the area and the length of the room. Then ask, 
“What is the width, in meters?” Have your student first estimate the 
answer and then divide to find the actual answer. Ask, “Does your 
answer make sense, based on your estimate?” 
• Use a grocery receipt as an opportunity to divide decimals when you 
buy apples or some other food by the pound. Say, “We spent $3.12 on 
apples that cost $1.98 per pound. How many pounds of apples did we 
buy?” 
• Have your student find the unit price of an item. Say, “A 64-ounce 
bottle of juice costs $3.87. What is the unit price?” 
• Divide money equally among people. Choose an amount of money, such as 
$5.73. Ask, “Can you divide the money equally among 3 people? If so, 
how much would each person get?” 
By the end of this chapter, your student should feel confident with the 
learning targets and success criteria on the next page. Encourage your student 
to use and practice the skills of dividing decimals routinely. 

Have fun dividing decimals!  

This week is round 2 of CMAS testing. We will be testing for ELA. Monday and Friday will be our normal schedules.  In ELA we are still working through Module 9.  In Math we are working on Decimal Division.  In the afternoons on testing days this week we will be doing a fraction and geometry workshop during social studies and science. I will be doing Fractions for both sections of 5th grade and Ms. O'Leary will be doing Geometry for both sections of 5th grade.   

We start the CMAS in math and science this week. Testing days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Testing starts in the morning first thing so have your students at school on time.  The Math CMAS will be given first, then we will administer the Science  CMAS for 5th grade only.   In the afternoon, on testing days, Ms. O'Leary and I will be teaching ELA classes to each section.  Monday and Friday in ELA and Math will be skill review days. 

 

In math, students will be continuing working on long division in Chapter 6.  If your student needs extra practice, they can always access Skills Trainer on Big Ideas on-line.  Long Division depends on multiple operations to complete the algorithm.  Division, Multiplication, and Subtraction are all components of completing the algorithm.  Students need to have a solid foundation of multiplication in order to be successful.  

 

 

We will continue to explore Chapter 6 and this week look at how multiplication and division are related. We will be using place value to find quotients. Last week we explored how Long Division is also repeated subtraction.  We discussed what division is: sharing equally, distributing equally, grouping, finding what each one gets, and reverse of multiplication. By the end of the week, we will be dividing multi digit numbers by 1 -digit using several visual models.

Wahoo! Yahoo! On the last math test (Chapter 5) all 22 students showed improvement from the pre-test.  It was so exciting to see so much growth. Celebrating growth is what Westgate is all about.  The children worked hard and are showing a lot of grit and resilience in learning how to multiply decimals. Well done!

 

Next week, we are starting our long division chapter 6.  If you are wanting to help your students succeed, having them know their multiplication facts by heart is the best way. So many times, the students understand the process (which is very important, too) but they do not calculate accurately because they do not yet have their math facts memorized.  We will begin memorizing division facts, as well. If they know their multiplication facts, they can do their division ones!

We will complete Chapter 5 in Big Ideas this week. After some review, students will take a test on Thursday. Decimal multiplication has been the topic of this chapter. I sent home a practice sheet for students to work on. This is not required.

We completed section 5.4 and 5.5 on Big Ideas Math - Multiplication of Decimals. This week we will continue to strengthen multiplication skills of decimals 5.6 and 5.7. 

We will finish up module 5 which we started before break. 

Our Learning Target

Use models to multiply decimals. Success Criteria ● Use a model to represent a decimal. ● Use a model to multiply decimals.

 

This week we will complete Module 5 which is multiplying decimals. Module 6 will be about Long Division.