Thursday, October 4th

Reminders and Announcements 

• Tomorrow, Friday, October 5th - Mid Term and 2 Hour Early Dismissal
• Friday, October 12 - Mobile Dentist at SRES

If you missed picture day, don't worry.  All children's pictures were taken and you can order copies with this link:  Online Picture Order

Reading 

Focus Standards

• RL.5.1 - Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
• RL.5.2 - Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

We will be working with these two standards using novels in small group in addition to our class novel.  Mrs. Johnson's homeroom is working with the novel The Crossover by Kwame Alexander and Ms. Anzick's homeroom is working with Wonder.  We are focusing on understanding how to identify key events and why those events are so important using Sign Posts (see last week's blog for more on this).  As students are ready, we will also be looking at analyzing character and theme as well as author's craft.  For a look at author's craft see the reference below.

A look at Authors Craft with Kwame Alexander

Writing 

Focus Standard
W.5.5 - With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

This week we will approach another bend in our writing as we look at finding the heart of the story, the message or theme they want to share with their readers.  Our lessons will focus on how to develop a personal narrative that reads like a story and engages the reader by bringing them into the story.  You can take a look at your student's work by asking them to show you their working document.  At this point, we are NOT deleting anything.  While we may choose to start over, further down the document, as part of the revision process, I want students to keep all writing to refer back to for good parts or essential ideas.

Math Helpers

Some of you have requested references for the strategies we use to teach multiplication and division in math.  The Unit newsletters have helpful links, however, I have included two videos below that may help as well.

Box Method Multiplication

Area Method for Division