October 3 - 6 2016

This week in language we continued to focus on the comprehension strategy of summarizing. The strategies we have been teaching for summarizing are demonstrated through the use of an app called Book Creator and lend nicely to our weekly fluency activity.  Students are almost fluent with the Book creator app which means we will be introducing the students to the next app, "Explain Everything", this coming week.

In Math, we have been  learning about perimeter this week.  Finding the perimeter of a shape is a great way for students to use what they know about addition and repeated addition.  Students have shown us that they understand what exactly perimeter is.  Next week we will continue to work on perimeter in order to get at adding decimal numbers to thousandths.

In science, students have been hard at work building their Minecraft ecosystems.  The final task for science is for students to create an ecosystem in Minecraft.  Below is a screen grab of what the students see as an assignment.

Students have been working very hard on their reading.  Over the last two weeks we took time to re assess each of the students in grade 5/6.  The good news is that all of the students have increased their decoding skills!  We have come up very specific goals for each individual student.

Good questions to ask your child...

1. Can you review your Fluency goal with me then read your fluency to me?
2. What is perimeter? Show me a picture of something that illustrates perimeter.
3. What was your reading level at the beginning of the year and what is it now?
4. Can you please explain to me the sounding out strategy?
5. Can there be two digits in one place value column? Why or why not?