May 9-13

Reading

Lights! Camera! Action! This week in reading we will begin our reader's theater unit. Students will discuss plays and how scripts are sometimes written from a story they already know. We will review the elements of fiction; main characters, plots, and settings. Students will discuss the point of the narrator in a play and how it would be different without a narrator when watching a play.  Students will learn that drama has dialogue and how using expression when reading a part in a play makes the characters come alive.  In readers theater, students do not work on memorizing their part, but instead, the purpose is to promote fluency in reading a text repeatedly. Students will get their readers theater parts at the end of the week and begin practicing their part with expression.

Please remember to read 100 minutes a week at home.  If students read 20 minutes at least 5 days a week, they will reach this goal.  Challenge your child to use more than one strategy they’ve learned in class during their at home reading time.

Writing

This week in writing we will be honoring some pretty cool dudes. Those dudes are our dads! We know it’s a little early, but we don’t want to forget how great our dads are and how special they are to us! Students will be making something special that can’t be opened until June 19th, so don’t peek!

Math and Social Studies:

Math and social studies are integrated for the next few weeks as we kick off an exciting project to end the school year. We are learning about economics and financial literacy and will participating in a simulation to learn about what goes into having a job, owning a home, paying for insurance, and learning what it means to be a responsible borrower.

This week we will start by thinking about our attitude toward money and applying for a classroom job. Each job will come with a salary and will have different responsibilities. After we get our jobs, we will work on creating a budget so we know how much money we have to spend each month. Part of the budgeting process will be picking a community to live in and pay rent. Students will be responsible for keeping track of their finances as they get paid a salary and pay rent for their home. Students will also have a savings account and work on saving money for something they really want! Toward the end of the week, we will learn about borrowing money on credit and why the borrower should pay the lender back with interest. We will practice calculating interest and pick scenarios that represent responsible borrowing. It’s going to be a lot of fun so make sure you ask your child how their “Game of Life” is going!

Research question of the week:  Why don’t spiders get stuck on their webs?

Reminders:

Wednesday, May 11: Zoo field trip

Tuesday, May 31: End of year Awards Ceremony, details soon to come.

Wednesday, June 1: 5th Grade Graduation

Thursday, June 2: Last day of school!  End of year party from 8-10, details soon to come.