Iowa Assessments

Iowa Assessments start on Monday, October 29th.  Please make sure that your child gets plenty of sleep at night and a good breakfast each morning.  We will be testing in the morning, usually between the times of 9:30 and 11:30, thought it will vary a little each day.  Just a reminder. . .there will be NO HOMEWORK and NO SPELLING during testing.  Each student is still expected to read for 15-20 minutes each night and get their planner signed.

Unit 4--Division

We started Unit 4 in math today. . .Division.  Based on the pretest scores we have a lot of review to do; I heard a lot of "I don't know how to do division" or "I don't remember how to do this!"  We will be using the partial quotients method from our Everyday Math series, as well as, the long division algorithm.  Both ways are taught and practiced and the student can choose whichever one works best for them.  If you would like to learn and/or review the partial quotients division algorithm go to:

https://www.everydaymathonline.com
(try typing the link into your browser instead of clicking on it)

1.  Click on Free Resources (bottom right hand corner)
2.  Click on ALGORITHMS IN EVERYDAY MATH
3.  Choose GRADE 5
4.  Choose DIVISION
5.  Choose PARTIAL QUOTIENTS DIVISION (FOCUS)
6.  Choose 3 DIGIT DIVIDEND BY 1 DIGIT AND 3 DIGIT DIVIDEND BY 2 DIGIT

You can also go to:

http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents

At this site, the algorithm tutorials are along the left hand side.  On this site you can also find games, the family letters, any time activities, etc. 

Science Journals

Mr. Slabaugh, MP Learning Design Coach, came into our classroom today to help us create our science journals electronically using Evernote.  Evernote can be accessed from a computer, iPad, or smartphone.  Some of the kiddos asked if they could access this from home; I told them it is fine with me as long as it is fine with you.  They each have been given a username and password that gives them access to their information only.  Students learned how to log in, make a new note, take pictures and add captions, and much more--it's amazing what they discover on their own! We are excited about this opportunity for our students!

A Memorable Day

We had beautiful weather for our field trip to Des Moines.  We want to thank all of our parent volunteers that went along with us; we really couldn't make the trip without you.  Also, thank you to Mrs. Hochstetler for planning such a fun, learning experience for our kiddos and having them so prepared for all of the tour guides' questions!  All of our students were so glad to be there, made the most of our trip, and were very well behaved throughout our tours.  We are working on a way to get all of the pictures "published" for everyone to see, but for now enjoy this one of our 5th graders standing in front of their capitol building!

Geometry Explorations

This unit is all things geometry.  Our five learning targets for this unit are. . .

I can draw and identify types of angles (acute, obtuse, right, straight, adjacent, vertical)
I can draw and identify types of triangles (equilateral, isosceles, right, scalene)
I can identify place value in numbers from the billions to the hundredths
I can create and define tessellations
I can classify polygons and identify their properties

I also included the link to a site that has resources for each lesson of our Everyday Math curriculum.  I just spent some time playing Banana Hunt (a link from the site), which is a great game for thinking about measures of different angles.

http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/edm/5.htm

And, below is a link to the Everyday Math For Parents Site. . .this is an abundance of information from suggested resources to videos on algorithms (lattice multiplication, partial quotients division, etc.) to PDFs of the homework pages.

http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents/

And. . .a few pics of the kiddos using math tools to meet these learning targets:

As always, please let me know if you have questions or concerns about your child's progress in math.