Classroom Update - Week of November 18th

Upcoming Events / Reminders:

• Second Quarter Interims will be going home tomorrow in Tuesday folders with your child. Please sign this and return it back to school. If you would like a copy of this report, please let me know and I would be happy to copy one for you.

• Make-up Day for last quarter's inclement weather will be as follows:

• Friday, 9/6 – Make up day Saturday, December 7

• On this day, the building will open at 8:45am, instruction begins at 9:15am and dismissal starts at 12:45pm. Breakfast will be served on these days, but not lunch. Please make sure to provide your child with a snack or two on these days.

• There will be no school Wednesday, November 27th through Friday, November 29th for Thanksgiving Break. I'll see everyone back at school on Monday, December 2nd!

• Readvolution continues! Just like in previous years, there is a school wide goal and an individual goal. We have met our goal of reading 2020 books. As of Friday, we have read 2,620 books and are 17th place in the county. Keep encouraging your child to read and log those books and minutes!

• The Kids Heart Challenge continues! Go to heart.org/kidsheartchallenge or search “Kids Heart Challenge” in your app store to download the app to register.

• The Scholastic Book Fair will be coming to MES December 2nd - 13th. More details will follow soon!

• MES scientists and mathematicians, start planning your projects for the MES Annual Science Fair scheduled for Tuesday, December 10th from 6-8 pm! All students in K – 5 are welcome to participate in the non-competitive portion of the MES Science Fair. Students in grades 3 – 5 have the option to compete in the competitive portion of the MES Science Fair. All projects should be registered by December 1st using the following link, https://forms.gle/DBoFqFFBCpi2WLMn9. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Bonani Langan (bonani.langan@gmail.com) or Janis Gould (jgould@wcpss.net).

E.L. Education:

This week the students will work in collaborative groups to research in their expert animal groups (monarch butterfly, three-banded armadillo, springbok gazelle, and ostrich). As they research, they will be organizing their notes on a planning page and then drafting their papers, first in their journals and then after revising and editing they will publish it in Google Docs. This research report will provide the students with the information needed for their final performance task: a choose-your-own-adventure! Throughout the writing process, we will be referring to the "Fab 5" for paragraph writing. The components for this are below:

Fab 5:

1. Clear Topic Sentence

2. 3-5 Elaborated Details of Support

3. At Least 3 Transition Words/Phrases

4. Strong Vocabulary

5. Clear Concluding Statement

*The students will take their Unit 2 Mid-Unit Assessment on Wednesday.

How to Help Your Child at Home:

• Take your child to the library to check out or learn more about defense mechanisms of the animals that they chose to research.

• Have your child share with you more about the animal that they have chosen to research.

• Have your child share with you some of the ways that they can determine if an internet site is safe and trustworthy to use.

Math:

This week in math the students will continue to work on long division. They will be working solving a variety of word problems and then interpreting what they need to do with the remainder. Some of the strategies that we talked about in class are:

• Ignore the remainder: the answer is the quotient without the remainder

• Share the remainder: divide up the remainder between the divisor or whole groups

• Remainder is the answer: exactly what it says :)

• Round Up: add one to the whole number

We will be heavily practicing this concept this week in preparation for our long division test this Friday. Please continue to practice these long division methods at home with your child, especially if they are having a difficult time with it. Using multiplication to check is also a great strategy.

How to Help Your Child at Home: ​

• Watch the video lessons on my website or look back through your child's student notes together. Have them show you some of the new ways to divide numbers that they are learning.

• Discuss situations at home where dividing naturally occurs. What can be done with the remainder?

Social Studies:

This quarter in Social Studies the students will be focusing on the government in North Carolina. This will they will learn about the North Carolina constitution, why it was created, the key principles included in it, and revisions or amendments that have been made. They will also learn about the preamble and the declaration of rights and why they are important to citizens living in this state.

How to Help Your Child at Home: ​

• Have your child share with you what the North Carolina Constitution is and why it was created.

• Discuss some of the key principles in it and why they are important.

• Talk about the Declaration of Rights and what freedoms these mean for them.