Fifth Grade News

Tuesday, November 5 - Election Day - Schools Closed for Teachers and Students

Wednesday, November 6 - Spirit Night at Panera

Tuesday, November 12 - Picture Re-Take Day

Tuesday, November 12 - PTA Meeting 6-7pm

Thursday, November 14 - Report Cards available on Focus

Tuesday, November 19 - Parent Teacher Conference Day - Schools Closed for Students (see below for more information)

Friday, November 22 - Fancy Day/ Dress to Impress (School Wide Spirit Day)

Wednesday, November 27 - Schools Close 3 Hours Early

Thursday, November 28 - Friday, November 29 - No School

Tuesday, December 10 - PTA Meeting 6-7pm

Thursday, December 12 - Winter Concert

Friday, December 20 - Schools Close 3 Hours Early & PJ Day! (School Wide Spirit Day)

Monday, December 23 - Wednesday, January 1 - Winter Break - Schools Closed for Teachers and Students

Thursday, January 2 - Schools Reopen

Tuesday, January 14 - PTA Meeting 6-7pm

Monday, January 20 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day - Schools and Offices Closed

Friday, January 24 - Second Marking Period Ends - Schools Close 3 Hours Early

Wednesday, January 29 - Systemwide Professional Development Day - Schools Closed for Students

Friday, January 31 - Color Wars! Wear purple to support 5th grade (School Wide Spirit Day)💜

Please help remind your child to charge their computer EVERY NIGHT! We have a limited supply of chargers in the classroom for students to borrow, as well as limited space near outlets.

Thank you for your help!

Parent teacher conference day is Tuesday, November 19th. The fifth grade team will be holding conferences together. You may choose to meet in person or virtually. For virtual meetings please use the Google Meet code: 7de5.

If you have any concerns you'd like to discuss with the fifth grade team, please review the available time slots in the link below. Please indicate if you will be attending in person or virtually.

We understand that this date or the available times may not be conducive to everyone's work schedules. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you would prefer to schedule a different day/time to meet and we will do our best to find a time that works.

Thank you!

Seventh District Elementary School is committed to improving student achievement. As you know, attendance is an essential component of students' academic success. Often the number of days that students are absent accumulate without parents realizing how many days have been missed. In an effort to ensure parents are aware of their child's attendance Seventh District Elementary School will be sending monthly attendance emails to parents of all students. This email will be sent mid month beginning in November. The email is for informational purposes. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding your child's attendance feel free to reach out to their teacher(s) and front office. Thank you for your partnership in ensuring every student thrives academically, socially, and emotionally.

We will be using TalkingPoints this year as a tool to communicate with families. This is a new program for us and we will be learning how to best use it along with you!

Families have three easy ways to use TalkingPoints and to communicate with their children’s teachers for free! They can use text messaging, download the separate app - TalkingPoints for Families - or they can use it on the web at TalkingPoints for Families

When notifying the school about a change in dismissal or early dismissal, please send an email to both fifth grade teachers as well as both of our office staff Barb Balestrini bbalestrini@bcps.org and Katherine Taylor ktaylor3@bcps.org on the morning of the change or early dismissal.

Students will take their unit assessment on Thursday, November 7th.

In this unit, students add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators, using a variety of strategies to find common denominators.

The big ideas for this unit include:

• A fraction can be expressed in numerous ways.
• Representing a fraction or decimal in an alternate way might make it easier to compare with other fractions or decimals and to compute.
• Computation with fractions is an extension of computation with whole numbers.
• A fraction is relative to the size of the whole or unit.

In this unit, students...

• Examine how the relative sizes of numerator and denominator affect the size of their quotient when numerator or denominator (or both) is a fraction.
• They compute quotients of fractions.
• They solve problems involving lengths and areas of figures with fractional side lengths and extend the formula for the volume of a right rectangular prism to prisms with fractional edge lengths and use it to solve problems.
• They use tape diagrams, equations, and expressions to represent situations involving partitive or quotative interpretations of division with fractions.
• Given a multiplication or division equation or expression with fractions, they describe a situation that it could represent.
• Compute sums, differences, products, and quotients of multi-digit whole numbers and decimals, using efficient algorithms.
• They use calculations with whole numbers and decimals to solve problems set in real-world contexts.
  

Hello, parents!

We are continuing Module 3 titled "Natural Disasters." In this module, students will listen to, view and read a variety of texts and media that present them with information about natural disasters.

A genre focus on informational text provides students with opportunities to identify central ideas, summarize events, and to ask and answer questions in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter narrative non-fiction, realistic fiction, and persuasive text to build knowledge across genres.

As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn about the causes of different types of natural disasters.

As a reminder, this is an odd-numbered module which means that there will not be a formal computer-based assessment at its culmination but rather a focused, persuasive essay on safety during natural disasters.

Students will be switching content classes on Tuesday, November 12th.

In this unit students will learn about...

• Thirteen Original Colonies
  
• Colonial Crafts and Trades
  
• New England’s Economy
  
• Economy of the Middle Atlantic Colonies
  
• Colonial Gristmills
  
• Hidden Figures of African History
  
• Economy of the Southern Colonies
• Southern Plantation Life
  
• Linking Cash Crops to Slavery
  
• Trade with Britain in 1750
  
• Triangle Trade Routes

Unit 1 of the BCPS Science Curriculum is called "Blast Off!" and will have students working in teams to plan and conduct investigations developing a fuel for a rocket they will design. At the end of the unit, they will put their fuel to the test by using it to launch their own liquid-propelled rocket and measure its altitude. Finally, after reviewing the flight data, they will propose how to make their rocket fly even higher.

We are wrapping up Unit 1 for my current Science Group. In a few days, we will be constructing bottle rockets and blasting them off. To do this, we will need donations of empty 16.9oz or 20oz soda/water bottles. Any help would be greatly appreciated!