Attention Parents of 4th and 5th Graders

Human Growth and Development Parent Informational Meeting

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

5:15 pm

Horizon Library

The Human Growth and Development Parent Information meeting will be held Tuesday, March 28th at 5:15 in the Horizon Library. Learn about what topics will be covered, what will not be covered during the student lessons, preview the videos and get your questions answered.

Human Growth and Development (HG&D) lessons will be instructed to students in April or May.

Permission for the lessons was completed during the online registration process last fall through Skyward. If changes need to be made, the online form will be open in Skyward starting March 28.

We realize this has turned into a busy evening for families in 5th grade and will make this portion of the night as efficient as possible so you can enjoy the D.A.R.E. Graduation.

If you have questions, please contact:

Kelly Holsclaw, Health Teacher

Pewaukee High School

holskel@pewaukeeschools.org

262-701-5679

OR Jeanie Matkin, RN

Horizon Health Room
hehealth@pewaukeeschools.org

262-701-5532

We started our brand new unit this week! Unit 6 (we skipped unit 5) is all about fractions. This unit started with an old-fashioned paper folding activity! We made our own fraction strips of halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, eighths, ninths, tenths, and twelfths. They did such a nice job with the folding as they got more and more difficult. We labeled each part as a unit fraction, which is one part of the whole. For example, each section on the fourths strip is 1/4.

We learned that we can show fractions as a sum of unit fractions. 3/4 could also be shown as 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4. We also talked about how repeated addition can be also shown as multiplication! Instead of writing 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4, we know that added 1/4 three times could also be shown as 3 X 1/4 because it is 3 groups of 1/4.

I have had a few questions about homework the past few weeks, and how the kiddos have not been bringing math assignments home. I want you to know that your child is not forgetting to bring it home! We have not had many assignments because we finished Unit 4 (study guides, review, test day), pretested for Unit 6, and prepped and took the Math MAPS test. Homework will continue to be inconsistent over the course of the next few weeks, as we are transitioning to Forward testing. If you want to make sure that your child does in fact have no homework and didn't just forget to bring it home, I keep math assignments updated on my school website! Thank you for your understanding. :)

We were able to present our social studies projects this week, and I was very impressed with the hard work and extra research they did to make sure the class fully understood their topic. The presentations were about the fur trade and what happened when the U.S. government took over the business in Wisconsin. After each presentation, we had a conversation about how our state was changing as we transitioned from the late 1700's to the early 1800's.

We also completed a fur trade activity, where the students really got a sense of what it was like to be the French or Native American tribes during the fur trade. The class was split into five groups. Two of the groups were French voyageurs, and the other groups were three Native American tribes. Each group received a list of items they needed to get in the trade and the items they already had in their possession to trade with the others. They also had the value of each item in the French currency at the time, livres. The tricky part was, each group only knew what they needed and already had, and they didn't know anything about the other groups. They traded for about 15 minutes with each other and tried their bests to get all of the items on their "Need" list. Some groups were able to work some trades in their favor, and others were desperate towards the end and were willing to trade anything to get what they needed in order to survive.

We had a wonderful discussion afterwards of what worked well during the trade and what didn't. We also pondered what would happen if I told them they were not allowed to talk to each other, as most of the Native Americans did not speak french and vice versa. They decided that the fur trade was very difficult for both the French and Native Americans, but it also gave each group necessary tools and resources to survive the changing times in Wisconsin. The Native Americans were given metal pots and better hunting weapons, and the French were given food and guides to show them the way around the state.

Reading: Research, research, research! Our nonfiction research unit is off to a good start! The students have a research group they are working with on a topic of their choice. This week’s focus was on note taking. We discussed how notes need to be organized and that the lenses historian’s look through are the “who, what and when,” lenses. The students were able to print off a map of “where” their event occurred and completed a timeline for the “when.” Research is difficult for our elementary kiddos. There are some basic items we have had to remind them about- Not to write down word for word in our notebooks what we find, checking sources, staying focused, etc. Please make sure to ask your child what they are researching and see if there are any resources at the public library to help with the difficult task.

Writing: This week we continued to learn what a personal essay looks like. We read an example I created about my special Aunt Jen. Then we took a look at the rubric that the students’ District Writing Assessment will be scored on and scored the sample essay together, noting what should be added and what was done well. On Tuesday, the students started their DWA. They had one day to draft their ideas. Day 2 was writing their 5 paragraph essay, and Day 3 was typing and editing. The topic was “Who is someone special to you and why?” They needed to pull what we learned from our previous essay units, as well as what we have started from our Personal Essay Unit. Overall, the students did a great job! We are used to having 6 to 8 weeks to work on a piece start from finish. Getting one done in three days was rough, but they persevered and succeeded! Nice work boys and girls!

Email: dewilyn@pewaukeeschools.org
Website: http://pewaukee.schoolwires.net/site/Default.aspx?PageID=1028
Phone: (262) 701-5557