Our Week In Review

REMINDERS

Swim Week; March 10-14......Please make sure your children come to school each day with a bathing suit and towel.

Play Part Announcement.......How You Can Support Your Child? 
As I shared last week, the announcement of play casting is an exciting and highly anticipated moment. An abundance of thought goes into casting each fifth grader. This week we discussed the many feeling that students may experience when hearing about casting assignments. Below are some great ideas that came out of this conversation. Please  help your child keep both their excitement and disappointment in perspective.

• What ever part you get is a good part for you – TRUST Ms. Hechter
• Be flexible and open-minded
• It's okay to be disappointed
• You have the power to make “your” play experience (you can control you)
• Be humble
• Don’t gossip about the roles other people get

CONFERENCE GOAL-For homework this week, students summarized three of their end of the year goals from conferences last week. A copy of these goals will be coming home in this week's Friday Folder. Please support your child in reminding them about the goals they set. We will be working on meeting them at school in the comings months!

Week in Review

MATH: We started MIF Chapter 7- Ratios. The students welcomed a respite from fractions, however, quickly made connections between the mathematical thinking required to understand fractions in their exploration of Ratios. This week we worked through the first THREE lessons which introduced the idea of using ratios to compare quantities, finding equivalent ratios using division and multiplication and using Greatest Common Fractions (GCF) to simplify ratios. Our study of Ratios will continue through the first week back from Spring Break.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We continue of study of human rights, with a more in-depth look at the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We discussed Abraham Maslow and his theory of The Hierarchy of Needs. We had an incredibly powerful and provocative conversation about having ones basis needs met in order to survive vs.  the ultimate privilege of being able to "thrive" by living your best life. ( reaching the top tier of Maslow's pyramid). Looking for good dinner table conversation? Look no further...inquire about Human Rights, Need and Wants!

Also within Social Studies, continuing through the play,  we will be studying various aspects of Geography, using our Rand McNally Atlas and Map curriculum. Students are learning how to read and navigate political, thematic and physical maps. Understanding scale, map legends and the wide array of information that maps can teach us has been exciting for the students. As we think about our place in the global community, understanding the diversity of information that maps and secondary resources can provide is an eye opening experience.

READING: We are interweaving our social studies unit with our most recent reading unit, as we read the young adult novel, Home of the Brave by award winning author Katherine Applegate. Students will be reading most of the book in class with facilitated discussion, while some of the reading will be completed at home for homework. Students are responding in writing to the ideas and themes in the book through their online E- Journals. Check out the two links below!

Book Trailer

Katherine Applegate- Youtube