Week 26

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5...

Welcome to Trimester

• Creativity Celebration: The students of the elementary school were fortunate to be able to explore their creative side with our creativity celebration. The good folks from Lego brought along all kinds of Legos for the students to explore and extend their imaginations. 

• ES Talent Show dates will be May 3rd from 5-8 in the theater. Auditions will take place the week of March 18th during lunch times.

• Shelter Drill: We will have a shelter drill on March 12th. More information will be shared as the date approaches.

• ASA girls basketball will take place trimester three with Ms. Greene. She would like as many grade 5 girls as possible to come along to try out basketball. It doesn't matter if your child have never played, getting them exposed to such a fun sport will prepare them for Middle School. Ms. Greene also coaches the Middle School team and will be recruiting girls next year....so come out and give it a try.

• Girls Get Strong will host its third health and fitness conference on Saturday, March 17th.  This year we are excited to have other schools in Cairo and our region joining us!  This year’s theme is Girls In Action and it is without a doubt we have assembled a wide variety of experts to help our young women put skills needed to lead a healthy lifestyle "In Action".

Details of the event are as followed:

Date: March 17, 2018

Time: 8:30-3:00

Location: Cairo American College

Grade Level: 5th-12th Grade

Registration Deadline: March 8, 2018

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/f0yTMysLcIJ9cAO02

More information about the conference can be found here:

https://girlsgetstrong.org/conferences/2018-conference/

Curriculum Corner

Reading Workshop & Writing Workshop: Our Grade 5 world is full of fantasy, fantasy, fantasy as we come into the "homestretch" of the integrated Writing and Reading Workshop units! Through both our class Read Aloud book of "The Thief of Always" and the students' Book Club books, Fifth Graders have been deepening their awareness and analysis of fantasy elements. They will be thinking and writing this week about the use of symbolism in their books, as well as identifying the "big ideas" (theme) and life lessons of the protagonists. Students will be reading with critical eyes this week on the lookout for stereotypes of characters, such as the villain, the hero, the loyal sidekick, the outcast, the mentor, the evil figure with ultimately the good heart etc.
Fifth Graders have been applying all their fantasy knowledge to create an exciting picture book. This project is heading towards its conclusion as students work to wrap up their draft, which includes fantastical elements such as the quest, elements of magic, obstacles along the way, an antagonist and even life lessons taught to our readers! Students should be sure to check the fantasy rubric as they continue working this week, to revise and edit their work. For example, they need to have dialogue correctly punctuated, transition words included to show passages of time and examples of where they both slowed down the heart of the story using description and shortened less important parts by using time passage phrases such as "the next day... meanwhile...earlier that day.. etc.

Math Workshop:  Grade 5 mathematicians are moving past multiplying unit fractions to multiplying any fractions. The students are familiar with using models when multiplying fractions and are now solving expressions. This week will see the students move into the new topic of "Multiplication with Fractions and Decimals as Scaling and Word Problems" as well as dealing with solving single and multi-step word problems. 

Science:  This week the students will be experimenting with stream tables in the lab to explore the process of water erosion. Later they will review their data that they collected in their practical experiments. We will also be studying the Grand Canyon and seeing if we can apply any lessons we learnt during our experiments to the Grand Canyon and if they give us any clues as to how it was formed. Ms. Hebba is also researching and has located some videos of the Grand Canyon for the students to try on and experience the 3D Google virtual reality experience. They will really enjoy this and we're sure they'll want to tell you all about it.


Your partners in education,


LeeAnn Kasal lkasal@cacegypt.org
Caitlin Johnson cjohnson@cacegypt.org
Bonnie Greene barmstronggreene@cacegypt.org

Jonathan O'Sullivan josullivan@cacegypt.org

Week # 25

TWIG5: THIS WEEK IN GRADE 5...

WEEK OF FEB. 18TH TO FEB. 22nd

Welcome to week 25 of learning, exploring & having fun!!!

CONGRATULATIONS to all of our students who participated in the Spelling Bee Semifinals! You demonstrated courage and perseverance! We all very proud of all of you! 
Ten students will go on to the finals which will be held on Feb. 20th in the ES Hall following the assembly. We wish all of our participants the best of luck!!!

REMINDERS

• This is the last week of Trimester Two ASA activities. There are no ASA's next week.
• Memorial Service on Monday, Feb. 19 at 3:30 in the theater: Our CAC community is hurting as we deeply feel the loss of one of our Middle school students, Amna Hussein.  We mourn the friend we have lost and desire to support her family who continues to be a part of our community. Amna has a younger brother who is in 2nd Grade and an older sister in 9th Grade. A memorial service will be held in honor of Amna Hussein. Parents are welcome to attend.
• ES Talent Show dates will be May 3rd from 5-8 in the theater. Auditions will take place the week of March 18th during lunch times.
• Shelter Drill: We will have a shelter drill on March 12th. More information will be shared as the date approaches.
• Core Value Creativity Celebration on Thursday, Feb. 22nd.
• Girls Get Strong! Ms. Riddle will be in our classes on Wednesday to speak to the students about the Girls Get Strong program that is available to Grade 5 girls.

CURRICULUM CORNER

Language Arts

Reading Workshop & Writing Workshop: Fantasy Book Clubs are in full swing and students are continuing to have interesting discussions based on their reading. Book clubs are using jottings to help conversations and thinking develop. Students have reflected on the question: “How can I raise the level of our Book conversations?” Students have used evidence from the text to support their thinking to gain a deeper understanding of the elements of Fantasy. Paraphrasing, pausing and active listening skills are developing and many rich conversations can be heard in classrooms.

Our talented authors are enthusiastically engaged with the task of writing a Fantasy Picture Book. Students have built upon their ’16 box’ plan, crafting interesting stories full of villains and heroes, daunting quests and magical lands. Writers have developed nuanced characters who often have a steep learning curve as they overcome the difficulties in their ‘quests.’ This week, we are focused on blending action, dialogue, summary and a character's inner thinking into our stories as well.

Math 

Students once again extend their understanding of multiplication to include scaling. Students compare the product to the size of one factor, given the size of the other factor without calculation. This reasoning, along with the other work of this module, sets the stage for students to reason about the size of products when quantities are multiplied by 1, by numbers larger than 1, and numbers smaller than 1. Students relate their previous work with equivalent fractions to interpreting multiplication as multiplication by 1.
Students build on their new understanding of fraction equivalence as multiplication by converting fractions to decimals and decimals to fractions. The word form of twelve hundredths will then be used to notate this quantity as a decimal. Students will apply the concepts of the topic to real world, multi-step problems.

Parent Tips M4 Topic F

Science

Our exciting new unit is on Earth Changes. Our essential question is: "How does the Earth's surface change over time?" All work will be documented on the students' blogs. This blog will show  evidence of each student's thinking and observations as the unit progresses. Students will have opportunities to add their experiment videos- carefully documenting the process and outcomes. Students will ask and answer questions as well on reflect on their learning and collaborate with others. Communication is an important element of being a great scientist and so students will have opportunities to practice this skill, along with organization, record-keeping, and making careful observations.

There are both rapid changes (earthquakes, volcanoes etc.) and slow changes (erosion, weathering)... our experimental focus will be on the slow changes of erosion, weathering and deposition. In the upcoming weeks, we will be working in the science labs using stream tables to investigate water flow over earth materials. Students will observe and record the processes of erosion, deposition and stream flow using the Scientific Method. These stream tables are a model to represent what happens in real life over millions of years! Our case study will be the Grand Canyon in the Southwest of USA. The students will investigate such questions as, "How do you think the Grand Canyon formed? What happened to the earth material in the stream table that once filled the area that is now the canyon? How are your stream tables like the picture of the Grand Canyon? What do you think happened to the material that once filled the Grand Canyon?"

Important vocabulary that will come into use this week and beyond, include: landform, erosion, plateau, canyon, delta, valley, floodplains, mouth of the stream, deposition, sediments, drainage basin, meanders, and channel. 

Circle Solutions

Students continue for participate in circle solution activities around the themes of respect and creativity. The core value we are focusing on this month, as a school, is creativity.  We have common core value books that we read that help spark conversations around what it means. Students are encouraged to take the core value books home so that they can be read and discussed together. 
We will have a creativity Lego celebration on the afternoon of Thursday, Feb. 22nd. 

* Core Value of the Month: CREATIVITY

It’s February, let’s be CREATIVE!

CREATIVITY - Be inspired to imagine and explore.

Creativity is the process of making something of value that hasn't been made before, be it a painting, an idea, a solution, a relationship or a new dance move. Creativity is a skill to be learned, practiced and developed, just like any other. Any sport such as football, tennis, or basketball takes practice. Creativity is no different. The more you make creativity a part of your daily life, the more it will grow.

Creativity is innovation.

Creativity is thinking outside the box.

Creativity is improvisation.

Creativity is being a risk taker.

Creativity is passion and much more...

Grade 5 Guidance Update 

In Guidance students are learning ways to manage peer conflicts and prevent/respond to bullying. We began with a focus on healthy versus unhealthy friendship groups and the difference between normal peer conflict and bullying. This unit is designed to prevent all forms of bullying, including physical/verbal, relational and cyber-bullying. Through the use of the Second Step curriculum, various read-aloud books, videos, discussions and role-plays, students will:

-        Recognize the difference between a group of friends and exclusive cliques

-        Learn and practice specific assertiveness skills to refuse the exclusion of peers

-        Recognize that bullying is different from conflict

-        Learn strategies for refusing bullying in different ways

-        Understand bystander responsibility to help stop bullying

-        Decide on and practice positive bystander responses to bullying

-        Recognize and identify different ways of cyber bullying

-        Demonstrate ways to support and/or stand up for a person being cyber bullied

Girls Get Strong will host its third health and fitness conference on Saturday, March 17th.  This year we are excited to have other schools in Cairo and our region joining us!  This year’s theme is Girls In Action and it is without a doubt we have assembled a wide variety of experts to help our young women put skills needed to lead a healthy lifestyle "In Action".

Details of the event are as followed:

Date: March 17, 2018

Time: 8:30-3:00

Location: Cairo American College

Grade Level: 5th-12th Grade

Registration Deadline: March 8, 2018

Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/f0yTMysLcIJ9cAO02

More information about the conference can be found here:

https://girlsgetstrong.org/conferences/2018-conference/

Becky Riddle

Physical Education

Cairo American College

MS Drama Showcase Performance


Your partners in education,

LeeAnn Kasal lkasal@cacegypt.org

Caitlin Johnson cjohnson@cacegypt.org

Bonnie Greene barmstronggreene@cacegypt.org

Jonathan O'Sullivan josullivan@cacegypt.org

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5...Feb. 11th -Feb. 15

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5... week of Feb. 4th to Feb. 8th

Thanks to all those who came out to family math night. The students enjoyed challenging their parents and playing together. 

We have a full week of learning, exploring and having fun ahead!  

In The News:

• ES Spelling Bee Semifinals, February 13th, 3:30-4:30. Congratulations to our semi-finalist.

  Curriculum Corner

Reading Workshop & Writing Workshop: We are well into our fantasy unit and students are enjoying reading their multiple books. Book Clubs have been having some in-depth conversations about the themes and life lessons they could learn through their characters. We continue to analyze how our book clubs are going and how we can make them effective. Students are studying video clips and themselves to help have efficient book club discussions. We continue to look for patterns in our stories and what we can learn from these patterns. 

Our writers have chosen a story idea and started drafting. We are starting to look at how we can keep our readers in the moment by focusing on actions, thoughts and dialogue. Writers will be looking at transitions to help with the passage of time, cadence of speech for certain characters, and specific vocabulary to hook our readers attention. 


Mathematics:

This week the students will continue to solve real life like word problems using tape diagrams and fraction by fraction multiplication. We continue to use the RDW strategy and checking our answers to see if they are reasonable. We will then continue the week by looking at decimal and fraction multiplication and the relationships we already know. 

Below is the link to the 'Parent Tip Sheets' for this topic if you would like to read more:

Parent Tips Module 4 Topic E

Science:

We have wrapped up our adaptation unit with some great class presentations. This week we start our next science unit: Landforms. We will look at the essential questions and study the vocabulary before we move into the science lab. 

 
Circles:

In circles, we will be digging deeper into the CAC Core Value of Creativity. 





Your learning partners:

LeeAnn Kasal lkasal@cacegypt.org

Caitlin Johnson cjohnson@cacegypt.org

Bonnie Greene barmstronggreene@cacegypt.org

Jonathan O'Sullivan josullivan@cacegypt.org

CAC Grade 5 Blog Test

Dear Parents,

This is just a test post to see if you receive the message. Apparently, you haven't been getting the updated posts even though you had subscribed to the blog because the file sizes of the previous posts were so large disrupting the blog feed. I adjusted the size of the posts and hope the issue is now resolved.

Thank you

Hebba Haroun

TWIG 5: This Week in Grade 5 Week of February 4 to February 8th

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5... week of Feb. 4th to Feb. 8th

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5... week of Feb. 4th to Feb. 8th

In The News:

• Science Demo Fair! The grade five teachers would like to congratulate the students on a magnificent Science Demo Fair. The students were all able to show their plant's and animal's adaptations in unique and interesting ways and for us all to understand better. The students, or scientists as we like to say, were all able to demonstrate and express what adaptations have developed over time and why these were important to the survival of the plant or animal. Way to go Grade Five Scientists!

• Family Math Night!! Mark your calendars for Feb. 7, 4:15 pm to 5:15 pm. Come play math games with your child. Games develop fluency with math skills and problem solving. Experience the fun of learning through games! Our Family Math Night games are intended to help build fluency in math in a fun and engaging way. You’ll find the rules and instructions for a wide range of math skills games using a variety of different resources, including playing cards and dice. We’ve assembled games for different skill levels ranging from Grades Pre-K through 5, all with an educational math twist. 


Did you know? The games are available to be checked out from the library after Family Math Night, if you would like to play them again at home. Ask your child to talk with the librarians. 




Locations: Grades 1-5 are in the ES Hall, KG in the Drama room and Pre K in their own room.



• Family Picnic! Due to popular demand, we will be having another BBQ for picnic day this Thursday, February 8, KG - Gr. 5: 12:10 pm - 12:50 pm

Kindly sign up through the google form (below) if interested! There is a google sign-up form for each grade. For siblings, please sign up each child in their respective grade order form. Grade 5 Family Picnic Order Form




The DEADLINE for orders will be on Tuesday, February 6th by 5:00 p.m. 

We kindly ask that parents drop off the money in a labelled envelope to the ES office 

(name, class code and order). 




IMPORTANT: Unfortunately we will not be able to take orders on the day of the BBQ and 

we will have to cancel orders that have not been paid by Tuesday the 6th.




We look forward to seeing you all!!









• MS Orientation: It was great to see the excited faces of the grade five learners on Thursday afternoon as they walked off to experience a taste of Middle School life. The Grade Five Teachers had a sad realization that we will be doing this for real in a few months time. It is a sad, exciting time to see the students growing up.

• A Field Trip to Stabl Antar Dreams School 


• The Service Learning office is planning  a field trip to Stabl Antar Dreams School for Elementary School students to deliver Pass the Parcel donates. If you are interested to join the trip please email Mariam Hassan directly. Below's link has more information for your reading pleasure:


Sign-up Link


  Curriculum Corner

Reading Workshop & Writing Workshop: We hope our enthusiastic readers are enjoying their new books! Fantasy novels are complicated stories with interesting and complex characters. These characters often begin without a lot of knowledge, and they have a steep learning curve. Characters have more than one problem and often there are multiple plot lines. Readers are encouraged to keep charts, timelines, jots, notes, and other graphic organizers to track the problems that arise in the story, to closely follow the multiple plot lines, and to gather evidence sort of the way scientists do. 

Our writers are playing with some possible ideas and trying to plan their fantasy ideas. Writers are powerful. We have the power to change the people who read our stories. When we choose a story or idea, we want to choose an idea that has the potential to change the way a reader thinks, feels, or acts. Once we've chosen that idea, we need to take the seed that we began with and set about developing the other elements of the story. 


Mathematics:

This week the students will be demonstrating their understanding of Module 4 to this point, in the mid-module assessment. After the mid-module assessment the students will be exploring multiplying unit fractions by unit fractions, multiply unit fractions by non-unit fractions, and then multiplying non-unit fractions by non-unit fractions. This may sound complicated but the use of manipulative material and drawn models makes the new learning manageable and attainable. 

Below is the link to the 'Parent Tip Sheets' for this topic if you would like to read more:

Parent Tips Module 4 Topic E

Science:

This week in science the grade 5 scientists have demonstrated their understanding of adaptations during the Science Demo Fair and now focus on the final aspect of their project. The scientists will put forward their proposals for a grant to help save their biome. The scientists will present their findings from their research and argue why their biome is the most worthy of saving. 

 
Circles:

In circles, we will be digging deeper into the CAC Core Value of Creativity. We will also revisit friendship and respect.








Your learning partners:

LeeAnn Kasal lkasal@cacegypt.org

Caitlin Johnson cjohnson@cacegypt.org

Bonnie Greene barmstronggreene@cacegypt.org

Jonathan O'Sullivan josullivan@cacegypt.org