Week 30

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5...


Excitement is in the air as spring break is around the corner...the kids have shared their plans for the break and we wish you all a safe and happy 11 days off!
Don't forget to read over the break!

• Reminders that April 8 & 9 are holidays!
• As we return the Book parade will be on April 10th - the theme will be 'Graphic Novels'. 
• We completed our second puberty talk this week.

Reading & Writing Integrated Unit

Students continue to read, research and note-take within their research groups. The issues students are reading about include:

• Should plastic bottles be banned?
• Should plastic bags be banned?
• Should orca shows be banned?
• Should more resources be put towards space exploration or ocean exploration? 
• Should extreme sports be banned?
• Should schools serve chocolate milk?
• Should people be allowed to climb Mount Everest? 

Groups have held mini debates around their issues to help clarify thinking, become flexible thinkers, raise new research questions and deepen understanding. Students are working to deepen conversations by asking, “What moves can people make that help a conversation to deepen and grow reacher?” Using a video as a model, as well as sentence starters, students are holding interesting conversations; responding in respectful ways to build on each others' ideas. This week, we will also work to see research as a continual cycle of reading more, raising new questions, and having new ideas...then reading more, this time with those new ideas in mind.

Students have been working on developing claims in their writing as they continue with several drafts, practicing strategies such as using 'words that persuade' and supporting claims with reasons and evidence.


Math
      
Module 5 - This week students begin by reasoning about and working with three-dimensional shapes. They explore cubic units and move toward calculations of volumes of rectangular prisms. Students also extend their two-dimensional work with area to figures with fractional side lengths. This module bridges the Grade 4 work on area with the Grade 6 work on volume and area to come in Middle School.

New vocabulary includes: 

Base: one face of a three dimensional 

Solid—often thought of as the surface upon which the solid rests 

Bisect: divide into two equal parts 

Cubic units: cubes of the same size used for measuring 

Height: adjacent layers of the base that form a rectangular prism 
Hierarchy: series of ordered groupings of shapes 

Unit cube: cube whose sides all measure 1 unit 

Volume of a solid: measurement of space or capacity

Science

We are heading into the last week of this unit on Earth changes due to the slow processes of weathering and erosion. The assessment project is the science blog which has been building up, step by step over the weeks, from the students' experiences in the science lab and their expanding knowledge from the classroom and field trip. The students will be given a checklist which they are responsible for completing while managing their time. These blogs will be shared with you at during the May Student-Led Conferences!  We will be starting a unit on a Social Studies unit on World Development in Science & Technology in the near future.

Circle Solutions

We have enjoyed reading a book titled: When Worry Takes Control" by Liz Haske. Students have shared strategies on how to handle worry. This book has led to some great conversations. Ask your child about the book.

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 29

TWIG5: THIS WEEK IN GRADE 5...

WEEK OF mar.18th TO mar.22nd

Welcome to week 29 of learning, exploring & having fun!!! 
We hope you all enjoyed our international festival over the weekend! It was great to see so many countries represented. We would also like to thank parents for attending parent-teacher conferences last week. It is always a pleasure to meet with you to discuss your children's progress and development!

REMINDERS

• Puberty Talks: The first session will take place on Mar. 18; the second on Mar. 25th. Please refer to our previous posts for more detailed information about topics and videos. 
• Field Trip: We have a science filed trip coming up, please refer to emails for more details. Please remember that students should be dressed in comfortable clothes and be ready for spring weather (cool or hot). They need to wear good walking shoes and bring a packed lunch, snack and plenty of water. A hat for sun protection is always a good idea! Thanks to all of the parents who have volunteered as chaperones!!
• Founder's Day: March 20th at 2:30 on the ES lawn- parents are welcome to attend! If you would like to write a thank you note to CAC as part of our display, you can send it to school with your child and your child's teacher will make sure it is included. Notes need to be collected by March 19th. 
• ASA's will begin this week. Personalized schedules have been shared with parents via email last week.  Please remind your child of their schedules. 
• Book Fair Parade: The book fair parade will take place on April 10th- the theme will be 'Graphic Novels'. More details to follow in the upcoming weeks. 

CURRICULUM CORNER

LANGUAGE ARTS

We are all pretty excited about our new integrated reading and writing unit. In reading workshop: Argument and Advocacy and in writing workshop: The Research-Based Argument Essay.  
With a critical eye, students will be considering perspective & craft while evaluating arguments. We will be looking closely for patterns and connections across a variety of issues. The issues that will be presented and researched will be provocative and debatable. This unit will promote active, critical thinkers who will read to be informed and will resist the urge to form opinions until they seek to understand both sides of an issue.  In Grade 5, students will learn to include counter arguments in their essays and aim to weaken the opposition's argument.  

We have begun with reading several essays on the topic of Zoos. Students rated the articles on their APL (argumentative power level) to spark an interesting discussion about what makes a good argument. From there, students will analyze ads and articles discovering the difference between a persuasive text and an argumentative text. Students will begin work in small research groups this week to investigate the different sides of a relevant issue. Some of our research questions are: 

-Should people be more focused on underwater exploration or outer space exploration?
-Are extreme sports worth the risk?
-Should we ban bottled water?

Students will read to identify the claim being made and the reasons that support it. Using what we are learning in our reading groups, students will also begin to think about the issues that they are passionate about and will do some writing on a variety of these issues. 

In order to keep up the expected volume of reading, students are encouraged to read fiction books at home. It will be very important that students keep track of their reading in their reading log and to JOT as they read. 

MATH

Our final assessment was given last week and this week students will reflect on how they did asking themselves: 1. What can I do well? 2. What do I need to work on? As always, teachers will review the assessment, answering any questions students have as we work through the problems. On Thursday, we gave all students the pre-assessment for module 5. Using this information, we aim to differentiate the learning so that all students are challenged at the level that they need. We will engage the students with some math stations and a hyperdoc before beginning our new unit. Our new unit is named Addition & Multiplication with Volume and Area. Please see below an overview: 

In this module, students work with two- and three-dimensional figures. Volume is introduced to students through concrete exploration of cubic units and culminates with the development of the volume formula for right rectangular prisms. The second half of the module turns to extending students’ understanding of two-dimensional figures. Students combine prior knowledge of area with newly acquired knowledge of fraction multiplication to determine the area of rectangular figures with fractional side lengths. They then engage in hands-on construction of two-dimensional shapes, developing a foundation for classifying the shapes by reasoning about their attributes. This module fills a gap between Grade 4’s work with two-dimensional figures and Grade 6’s work with volume and area.

SCIENCE

We have been very busy scientists as our exploration into the forces affecting land continues. Using stream tables, lab partners have been looking closely to what happens to the surface of the Earth when water flows over it (erosion) as well as looking at what happens to the Earth particles when they are washed away (deposition). Our young scientists are recording their experiments and uploading videos and photos to their blogs which will be shared with parents during the student-led conferences. Students had fun while taking on the role of aquatic engineers; trying to figure out ways to manipulate the flow of water. 

During our next set of experiments, our eager scientists will continue to explore erosion and how these processes affect landforms. We will focus on wind erosion as students create a wind tunnel and use a wind bazooka to compare the different effects wind can have on landforms. We will continue to add to our blog to record all of our learning. 

Circle Solutions

One of the themes for this week is stress and strategies that students can use to deal with stresses that come up. Perseverance is another theme that will be highlighted in our circles throughout this month.

Pictures of our drama field trip: PHOTOS

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

Sunday, March 11, 2018

TWiG5: This Week in Grade 5...

 We hope everyone had a nice long weekend. Thank you to parents who came out last Wednesday and helped the students celebrate their writing. They worked hard on their pieces and were proud to share. Please see THIS LINK for photos.

Announcements:

• Shelter Drill: We will be having a drill on March 12 to practice shelter procedures. Teachers will discuss this as “shelter practice” with students in age-appropriate ways, but you may also want to also talk to your child about the subject. Last year, we shared this article with helpful suggestions for talking to children about safety procedures and practices. One of the things addressed is the impact of the terminology we use. Staff members will be going over this in advance, as we work together to ensure that students feel safe, protected, and aware of what to do in different situations. Here is a link to an article outlining the sort of language that we can use with our children Talking to Kids about School Lockdown Drills.  The drill will be held at 12:00 pm, so if you are on campus, we ask that you follow instructions when asked to go to a safe place. Everyone who is outside will be moved to the ES Hall.

• Parent-Teacher Conferences: Will be on the afternoon of the 13th and the day of the 14th of March. Please book your time through Skyward. If you are having difficulty booking a time using Skyward, please refer to the email sent out to parents.

• March 13 ES Fundraising House Event: There will be a Walk-a-thon starting at 7:55. Fell free to send a donation in a sealed envelope with your child. Come and join us for a walk!

• Mathematics End of Module Assessment: The end of module assessment will be on the 12th of March
• March 15 Movie Night: On March 15 student council will be hosting a fundraising movie night. Permission forms went home last week. Please send back to school early this week.
• Our grades 3, 4, and 5 students learn touch typing in their classes to prepare for the work they do on computers in upper elementary and in middle school. The program we use is called ‘Typing Club’ and is an online program from Google. Link here.Students can access the program from home.

• Guidance Update – Upcoming Puberty Talks
  
  
  Dear Grade 5 Families,
  
  
  As part of the health and social education your child receives, we will be providing puberty classes for all 4th and 5th grade students this month.  This program revolves around the belief that if children are better informed they will be more comfortable with the changes  they are going through and more willing to seek support from their parents and other trusted adults.  
  
  
  The dates for the Grade 5 puberty lessons are Sunday, March 18th  and Sunday, March 22nd.
  
  
  Please click on this Puberty - Letter for Parents link for important information regarding the topics that will be addressed and the video that will be showed.
  
  
  All the best,
  
  
  Carey Harris
• 
  

  Grade 5 Guidance Update - Responding to Cyber Bullying

  
  

  There are many ways to socialize with friends, such as talking to them in person or using technology to send emails or texts. Using technology to communicate can be really fun and useful, but technology can also be used to hurt or cyber bully other people. Cyber bullying is using electronic technology to purposefully hurt someone else. It is immediate, long lasting and can spread further and faster than people are usually aware. Students will learn that everything they say or do online can be tracked, nothing electronic is private and there is a lasting digital footprint.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Students will:

  ·       Discuss the importance of keeping their personal information (Y.A.P.P.Y your name, address, phone number, passwords or your plans) safe:

  
  

  ·       Review the 3 steps for handling hurtful messages:

  1. Do not respond

  2. Save it

  3. Tell an Adult;

  
  

  ·       Demonstrate ways to support and/or stand up for someone being hurt online (such as reporting to an adult or leaving a chat group).

Repeated Announcements:

• 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.

• 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".
• The 2nd Annual Egyptian Schools Championship
        in the Montaza Gardens - Alexandria, Friday 23rd of March
   Calling all students, parents, teachers & staff
  Please register in this link 
  ES: Ereeny (egergess@cacegypt.org) / 
                MS & HS: Derek  (dbrown@cacegypt.org)      
• 
  
• 
  
• Curriculum Corner
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Reading Workshop & Writing Workshop: After a successful Fantasy unit, we are jumping right into our next Unit..Argument and Advocacy and Research Based Writing. This week we will be launching the units and looking at our essential questions. "How can I read with a critical eye considering perspectives and craft and evaluating arguments?" "How can I construct a sound argument that demands logical thought and creative presentation of ideas?" In reading, students will be taking a look at a wide variety of articles to determine argument level and viewpoints. In writing we will be looking at ways to collect evidence and organizing our thoughts before jumping right into a flash draft.

  
  

  
  

  Math Workshop: This week in math students will be reviewing M4 and taking the end of Module Assessment on Sunday March 12. We will end the week with M5 pre-assessment.

  
  

  
  

  Science: This is a short week in science due to field trips and conferences. Students will be finishing their lab work for their erosion experiment and recording their results in their blog. 

  Circles: This month's CAC Core Value is 'Perseverance', so in circles this week the students will be focusing on discovering what it means to persevere in the many things we do in our lives. 

  
  

  
  
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...

Dear Parents and Friends of Grade 5. We have just come off a full week of learning and exploring and now looking ahead to another, although shorter, week of learning, exploring, and having fun!

Announcements:

• Writing Celebration: When? Wednesday at 9:00am. Where? On the ES Lawn. Who? Students, teachers and parents of Grade 5. Why? To celebrate the fantastics work and perseverance that the grade 5 authors and readers have been doing in this unit

• Shelter Drill: We will be having a drill on March 12 to practice shelter procedures. Teachers will discuss this as “shelter practice” with students in age-appropriate ways, but you may also want to also talk to your child about the subject. Last year, we shared this article with helpful suggestions for talking to children about safety procedures and practices. One of the things addressed is the impact of the terminology we use. Staff members will be going over this in advance, as we work together to ensure that students feel safe, protected, and aware of what to do in different situations. Here is a link to an article outlining the sort of language that we can use with our children Talking to Kids about School Lockdown Drills.  The drill will be held at 12:00 pm, so if you are on campus, we ask that you follow instructions when asked to go to a safe place. Everyone who is outside will be moved to the ES Hall.
• Parent-Teacher Conferences: Will be on the afternoon of the 13th and the day of the 14th of March. Please book your time through Skyward. If you are having difficulty booking a time using Skyward, please refer to the email sent out to parents.

• March 13 ES Fundraising House Event: There will be a Walk-a-thon starting at 7:55. Fell free to send a donation in a sealed envelope with your child. Come and join us for a walk!

• Mathematics End of Module Assessment: The end of module assessment will be on the 12th of March

• Guidance Update – Upcoming Puberty Talks
  
  
  Dear Grade 5 Families,
  
  
  As part of the health and social education your child receives, we will be providing puberty classes for all 4th and 5th grade students this month.  This program revolves around the belief that if children are better informed they will be more comfortable with the changes  they are going through and more willing to seek support from their parents and other trusted adults.  
  
  
  The dates for the Grade 5 puberty lessons are Sunday, March 18th  and Sunday, March 22nd.
  
  
  Please click on this Puberty - Letter for Parents link for important information regarding the topics that will be addressed and the video that will be showed.
  
  
  All the best,
  
  
  Carey Harris

Repeated Announcements:

• 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.

• 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".

Curriculum Corner

Reading Workshop & Writing Workshop:

This week in Language Arts we are finishing our fantastical unit of Fantasy! This unit is one of the most fun and enjoyable units for the students and teachers alike.

For writing the students will be revising, editing and illustrating their picture books.

In reading the students will be completing their final book club meetings. The students will continue to read their fantasy books as well as jot and write long about the character motivations, themes, lessons and dragons!

Next week we will begin our next Language Arts unit. This unit will be an argumentative writing and reading unit. The students will study and discuss what makes a good argument. The students will learn how to write argumentative essays and identify effective arguments in their reading, as well as different perspectives of an argument and what might the motivations be for the different perspectives.

Math Workshop:

In mathematics this week the grade 5 students will continue on their discovery of the story of fractions, specifically, interpreting and evaluating numerical expressions including the language of scaling and fraction division, and, creating story contexts for numerical expressions and tape diagrams, and solve word problems. 

Science:

This week the grade 5 scientists will continue with their stream table experiments using the scientific method. The scientists will be purposing what might happen to the earths surface during a flood and then conducting a practical experiment to find out. The scientists will also be writing up their experiments as accurately as they can with use of the scientific method. 

Circles:

This month's CAC Core Value is 'Perseverance', so in circles this week the students will be focusing on discovering what it means to persevere in the many things we do in our lives. 


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