Fifth Grade Times
Conferences
Hopefully you have received the conference confirmation paper that was
sent home by your child’s teacher!
Please inform us immediately if you
need to change your conference time,
or need to meet via phone. Our goal is
to conference with every parent!
Main Office Phone Number
301-840-8165
Jennifer Peterman
[email protected]
Eunice Kim
[email protected]
Erin Kleinman
[email protected]
Mai-Anh Weir
[email protected]
Curriculum
Information!
Nov. 2015
Important Dates:
MCPS publishes parent
newsletters that help explain the reading and math
curriculum. Please visit the
below website to find out
additional information
about what we will be
teaching in November!
 11/2- No SchoolProfessional Day
http://
www.montgomeryschools
md.org/curriculum/2.0/
parent-newsletters.aspx
 11/16– Reading Night
 11/11 & 11/12–
Half Days for conferences
 11/12– Report Card
Distribution
 11/25– Half DayEarly release
 11/26-11/27– No
school
Homework
Students will continue to review weekly homework; 30 minutes of reading each night, spelling
practice activities, and a math worksheet. Please help foster responsibility in your child by
holding them accountable for remembering to bring their materials home, and for completing
assignments on time. In addition, please continue to remind your child to bring their guided
reading book home every day so you can see what they are working on in class!
Curriculum 2.0 Skills
In Marking Period 2, students will focus on metacognition and synthesis while completing all academic tasks. Metacognition is knowing and being aware of one’s own thinking and having the
ability to monitor and evaluate one’s own thinking. Synthesis is putting parts together to build
understanding of a whole concept or to form a new or unique whole. Students will have opportunities to use both of these skills throughout the marking period, in all subjects.
Inquiry Project
Students will be researching how conflicts and compromises among people in the United States
prompted change in the government. Students will view a presentation with an overview of the
Women's Movement and Civil Rights Movement. Students will then choose which movement to
research based on interest level. They will explore multiple online and print resources to gather information. Teachers will model each step of this process with the Labor Movement.
Information Literacy (Media)
Students will begin researching information for their inquiry project, and will review how to
conduct research using multiple sources. Students will find and evaluate sources for currency,
immediacy, and accuracy of information, author authority, motive and bias, and relevance to
topic to answer their questions. They will take notes using a graphic organizer, as well as cite
their sources.
Math
Students will be dividing whole numbers using various strategies such as partial quotients and the inverse operation of multiplication. Students will divide numbers with up
to 4 digits by numbers with 2 digits. Students will
interpret remainders if/when necessary. Students
will then begin to work with equivalent fractions as a
method for adding and subtracting fractions.
Reading
Students will explore folktales and myths to identify universal themes, how point of view impacts the
story, and the story’s structure. Students will then
explore various genres of text, using mystery stories as a foundation for discussion, and will continue
to focus on point of view, identifying the theme of
stories, and various strategies for figuring out unknown words.
Art
Students will work on idea development,
focusing on media experimentation and
aesthetic qualities. We will explore our
prior knowledge of clay techniques while
sketching, practicing and then creating a
clay gargoyle. Students will have the opportunity to build a gargoyle out of clay
and paint their sculpture using glaze.
PE
Students will focus on throwing to a target which is moving away from
them. They will also focus on catching a
thrown ball while moving away from the
passer.
Music
Fifth grade enjoyed their field trip to
Strathmore and attending a blues conScience
cert. Students will be working on singStudents will study magnets by determining the laws ing with increased vocal expression and
and properties of magnetism. They will then begin to clear diction. Fifth grade will also be
study static electricity and lightning, and how the
studying partner songs and songs with
two are related. Students will then start to draw
descants.
connections between electricity and magnetism,
while continuing to incorporate concepts learned in
Instrumental Music
the first quarter about forces.
The instrumental music program is off
to a great start! Our beginners made it
through the process of choosing an inSocial Studies
strument and are now learning basic
Students will explore how our country changed after playing techniques and notation. Our adthe Revolutionary War. They will discover how the
vanced students have been busy reviewcolonists engaged in meetings involving conflict and
ing material and polishing up our skills
compromise to create democratic principles that beafter a long summer. All of our stucame a foundation of our country’s government.
dents are preparing for our concert on
They will also examine official documents of our
Decemeber 15 and our Advanced stucountry such as the Articles of Confederation and
dents will soon be preparing for our
the Constitution that were created to support the
cluster concerts in January. More incountry’s new governing system.
formation will be sent home as we approach these dates. If any families
Writing
have used instruments around the house
Students will write an original folktale or myth, pay- that are no longer being played and
would like to make a donation to Goshen
ing close attention to a logical sequence of events
and the use of sophisticated language. Students will ES, please contact me. We would love to
expand our inventory and get more Gothen begin the inquiry process by researching and
shen students playing instruments availtaking notes on a period of change in our country’s
able to them.
history.