VAN
ALLEN
Van Allen School
Chariton, Iowa
December 2015
Fifth Grade Newsletter
Info…
With the weather turning colder, please remember
to send coats, hats, and gloves. Students are often
outside before school in the cold weather, and they
have a 30 minutes recess.
The 5th grade band concert is scheduled for
December 15 at 7:00. It will be held at Johnson’s
Auditorium.
Reading/Writing
During the month of December, fifth graders will
continue reading biographies. Using a self-selected
biography and internet research, students are writing
an informational report about the person in their
book. They have been learning how to take notes and
choose important topics. Currently, students are
learning how to structure informational writing by
including titles, headings, glossaries, pictures, and
captions. We are also practicing different forms of
writing including descriptive, sequential, cause/effect,
and problem/solution.
After students have written this essay with guidance,
they will be reading about Milton Hershey. Students
will be given a period of time to write an
informational essay on their own to see what they
have learned about the process.
Science – Mr. Lane
Students have been learning that no matter the change a
substance goes through, the mass is conserved. They have
been a part of many experiments over the last month to gain
an understanding of this phenomenon. To demonstrate their
knowledge, they have conducted a "Lemonade"
experiment. They have measured, graphed, and written a
summary of their data. In the upcoming weeks, students
will have to conduct their own experiment to find out if
substances going through a chemical change will retain
their mass.
Social Studies – Ms. McDaniel
This past month in Social Studies, we have been learning
about landforms and water bodies. We began the unit by
learning the basic landforms and then moved on to the more
unique landforms. Each student completed a project about
their own landform on Google Slides. To finish off the
landforms unit, we are exploring the National Parks in the
United States. With this, students are learning about the
parks history, different landforms, and what it has to offer
its visitors. The students will be completing a final project
for the unit about their National Park of choice. This project
will be a combination of an informational essay, like they
are working on in writing, and a Google Slides
presentation.
The next theme we will be focusing on in Social Studies is
History. The students’ interest in history has been sparked
through our reading materials and through learning about
National Park history. We are looking forward to diving
into the next units!
Math – Mr. Darrah/Mr. Stout
It is hard to believe that we have reached December.
During the first two weeks of the month, students will be
completing the unit that covers adding and subtracting large
numbers, as well as writing numbers in expanded form.
Following that test, fractions and mixed numbers will be the
focus until winter break and for most of the 3rd quarter.
December also means it is time for Mr. Darrah’s Wish List
activity. The students will be creating a wish list of presents
from the many newspaper ads distributed this time of year.
Once they have decided upon their list of presents, the
students will solve math problems relating to their list.
Happy Holidays!