Mrs. Porisch's 5th & 6th Grade Class: March 16, 2011

Parents of 4th graders:

Part of the health curriculum for your children is HIV/AIDS information. This information is presented during the Communicable and Non-communicable Disease Unit. In order for your child to receive this information, you must sign a permission slip that was sent home 2 weeks ago in the Wednesday Watch papers. If you did not see one or have misplaced it, please email me or have your child request another one. They need to be returned by March 18th.

Upcoming Dates

NWEA tests will be sometime between April 5-19. I will let you know more precise dates when I know them.

Missing/Late work

As of this week, I am taking 10 points/day off of late work. I have been pretty lenient with point deductions.

I will also be printing off a list of late work on Wednesdays so if can go home in the Wednesday Watch. It should be on a (small) colored piece of paper. If your child does not get one, then they do not have any late or missing work. This will include work from absences as well.

Language

Writing:

Test preparation:

Latin Word Root----Quiz on Thursday

enni/later

bi- two
cent- hundred
per- through
uni- one

enni year

later side

-al like, related to

LW Root drawings for carni

Carnivorous by JI

Carnivorous by GR

Math

All: Geometry

4^th: Multiplication of larger #s

5^th: Fractions

Science

Science Fair Projects were amazing! The people visiting the school commented on them. I had other teachers coming to me and telling me how impressive they were—and they had not heard the presentations! The high school students, who gave input as judges, were equally impressed by your children’s communication skills, creativity, and scientific background knowledge. When all was said and done, my comments to all of them was that more credit needed to go to the parents, their involvement, and support of their children than to me.

I will post pictures of display boards that were still here as of Monday at the end of the blog. They will only be identified by initial.

The Science Fair Evaluation done by me went in the grade book. Special awards and places for the display boards/presentations did not impact the grade.

In the end, the places were determined by completeness and thoroughness of the entire project, not just the display board. For example, I stated many times in class that the data needed to be recorded in the science notebook as well as on the board (in some fashion). When 2 projects were equal in quality and presentation, I started looking more closely at the notebooks. Most of the special awards, but not all, were suggested by the high school students.

Many thanks to you again!

Social Studies

5th grade: Explorer investigations. In pairs, they are researching an explorer and choosing 2 out of 4 options for sharing their understandings of the explorer. Some of students choosing maps may have some “aging” of the map to do at home. J Most other work is being done in class.

4th grade: Regions of the US: NE, SE, Midwest, and SW. Students have been divided into groups and make presentations to the rest of the class about their region

4th grade spelling words Unit 28 March 21st VCCCV pattern

BASIC: hundred, supply, single, middle, explain, surprise, pilgrim, instead, complete, monster, settle, address, farther, sample, although, turtle, orchard, sandwich, athlete, kingdom

CHALLENGE: fortress, instant, exclaim, mattress, sculptor

REAL-WORLD- VOCABULARY: A Mask

unique, paste, width, project, conical, overlap, assemble, dangle

4th grade spelling words Unit 29 March 28th VV pattern

BASIC: lion, liar, poem, quiet, fuel, science, idea, usual, radio, India, piano, diary, violin, perido, cereal, video, meteor, rodeo, January, February
CHALLENGE: variety, gradual, geography, diagram, punctuate
REAL WORLD VOCABULARY: Outer Space
astronomy, solar system, gravity, crescent, satellite, lunar, comets, meteorite

5th grade spelling words Unit 28 March 21st Prefixes: in-, un-, dis-, mis-

BASIC: unable, unknown, unequal, unstable, unwise, dismiss, disaster, dishonest, disagree, discover, disgrace, insincere, indirect, insecure, incomplete, informal, mislead, mistreat, misspell, mislaid

CHALLENGE: invisible, mishap, unfortunate, discourage, unnecessary

REAL-WORLD- VOCABULARY: The Moon

elliptical, revolution, rotation, crater, spacecraft, probe, astronaut, hydrogen

5th grade spelling words Unit 29 March 28th Suffix -ion

BASIC: elect, election, react, reaction, confess, confession, express, expression, connect, connection, tense, tension, decorate, decoration, pollute, pollution, imitate, imitation, educate, education

CHALLENGE: fascinate, fascination, construct, construction

REAL WORD VOCABULARY: Learning Algebra

equation, variable, solution, operations, intersect, axis, ordered pair, coordinate

Science Fair Projects