L’SHANA TOVA

Gail’s fifth grade is learning about the elements of literature in our reading of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. It has been a little bit of a struggle for many to compose ideas and answers about literary devices such as “allusions,” and foreshadowing but, with much discussion and example, students are getting the idea of how to write about literature and understand the author’s craft in a work of fiction. We are also learning how to write paragraph answers to questions and fully explain answers with examples and discussion. It’s just the beginning of the year and for many this is a demanding and hard process. But, soon, every student will be skilled in analyzing literature and writing about it.

We are also continuing to learn about inventions and technology and doing interesting activities to encourage the students to problem solve for invention ideas.

Almost everyday, we are  editing and proofreading   paragraphs about real historical figures. These paragraphs have many errors of punctuation in them. Students take their red pencils and correct and edit the paragraphs. We are also  working on writing stories about being granted three wishes. We discussed the importance of creating a setting in the story as well as using dialogue and description to “show” us the story in a real and vivid way.

In math, we have been studying place value and multiplying by 10’s, 100’s, 1000’s, etc. as well as dividing by these numbers. Students are being taught estimation strategies for greater understanding of math. We are having our first math test on Tuesday.  I wish you all a healthy and happy New Year filled with blessings.