5th Grade Amigos Families,

Happy New Year! We hope that you had an enjoyable winter break.  Students and teachers arrived back this week, and all seemed refreshed and ready to take on new challenges and jump back into the curriculum that is to come in 2010. 

Fifth graders have expressed their desire for CityStep to return.  Our CityStep directors and teachers are all current students at Harvard University.  They continue to be on winter break and we look forward to welcoming them back in a few weeks.  Classes will continue to be on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and students will begin to focus on the dance that will be part of the final production in April. 

The next two Math units that will be covered are What’s That Portion and Measuring Polygons.  Topics covered in these units are fractions, decimals, percents, 2-D geometry and measurement.   In addition to these two math units, students will also spend some time doing MCAS preparation and working on responding to open response questions.

In Social Studies students are continuing with the United States history curriculum.  The focus of the next two months will be the American Colonies, life in Colonial America, and the events that led up to the Revolutionary War.  In addition to using our Social Studies text, History Alive, students will also be reading several National Geographic books that take a closer look at some of these historical events.

In Science students are finishing their unit on Weather and Water.  They will end this unit with a series of lessons and experiments on evaporation, condensation and the changing states of water.  Following this unit, students will begin their next unit of exploration, Magnets and Motors.  Some of the activities include constructing a compass, an electromagnet, and a simple motor.  In addition, students continue to read non-fiction science texts that cover a variety of topics.

During the Language Arts block students are continuing with an Essay/Composition unit, in both Spanish and English.    Students will have written a series of essays and will be selecting a piece to publish.  A variety of genres continue to be explored during Reader’s Workshop, and students are working on the various ways to respond to literature. 

During Spanish week students have begun to use a bookmark to record their reading.  Students are expected to read nightly for 30 minutes in Spanish and parents are expected to sign the bookmark when this is completed. 

We continue to enjoy working with our fifth graders, and appreciate all of your support.

Maggie Manso-Rosa and Sarah Collazo