This week we are happy to welcome another student to our fifth grade classroom! Lily is from Israel and will be joining our class in the afternoons for the near future. Today the students are bringing home their school picture packets. If you did not order a package, it's not too late! Your child has received a proof package that you can order from. If your child did not have his picture taken or would like to retake his picture, he will have the opportunity on November 29th. For planning purposes, I am sharing a reminder that early Friday dismissals begin next week. We will be moving dismissal time to 3 pm on Fridays only as we transition to Daylight Saving Time and dismiss school a half hour earlier to allow more time for Shabbat preparations. And last, but not least, I would like to give shout outs to our fifth grade Honorable 'Menschens'! Mika was recognized for demonstrating perseverance in her daily life and Eliot, Henya, and Leah were recognized for demonstrating independence. We are proud of you for setting great examples!

This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: Our spelling list focused on compound words and learned that there are three types: closed (when the two words are put together without a space), open (when a space is placed between the words), and hyphenated (when the words have a hyphen between the two words). 
• Reading: The students learned about how non-fiction reading can include text features, which are valuable in helping us better comprehend the text. We explored the various types of features and how they help clarify information.
• Language Arts: We learned about hyperboles which are exaggerations to prove a point. The students wrote their own hyperboles.  
• Social Studies: We have been participating in activities that review the concepts in our chapter on United States geography as we review for next week's social studies assessment.

This week in science:

• We graphed and analyzed the change in number of daylight hours over a year. We related this change to the position of Earth in its orbit around the Sun, creating the seasons.

This week in math:

• The students learned to use the relationship between multiplication and division to mentally divide multi digit numbers.
• We reviewed and practiced strategies for using partial-quotients division to divide whole numbers.
• We practiced making lists of multiples for a divisor and using that information to choose partial quotients in extended division problems.

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on strategies.

It has been an exciting week in the fifth grade. Thank you to all who attended our Rosh Chodesh presentation this past Monday! The students were excited to see your faces as they popped up on our screen, one after the other.  The fifth grade also got to enjoy a pizza party yesterday as a reward for their fundraising efforts! It was "the best pizza party we've ever had"!

This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: Our spelling list focused on the /oi/ spelled oi, and oy, ue as well as /ou/ spelled ou and ow this week. 
• Reading: We looked at the characteristics of another type of fictional reading, fairy tales, this week. We read the short story "Sarah and the Secret Castle" and identified the characteristics of a fairy tale within that story. The students made connections between the characters in the story and wrote a prediction for what they thought would happen next.
• Language Arts: In our interactive notebooks, the students created a reference page for the eight parts of speech. This will give them a quick reference when working on grammar skills or when receiving feedback during the editing step of the writing process. 
• Social Studies: Students learned about where people settle and how a region's identity can be formed based on its people's activities. 

This week in science:

• After Rosh Chodesh on Monday, the students had some questions that had not been answered by our research on the moon and its phases. So they each chose a question that they are interested in working on to find the answer(s) to. This week they have researched their individual questions and prepared a short presentation that they will give to the class on Monday.

This week in math:

• We continued using the U.S. traditional method of multiplication to solve problems, increasing the difficulty to multiplying two-digit numbers by two-digit numbers and then again multiplying three-digit numbers by two-digit numbers.
• The students engaged in an open-response multi-step problem solving lesson.The students timed themselves to see how long it would take them to tap their desk 100 times. Using that information, they calculated how long it would probably take them to tap their desk one million times and then had to write an explanation communicating the strategy they used. Finally they shared their explanations and received feedback from which they could revise their writing.

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on accepting differences between people and how to work on finding common ground.

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After many weeks of preparation, our school's 5k "Journey to Israel" run has arrived! After a friendly battle against the other elementary classes: second, third, and fifth grades will all share the privilege of enjoying a class pizza party next week! Congratulations to the fifth grade class who raised the most money per capita! Several of our  classmates have signed up to participate in the event and I hope to see you all out on the course on Sunday! The next morning (Oct. 16th) will be our 5th grade Rosh Chodesh program via Zoom at 11 am. Please let us know if you did not receive the invitation from Toni Scott with the Zoom link. The students have been busily preparing to present their knowledge of the moon and its phases to you. And finally, we had a lovely surprise today as Bailey Zelikovich came to school to give us all some extra love this week. The students were super excited to spend some time with him both in the classroom and on the playground during recess. Picture attached below!

This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: Our spelling list focused on the /oo/ spelled oo, ou, ue, u and ew this week. 
• Reading: We looked at the characteristics of fables this week. We read the short story "The Farmer, His Son, and the Donkey" and identified the characteristics of a fable within that story.
• Language Arts: As a cross-curricular tie with Mrs. Austgen's weekly lesson, the students rewrote  "The Farmer, His Son, and the Donkey'' from the perspective of the donkey. They were given the choice to rewrite it as a play, narrative story with dialogue, or a diary entry. 
• Social Studies: Students learned how people use the land and its resources to meet their needs and identified reasons why people change their environment. They also reviewed how lines of latitude (aka parallels) and longitude (aka meridians) tell us the absolute location of a place by using the measurement of degrees and labeling of directions.

This week in science:

• The students finished preparing their Rosh Chodesh presentations.

This week in math:

• We practiced using powers of ten in estimating and multiplication.
• We reviewed how valuable it is to estimate the answer to a multiplication problem to let us know if our product is reasonable.
• We introduced the U.S. traditional method of multiplication as another strategy for multiplying numbers. We began with practicing multiplying two-digit by one-digit numbers.
• The students solved multi-step problems that required unit conversions within the U.S. customary system. 

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on putting yourself in the other person's shoes when you find yourself in conflict with them. Doing so can help us empathize with their perspective and makes compromising a possible solution.

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​We have a busy October coming up and there are a few school events that I would like to highlight. On October 2nd the students would like to invite you to lunch with them in our school sukkah. Our lunchtime begins around 11:35 am until 12:05 pm. Mrs. Toni Scott has sent an email with an order form for lunch if you wish to order lunch. The next day, October 3rd, the students will be going on their annual school field trip to Beasley's Orchard from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. It is looking like 83 degrees and sunny but please keep an eye on weather conditions! There will be no school on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday of next week which means we will not be having a spelling packet or spelling test. Further on into October is our school's 5k "Journey to Israel" on the 15th. Please join me in continuing to encourage our students to keep up with their training tracker commitments that are due no later than October 12th. And finally, please mark your calendars to join us via Zoom for the 5th grade Rosh Chodesh program on Oct. 16th at 11 am. This week I am including some pictures of the fifth grade's time with Mrs. Sloan and Mrs. Austgen!

This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: Our spelling list focused on the long /i/ this week. No spelling packet or test next week.
• Reading: We completed our reading NWEA assessment.
• Language Arts: We worked on punctuating sentences correctly with commas. We also learned when to correctly use the word pairs either/or and neither/nor.  
• Social Studies: Students learned that the United States can be divided into regions based on different kinds of climate and vegetation. Learning about climate and vegetation helps them understand why people live differently in different parts of the country.

This week in science:

• The students are preparing their Rosh Chodesh presentations.

This week in math:

• We reviewed place value to the millions, how a digit can be affected by moving one place to the left or right.
• We learned to write numbers in standard, expanded, and exponential forms.
• The students determined the patterns in the number of zeros when multiplying by powers of 10. 

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on how to be assertive without being aggressive. This time the students role played how they would handle various situations that are common to their grade level.

Hello- Let me begin by wishing all an easy fast on this Yom Kippur holiday. In observance, the school will be closed for the day on Monday, September 25th. This week the students finished up their science activity where they scaled down the sun and moon to fit on a poster board to demonstrate the size difference between the two. Each pair persevered when trying to find a unit conversion that would allow both objects to fit. We also had a visit from the honorable Judge Marc Rothenberg, who came to speak with us today about his position as a judge on the Marion County Supreme Court. He helped the students draw the connection between how the Indiana constitution helps him govern judicial decisions just like the Torah helps each of them govern their own personal decisions in life. The students listened well and asked great questions!


This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: Our spelling list focused on contractions this week. We practiced being able to tell the difference between when to use 'who's' and 'whose'.
• Reading: This week we worked on words. We practiced identifying word pairs as synonyms or antonyms, using context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words, and had a mini-lesson on how the root word -scope means to look at carefully and analyzed a word family with that particular root so see how its meaning affected the meaning of those words.
• Language Arts: We took our 9/11 responses through the revising, editing, and publishing steps of the writing process. We discussed the differences between revising (improving the content and flow of our writing) and editing (correcting our grammar usage, spelling, and mistakes in mechanics).  
• Social Studies: Students learned about the different types of bodies of water in the United States and how we use them to meet our needs. We focused on the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River drainage basin in particular. The students were reminded that many of the first towns/cities in the United States were built along rivers and lakes due to the resources they provide.

This week in science:

• We focused on the moon and its phases.
• The students learned that the moon's phases are caused by its orbit around the earth and the cycle repeats every 28 days.
• Did you know that the moon does not make its own light? It only reflects the light from the sun.
• Despite appearing the same size to us on Earth, the moon is actually smaller than the sun but appears the same size because it's closer to us.

This week in math:

• The students practiced writing number models using one of the volume formulas as a framework for finding volumes of prisms and shapes made up of multiple prisms. 
• The students reviewed parentheses as a grouping symbol and evaluated expressions to determine where a set of parentheses might belong. For this they had to consider the order of operations.
• We reviewed for the unit one math assessment.
• The students completed the unit one math assessment.
• The students began to complete the math NWEA assessment.

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on how to be assertive without being aggressive. 

Hello- Shanah tovah to all our fifth grade families on this Rosh Hashanah holiday! The students at our school received their annual holiday visit from the ram. This year's little guy was a sweetheart and so well-behaved as the students each had a turn to pet him and ask some questions. His handler gave a brief presentation on a day in the life of a ram and discussed how a ram's horn can be made into one of the shofars that can be heard sounding on Rosh Hashanah. Please follow the link below to our classroom's webpage to see more pictures!
This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: We focused on spelling words with the long /o/ sound. We practiced spelling words in the present and past tenses.
• Reading: We compared and contrasted various texts to see how different authors structure their paragraph's main ideas in various places and reviewed how main ideas can be explicitly stated in topic sentences or just implied.
• Language Arts: The students were tasked with responding to a writing prompt of their choice regarding the events of and feelings towards 9/11. We completed an in-depth review of the pre-writing/planning and drafting steps of the writing process.  
• Social Studies: We discussed the events of 9/11 and watched personal testimony of those involved in the events of the day and watched news reports of how that day continues to be memorialized. We learned about the differences between primary and secondary sources and sorted the videos accordingly. During our study of geography, we learned what elevation maps are and looked at various types. The students learned that elevation maps provide important information to people such as architects and engineers as they design and construct bridges, roads, and buildings. The students learned that elevation maps can be useful to themselves when hiking or camping.

This week in science:

• The students learned that the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours and orbits around the sun every 365.25 days. That quarter of a day is why we have a leap year every four years.
• Earth's rotation causes observable patterns such as night and day.
• Earth's orbit causes some stars to be visible only during certain months.
• We also compared the earth and sun's sizes. The students are currently working on an activity where they have been asked to scale down the earth and sun to sizes that can fit on a poster board.

This week in math:

• We discovered two different formulas for calculating the area of rectangular prisms. Volume = Area of the base x height OR Volume = length x width x height.
• The students spent time calculating and converting between units of volume. For example: How many inches are in a cubic foot?
• The students found the volumes of model figures that were composed of rectangular prisms to solve real-world problems involving volume. For example, when given a sketch of a french horn's carrying case made up of multiple rectangular prisms, are they able to calculate about how much volume the case has?

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on listening to others with attention. 

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Hello- I hope everyone had a long, wonderful weekend! While it was a shorter week in school, we still packed a full five days of learning in. We also welcomed a young lady to our class! She will be attending school with us at the academy for the next couple of months. If you see her around, please give her a warm welcome! Have you ordered your fall mums from the PTO yet? If you haven't- never fear! The order deadline has been extended to Monday, September 11th. See more details in the attached flyer. Today the students are coming home with information about our school's 5K fundraiser with details on how they can help raise funds for our school and the 8th grade trip to Israel. In addition to that, our first round of "Friday Folder" papers went home as well. These papers are returned assignments from the first few weeks of school. You may notice that there are no letter grades on the papers. This is done on purpose so as not to discourage any students as we introduce additional personal responsibility and accountability in the classroom. You'll notice that graded papers have a fraction showing how many points were earned on the assignment out of how many points the assignment was worth. If the percentage equated a letter grade of A or B, then the students received a stamp or a smiley face. Assignments that were checked for completion and progress (and not for the grade book) will have a check mark at the top. "Friday Folders" are not actually a separate folder but what the students bring home in their homework folders on Friday, so no folders to remember to return on Monday. The students have been asked to go through the assignments with you to showcase their work. Feel free to keep the assignments as keepsakes or recycle them after you have perused them. Assignments will come on Fridays unless we have a short week (3 days or less). Enjoy this nice weather and have a great weekend!

This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: We focused on spelling words with the long e or long u sounds. We identified the short vowel sound in 'been' (short i). 
• Reading: We reviewed how the main idea of a paragraph or lesson is what it is mostly about. The main idea may be stated in a sentence, or it may only be suggested. Supporting details give more information about the main idea.
• Language Arts: Given a main idea, the students added supportive details to the paragraph. They participated in an activity where each student chose a main idea and then the paper traveled around the room and every other student added a supportive detail sentence to it. It made for some interesting paragraphs!
• Social Studies: We learned how landforms divide the United States into different regions. Then we took a closer look at each region and identified major landforms then evaluated to see how they were similar/different to other landforms in the same region.

This week in science:

• We learned what a star is and how it works.
• We learned that stars come in different sizes and distances from Earth.
• The sun is the largest (and only) star in our solar system and is a medium star of average size and brightness. We learned that the star we do see are in other solar systems and much farther away from us than the sun so they appear smaller and dimmer.

This week in math:

• Students measure volume of various rectangular prisms by filling the prism with unit cubes.
• The students looked at representations of rectangular prisms that were partially filled with cubes and had to use abstract reasoning to determine the volume of those prisms.
• The students related volume to multiplication and addition by thinking about how many unit cubes filled one layer of a prism and then determining how many layers were needed.
• We reviewed converting between different measurements of time, volume, length, and capacity.
• We practiced interpreting and writing expressions.

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen's lesson focused on recognizing the need for and showing empathy to others.

Hello- This week we welcomed Mrs. Austgen to our classroom to begin social-emotional learning lessons. She will be visiting us on Thursdays to teach and support the students in skills needed to develop healthy relationships with themselves and others. Just in case you missed the email, I wanted to second Mrs. Vairo's request for donations for an upcoming STEM activity. She is in search of the following: pvc elbows and 3 way splits (3/4-1 inch diameter), pvc pipe (3/4 inch- 1 inch), cardboard/cardboard boxes, zip ties, toilet paper or paper towel tubes, straws, funnels, clear vinyl piping (3/4-1 inch), and Hot Wheels tracks. If you are willing and able to donate any of these supplies, just send them in with your student and we will get them to her! Next week we are excited to begin our Wednesday electives classes with Monday classes set to begin the following week since we have no school this coming Monday in observance of Labor Day. Enjoy the three day weekend! 

This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: We focused on spelling words with the long a sound. 
• Reading: We reviewed how the main idea of a paragraph or lesson is what it is mostly about. The main idea may be stated in a sentence, or it may only be suggested. Supporting details give more information about the main idea.
• Language Arts: The students completed an activity in which they analyzed the context of a sentence to determine which homophone was the correct choice to complete the sentence. We also reviewed what conjunctions and interjections are.
• Social Studies: We introduced "Geography" as our first unit of study. We will begin by studying our country's geography. First up was reading to learn how the United States can be divided into regions based on different kinds of land. This will help us determine how areas of the country are similar and how they are different. 

This week in science:

• This week we began our study of "Earth and Space Systems". This week we explored the question "What is Earth's place in the universe?" We first defined that a system is a group of parts that work together for one purpose/function. We identified the parts of our space system as being the planets, the sun and other stars, and the moon. Then we looked at how these parts interact to cause patterns such as the day/night cycle, seasons of the year, and the changing positions of objects in the sky. The students participated in an activity that modeled how the brightness and light size of stars can vary depending on their distance away from the observer.

This week in math:

• Students learned how measuring area is different from measuring volume.
• The students explored measuring volume with informal (non-standard) units. This led us to the discovery that standard units provide more accurate measurements.
• The students practiced determining the volume of a 3-dimensional shape by packing it with pattern blocks.

This week with Mrs. Austgen:

• Mrs. Austgen played a round of Jeopardy with the students designed to help them get to know her and her position here at the academy.

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Hello- We have completed the second week of school but it was our first complete run-through of weekly schedules. Routines and procedures are becoming more familiar and the students are becoming more comfortable with expectations. One expectation from our school handbook that I like to highlight towards the beginning of the year is that students are expected to arrive at school at 8 am. On time arrival helps set the tone for the day. Students are marked tardy beginning at 8:05 am. When a student accumulates three tardies, the tardies then convert to one absence on our attendance record. Depending on the day, first period for fifth grade include general studies, STEM, technology, science, and art. All important subjects to be on time for! 

We began our spelling routine this week. For the first week, all of the students received the same spelling list/packet. Packets will come home on the first day of the week and are due back, completed, on the last day of the week which coincides with our spelling test. Starting in week 3, we will add a new layer to that. Before a new list is given, the students will be pre-assessed on the weekly list. If they earn at least an 80%, then they will receive an alternative list with alternative word work for their packet that week. 

Fifth grade is featured in The Weekly 5 with HHAI today! Please click on the link to explore the classroom website which includes a variety of useful information. Looking forward to next week, keep an eye on your email this coming Thursday, August 31, when teachers will be emailing links to their back-to-school videos. See below for a synopsis of what happened in the fifth grade this week!

​This week in humanities: 

• Spelling: We reviewed the different patterns for the short vowel sounds and practiced identifying syllables in our spelling words.
• Reading: We reviewed various genres and sorted them into the categories of fiction or nonfiction. We reminded ourselves what text features are and that they are included in nonfiction writing to help us sort and process the new information. 
• Language Arts: The students completed a grammar pre-assessment and created writing samples for narrative, opinion, and informative writing. 
• Social Studies: The students became familiarized with the parts of their social studies (and math) textbook(s) with a scavenger hunt activity. We reviewed the parts of a map and their uses to reorient ourselves as we begin studying the geography of the United States.  

This week in science:

• This week we explored the questions "What is science?", "What do scientists do?", and "What is the scientific method?". Today we applied the scientific method to an egg dropping activity. The goal of the activity was to create a protective cushion around our egg that would protect it from breaking when dropped from the second floor landing. During the activity the students made observations, asked questions, made claims that they investigated, gathered data, and constructed oral explanations as to why their claim was true or false. 

This week in math:

• Students explored their Student Reference Books to familiarize themselves with its organization
• We reviewed area concepts and explored strategies for finding the area of rectangles with fractional side lengths.
• The students analyzed the work of two students answering a problem regarding area of a rectangle. They had to explain how they thought each student arrived at their answer then state which student they agreed with and why. Students were able to share their answers and were given the chance to revise their explanations in order to make them more clear. 
• We worked on finding areas of rectangles with fractional side lengths using the tiling strategy.