WONDER

If you haven’t heard by now, the fifth grade is reading, Wonder by R.J. Palacio.   This is such a great book that relates to the children and they have such amazing thoughts to share with each other!  The book is a read aloud, but there are deep discussions about bullying, family interaction, friendships etc., as well as reading strategy lessons about point of view, conflict and theme (just to name a few).

Do yourself a favor and read this book if you get a chance.  

Here is a short synopsis:

"August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. WONDER, now a #1 New York Times bestseller and included on the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance." Get your hands on this book, you won’t regret it!

Writing:

The children are working on publishing their final personal narrative piece after lessons on elaboration, writing leads/conclusions, dialogue and slowing down the action.  After reading Wonder, we will be writing a literary analysis that allows each child to dive deep into the story and think critically about the characters, plot and themes presented.  

We are currently working on solving multiplication and division problems of whole numbers.  This unit focuses on solving multiplication and division problems with multi-digit numbers, understanding and using the relationship between multiplication and division to solve division problems, and writing and interpreting numerical expressions.  For the remainder of this trimester we will be comparing and ordering decimals to the thousandths. We will also be adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals. 

Click on a link below to view helpful videos:

Practice metric & standard measurement conversions

Metric System Conversion video

Multiplying Fractions game

Volume

Dividing Decimals

Partial quotient division

Multiplying Decimals

 Intro to Order of Operations

Order of Operations Millionaire Game

 2 digit by 1 digit Multiplication Video

 2 digit by 2 digit Multiplication Video

 Prime Factorization video

 Expanded form video

Rounding Decimals video