Friendship!

Friday afternoon students got together across the grade level and worked in partners to create Friendship Poetry.  They interviewed each other to find out what they had in common and used those ideas in their poems.  They also found creative ways to use what they did not have in common in their poems.  When they have finished their poems they will appear on our Fifth Grade Friendship Tree.  Here are some pictures of students interviewing each other and writing their poems.

In math, we are currently working on Topic 2 Adding and Subtracting Decimals to Hundredths.  This unit requires students to round and use compatible numbers to estimate answers. A compatible number is any number that is easy to use in mental math.  In language arts we continue to learn and practice active reading strategies as they apply to literature.  This week we will begin using our Readers' Notebooks to write full letters about our independent reading.  We've also begun to study non-fiction text and small group instruction in the features of non-fiction text will begin soon.  We are writing personal narratives and sharing them in class.  We are using peer editing to revise our work.  After a student reads a story listeners tell one thing they liked about the reader's story and one thing they would like to know more about.  In science we are studying matter through a series of experiments that incorporate the use of hands on models and digital notebooks.  Students are discussing the results of their experiments and refining their observations in their notebooks during whole class discussions.