Mrs. Shields Fifth Grade:
I am excited about another new year! Not only will your fifth grader learn academic skills, but they will also be expected to take on more responsibility for their learning and prepare to go to middle school next year.
For more information about our day, please see the Open House powerpoint presentation.
I look forward to seeing you at the Back to School Night September 26th when I hope to answer any questions you may have about it.
We are well on our way with P.T.A. memberships, too. If you have not joined yet, please do! We are trying for 25 members for our class.
By the upper elementary grades students are “reading to learn” rather than “learning to read”.
Our reading program
has three main parts—skills instruction,
literature groups, and independent reading.
We will focus on one main reading strategy or skill each week in
class. Research and reference skills
will be taught and reinforced in the library as well.
Students will read a variety of texts in
small groups, from non-fiction articles to novel or author studies. They will be continuing to practice skills
taught, increase vocabulary, and develop smooth reading.
They will also be working on responding to
books by sharing their understanding and opinions with a group. During
independent reading, students will be given at least 20 minutes of
dedicated
time to read books on their own level and of their own choice. They will set a goal of how much they will
read each nine weeks.
Look
for their
goal sheet in the reading section of their binder.
Each month beginning in October, students will be required to complete a “book project” at home. Every month has a different type, or genre, of book to encourage students to read a variety of books. There is a section in the binder to keep the project guidelines and work until the end of the month.
Science:
Fifth graders will be tested on their knowledge of the Standards of Learning (SOL’s) we learn in class this year, as well as the information they learned last year as fourth graders. We will be using an “Interactive Notebook” to take notes and respond to our learning. (For more information about how we use our Interactive Notebook, see my Social Studies section of the webpage.) The textbook will be used as one resource for information, but all classroom tests and quizzes will come from the notebook.
We will begin working
on SOL 5.6, The Ocean
Environment. 
We will be investigating
the land features under the ocean. We
will find out what effects the temperature and salt content of the
water have
on the ocean and the living things in it.
We will also review food webs and food chains as we learn about
marine
animals and how they survive.
Social Studies:
In fifth grade, we
study 
regions in the
We will be using an “Interactive Notebook” for our History notes. I will provide students with typed notes pages which we read and discuss together in class. We are learning how to find important information to highlight and jot notes to make sense of our reading. These written notes belong on the even numbered pages of the notebook.
On the odd numbered pages, students draw a graphic for each main point in the notes to help them “show” the meaning. We talk about what to draw together, and students usually leave class with most pictures drawn in one color. A set of notes is complete after the student goes back to the page to do each graphic in at least two colors while they review and restate the main points.
We will also be adding any activities we do to our notebooks including all tests and quizzes. This will keep all grades and information together in one place for students and parents. Each unit will have a Table of Contents we fill out as we add items to tell which activities were graded and which should be studied for tests. On the first page of each new unit will be a list of questions to be answered. We will use it as a study guide before the test, but it can be filled out as we learn the answers to the questions throughout our study.
