Fifth grade students will be required to read 40 books this year from a variety of genres.  We are applying the philosophy from a book that we’ve read and studied titled, The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller.  Our desire with using this philosophy will promote lifelong readers.  An AR (see below) test should be taken after completing each independent reading book.  The students will keep an interactive reading notebook that will record their whole group instruction notes, literary letters, lists of books they have read and want to read.  

We will concentrate on the writing process which includes brainstorming, prewriting, drafting, editing and publishing.  We will also spend time learning how to correctly format a paper using Google Docs during the publishing component of the process.  Daily writing will also occur using a Writer’s Notebook. The following papers will be composed throughout the year:  

• Four types of writing (narrative, informative, descriptive, persuasive)
• Skills (punctuation, capitalization, usage and expression)
• Writer’s Notebook/Journaling

A volunteer will teach 5-6 lessons of Junior Achievement in the fall.  An additional 4-5 weeks of instruction from Mrs. Anderson will occur in Social Studies in Dec/Jan.  A culminating field trip at Junior Achievement’s Biz Town is scheduled for February 6, 2019 to apply what has been learned.

Science is a combination of direct instruction, demonstrations, group work, note taking and experiments.  Students will participate in many hands-on experiments. When learning content, students will complete various teacher-created activities.  Filling in the main idea will allow them more time to focus on examples and modeling. The correct answers will always be discussed. As each unit comes to a close, the various activities and reinforcement of study skills will be emphasized.