Extension Classroom!

 My extension classroom is now ready! Find all the extensions hidden in the classroom! :)

Extension Classroom

Click the link above

How to Annotate

We are annotating while we read this year! I am encouraging your child(ren) to annotate while they read at home and at school. Here are some of the rules we follow while we annotate:

 

Cursive Posters

 I finally finished my lowercase and capital cursive posters! This is how we're teaching the strokes. I hope this helps students who forgot their letters!!

Subordinating and Coordinating Conjunctions - Complex and Compound Sentences

 

You may have heard your child talking about WABUBS and FANYBOYS.... well this is what we're talking about! The big take away is we are finding ways to distinguish COMPLEX and COMPOUND sentences, as well as how to use conjunctions well.

COMPOUND SENTENCES: Two independent clauses (sentences with a subject and predicate) are connected with a conjunction.

Example: Mrs. Robinson like to go shopping, and she likes to go get coffee.

COMPLEX SENTENCES: Needs a subordinating conjunction (or relative pronoun) to connect a dependent clause and an independent clause. The dependent clause NEEDS the independent clause to make sense. Easy to pinpoint, the first sentence makes NO SENSE alone, it needs the independent clause.

Example: After going to school, I learned that Mrs. Robinson is the best teacher ever.

Simple sentences: So simple. They just have a subject and a predicate.

Example: Mrs. Robinson always has the best jokes.

I hope that helps you understand this a bit better, and to practice you can have your child create compound sentence, complex sentences, and simple sentences FOR FUN! :)

Writing

 We have been working since the first week of school on how to write our thoughts down concisely onto paper. This is easier said than done! I have been working them up to our process of writing using the format RACES. This stands for:

Restate

Answer

Cite evidence

Explain

Sum it up

When students write this year I am looking for ALL of this! We have been writing opinion pieces so far, and it did bring up the question of how you don't need the "c" for cite evidence for something about yourself. However, if your evidence comes from something else, like a story, you must cite it. 

Example using RACES for the question, "How did Alice Coachman persevere?"

Restate: Restate the question in your sentence. "Alice Coachman persevered in many ways."

Answer: Answer the question. "Alice didn't stop running even when her father wanted her to stop, Alice didn't quit when people treated her differently because of her race, and Alice worked hard even when her teammates lost."

Cite Evidence: "According to page 33, it states that Alice's father wanted her to quit running. The text says, "...."

Explain: "When Alice decided not to quit, she won a gold medal. It proves that persevering pays off."

Sum it up: "That is how Alice Coachman persevered during the hardships she endured trying to do what she loved."

This is a really thorough example, but I am working up to them being able to do this. I want them to write down the information that they read and synthesize, then cite their sources from the text. It is a delicate balance! Some children want to only pull out quotes from the text, and others only want to write down what they read and comprehended, with no direct text evidence.

Why RACES? Why does it matter? When students take the ACAP at the end of the year this is what is expected. We want them to be successful. This also prepares them for middle school and beyond!

EXTRA RACES WRITING PRACTICE:

Vocabulary Help

 While your child is reading, we want them to comprehend and think deeply about what is read. Vocabulary is a huge part of this process! This year I will be working hard on getting students to pause on unknown words. You can help your child with this at home by talking about complex words you notice with them. This can be while you are watching a show, listening to a song on the radio, or reading. "Hey, did you hear them say 'expeditious'? What do you think that means? What clues did you use to come to that conclusion?" Together you can talk about the roots, prefixes, suffixes, and context. Modeling our thought process on how we pause on tricky words will help them think deeply about the vocabulary in their books and the world around them. We want them to be curious!

Here is a vocabulary word map you can use to help your child work through and dig deeper into the meaning of words. If your child is struggling to figure out what words mean in context or through breaking the word apart independently, this helps walk them through that process. It is a guide that will help them externally until they internalize the process of looking at all the parts of a word to determine the meaning. Remember, we are exploring morphology more, which can then be applied to a plethora of words. This includes: prefixes, roots, and suffixes from many languages that make up English. 

Online Storybook

 To access your child's online storybook, they can do so through their CLEVER, which can be accessed via the MCS bookmarks on the Chromebook. 

1. Click "Clever"

2. Click "McGraw Hill"

3. Find our story! :)

I will also send out a copy of the story every week. In fifth grade, we do a mixture of cold reads and Open Court story tests. Some weeks, their story may not be exactly like the Open Court story. The themes and literary elements in the cold read will mirror what they learned about that week.