CLICK HERE FOR UPCOMING WCDS EVENTS
Upcoming Dates:
- April 4th – Pajama Day! and/or Wear Blue!
- April 7th – Music Field Trip During Day – In School Uniform
- April 17th – 11:30 Dismissal and Spring Long Weekend
- April 22nd – Back to School – 10:00 Start
This group of students really loves to read. If your child is interested in any new books to add to their collection or sequels to any of the novels we’ve read this year, we encourage you to buy them from our Scholastic bookshop, so our class can earn points to upgrade our 5th-grade class library! Order by April 1, 2025 🙂
Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/32M7K7
Weekly Recap:
Language Arts:
- Students took turns practicing their public speaking this week as they prepared and presented notes for a “board meeting” on who they think was at fault for the accident with Mr. Terupt (our class novel)
- Our poetry unit is in full swing and our books are growing more colorful and our writing is becoming more emotional as the days pass
Math:
- Learning about finding the area, perimeter, and circumference of geometric shapes
- Beginning our Recreate Wheeling Project!
- Students worked to create their own blueprint on a quarter-inch grid paper, measuring the area and perimeter of various areas and buildings of a specific section of Wheeling
- They are now working to transfer that blueprint to a larger 1inch grid paper
- In the coming weeks, students will work on developing their locations with the addition of 3D shapes to scale while measuring the volume and surface area of each building
- Students will vertically build up their grid papers to be a part of the town and they will work in Art class with Mr. K on the artistic expression involved in designing buildings and infrastructure
- Ask your child about their March Madness bracket! We created our own brackets and are going through them each week to talk about the real-world fractions and percentages involved in this yearly statistical experience
Social Studies:
This week in Social Studies, our fifth graders stepped back in time to the election of 1860! Students learned about the four major candidates—Abraham Lincoln, John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas—and even got to hear speeches from each one while they learned to take notes lecture style. We discussed the key issues that divided the nation and how the Electoral College played a crucial role in deciding the winner. As we near the end of fifth grade and prepare for middle school, you will begin to see social studies homework start to come home in the evenings with tests and quizzes to come in the future.
Weather Balloon:
- We explored atmospheric pressure and its dependence on temperature and altitude. Using the egg-in-a-bottle demonstration, we observed how reducing the internal air pressure in a jar allows a hard-boiled egg to be pulled into the bottle.
- We then connected this concept to weather balloons, understanding why they expand as they ascend into the stratosphere—until they eventually burst due to decreasing external pressure.
- Students were divided into six groups and began setting their objectives. Ask your child which group they’re in!
