Dear Parents,

This week in Room 304, we will continue to concentrate on writing expository essays as part of our ISAT practice.  In 5<sup>th</sup> grade, students are required to write an expository essay during ISATs.  In addition, we will begin to focus on extended response writing in Math and Reading to prepare for ISAT testing.  I am available for conferencing most mornings between 8:30 and 9.   Please contact me via email:  <a href="mailto:agkrecik@cps.edu">agkrecik@cps.edu</a>.

<strong>Reading</strong><strong>: </strong>In addition to students’ daily responsibilities in Reader’s Workshop, we will focus on identifying the elements of a fairy tale.  Students will work in guided reading groups to compare/contrast two versions of the same fairy tale.   We will work in our ISAT prep books during the week and students will have ISAT prep work over the long weekend.  Students will receive their new AR goal this week.  Make sure that your child is reading an AR book at home.  AR is 10% of the overall reading grade.<strong></strong>

<strong>Writing: </strong><strong>Students will continue to improve writing practice for expository essays.  We will focus on Varying Sentence Structure this week.</strong>

<strong>Math:</strong> This week, we will cover lessons 5.5 and 5.6 this week.  Students will be converting fractions to decimals to percents.  Expect students to have math homework every night this week.  In addition, we will continue developing our short and extended responses in class.  Students will take a short quiz on Wednesday.

<strong>Science: </strong>This week we will make our own magnifiers and develop hypotheses on what makes a good magnifier.

<strong>Social Studies: </strong><strong>We will complete our study of the New England Colonies this week and take a test over Chapter 6 on Wednesday.   Students will be able to use their notes for the test.    In class, students will be writing a fictional letter to a relative back in </strong><strong>England</strong><strong> describing life in a </strong><strong>New England</strong><strong> colony.</strong>

<strong>Spelling: </strong>Because of the important work we are doing in class for ISAT prep, we are suspending spelling until after ISATs are complete.  We will resume weekly spelling in March.<strong></strong>

<strong>Reminder!!!!!  There will be no school from 2/11-15</strong>