Important Dates & Reminders

• February 14 - Valentine’s Day 
• February 20 - President’s Day  - No School

• Please continue to check Talking Points on a daily basis
• Laptops may be sent home if there is a chance of snow in the forecast.
• FCPS has shared the following statement.  The first five inclement weather days will be traditional “snow days” with no school activities. After those five days, we will hold virtual learning days, whenever possible, to maintain continuity of learning. Virtual learning on these days will be synchronous (live) instruction following the inclement weather virtual learning day schedule which includes a two-hour delay.
• Lexia, STmath, and MyOn may be accessed at home for student practice. If you wish for your student to begin taking their laptop home each night to practice on these sites, please reach out to your student’s teacher.
• Information about a Valentine’s Day celebration will be communicated to you from your student’s teacher. Please continue to check Talking Points for any updates.

Language Arts

What we learned this past month:

Reading: 

• Students worked on reading and analyzing poetry. They identified conflict/resolution as well as figurative language.
• Students continued to work in their reading groups in book clubs, strategy groups, and skill based groups 

Writing: 

• Students completed their poetry notebook! Poetry notebooks included skills taught in reading.
• We finished our memoirs.
• We began brainstorming about persuasive essays.

What we will be learning next month:

Reading:

Students will begin their fantasy unit. This includes:

• Identifying the parts of a fantasy story
• Following the quest of a story to better understand the story elements and lesson learned
• Exploring “high fantasy” and “low fantasy” texts in the classroom 

Writing: 

• Students will begin following the writing process to create their own fantasy stories.
• They will implement skills taught in reading!

Math

What we learned last month:

• Students have been learning how to add and subtract fractions with alike/unlike denominators.
• Students examined and solved story problems that involve fraction computation. 
• Students continued to work in their daily math groups while completing tasks and stations focused around the 5th grade standards.

What we will be learning next month:

• Students will be learning how to multiply a fraction by a whole number. 
• Students will continue examining and solving story problems that involve fraction computation (including multiplication)

Later in the month…

Students will begin the algebraic reasoning unit. This includes:

•  Investigating and describing the concept of variable and writing equations using a variable
• Using expressions with a variable and creating problems based on equations using a single step variable

Advanced Math

What we learned last month:

• Students worked on understanding and reading coordinate planes
• Students focused on understanding congruency 
• Students will be introduced to Rational numbers, exponents, and integer operations. They will work with using these types of numbers in story problems and real-life examples.

What we will learn next month:

• Students will work to understand expressions, equations, and inequalities
• Students will work with proportions and understand how to read them

Science

What we learned last month: 

Students took part in a 4th Grade science review unit! Students reviewed:

• The parts of the solar system which included naming/identifying the eight planets
• The parts of an ecosystem and food webs while reviewing important terms and roles of organisms
• The different types of energy and how it is transferred in our everyday lives

What we will be learning next month:

Students will begin learning about magnetism and electricity!

• Students will investigate and understand that energy can take many forms.
•  Students will take part in hands-on learning to investigate and understand that electricity is transmitted and used in daily life.
• Students will investigate and understand that the conservation of energy resources is important.
• Students will work to demonstrate an understanding of scientific reasoning, logic, and the nature of science by planning and conducting investigations

Social Studies

What we learned last month:

Students worked with groups to complete a project focused on an ancient civilization of their choice.

• Students researched an ancient civilization and presented their knowledge on the culture’s geography, climate, accomplishments and contributions.

What we will be learning next month:

Students will be reading nonfiction books about ancient civilizations to prepare them for the next ancient civilizations project which will take place in March!