5TH GRADE NEWS

LANGUAGE ARTS AND HISTORY:

Fifth grade just completed our informational writing unit. The class spent 8 weeks learning the five text structures in this type of writing, practicing identifying them, and then writing paragraphs in the structures. Informational writing is the most common form of writing, as it is used to explain and describe non-fiction. We encounter informational writing every day in the classroom through textbooks and notes, and in the world through news articles and social media posts. Therefore, the ability to recognize and comprehend the text structures is essential. However, the ability to write in these text structures is impressive, and the fifth graders have exceeded my expectations. Their text structure magazines showcased their understanding of key words and phrases, and they were beautiful, as shown in our last blog post. To end our unit, students prepared for a final assessment. They completed task cards with practice passages, played an online Kahoot!,  and teamed up for an interactive sort game. This game was not as simple as it looks-- it took each team several tries to get the sentences matched under the correct structure. However, their perseverance was rewarded! All students did very well and I’m proud of how much effort they put into their studies.

MATH AND SCIENCE:
Ft. Worth Regional Science Olympiad

The Spartan Science Olympiad team traveled to Ft. Worth to compete in one of the ten Texas Science Olympiad Regional tournaments. There are over 100 teams in Texas competing at these Regional tournaments for 30 spots at the State tournament. Our team placed 2nd overall at our Regional, so we are eagerly awaiting a notification to see if we advanced to the State level...This would be an incredible feat for a first-year team!

1st Place Events:

Density Lab (Chris & Jonah)

Dynamic Planet (Chris & Nick)

Write It Do It (Annabelle & Molly)

2nd Place Events:

Boomilever (Dylan & Morgan)

Herpetology (Chris & Ayres)

3rd Place Events:

Fossils (Jonah & Morgan)

Thermodynamics (Annabelle & Nick)