5KC Class Blog

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: June 10-14 2019 Dear Parents, This is our final G5 Weekly Newsletter for the 2018-2019 school year. Thank you for your support this year. Goodbye and good luck to families who are leaving ISKL. To families returning to ISKL in August, enjoy your summer/winter break with family and friends and we hope to see you around ISKL when school resumes. We have four teachers leaving G5: Clarrissa Chavez, Andrea Bongazone, Karien Hoogenboezem, and Cath Bae. Clarrissa is taking a leave of absence and will remain in KL, Andrea and her family are moving to Prague in the Czech Republic, Karien is moving to Prep Senior and Cath is our new ES Librarian. Special thanks to Clarrissa, Andrea, Karien, and Cath for their wonderful contributions to G5 this year. G5 would also like to acknowledge and thank Loreena Burns, who took over Clarrissa’s class when she was on maternity leave. Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy & Unit of Study: The students ...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: May 13-May 17, 2019 Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students will continue to learn about Social Issues and Human Rights. They have chosen a social change issue of interest, done their research and taken notes. They will now work on creating an information or opinion essay about their chosen social issue. They will also link their social issue to a notable person/people who have worked on or are working on improving their social issue. In addition, to writing their essay, the students will continue working on various other pieces of work to be included in their Social Change Blackboard Project. Parents are invited to attend a ‘G5 Social Change Blackboard Project Share’ on Tuesday 4 June from 1:30-2:30 pm in G5 classrooms and common area. Math: Students will continue our Volume and Measurement Unit. They will select appropriate units, strategies, and tools for solving problems that involve estimating and measurin...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: May 6-10, 2019 Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students will continue to learn about Social Issues and Human Rights. They have chosen a social change issue of interest, done their research and taken notes. They will now work on creating an information or opinion essay about their chosen social issue. They will also link their social issue to a notable person/people who have worked on or are working on improving their social issue. In addition, to writing their essay, the students will also begin working on various other pieces of work to be included in their Social Change Blackboard Project. Parents are invited to attend a ‘G5 Social Change Blackboard Project Share’ on Tuesday 4 June from 1:30-2:30pm in G5 classrooms and common area. Math: Students will continue our Volume and Measurement Unit. They will select appropriate units, strategies, and tools for solving problems that involve estimating and measuring v...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: April 29th - May 3rd Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students will continue to learn about Social Issues and Human Rights. They will continue researching a variety of topics and begin narrowing down their ideas. They will reinforce and build on their note-taking skills as well as learning more about trustworthy resources and identifying perspective.  As they research, they will be writing down their ideas to help them solidify their thinking around the topic. Math: Students will continue our Volume and Measurement Unit. They will explore volume by building and counting unit cubes as well as learning the relationship between different units of volume measurement. Unit of Study: Students will continue our Social Change unit by preparing for ‘Night of the Notables’ 2019 presentation. Class scripts have been finalized and we will begin our practices. Students will dig deeper into the Change Maker or Social Issu...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: April 22-26th        Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students will continue to learn about Social Issues and Human Rights through picture books, historical fiction, biographies, autobiographies and research. Classes have been diving further into Informational text while focusing on one social issue and/or a Human Rights Issue. Ask your child which human rights issue his/her class is exploring. Classes have been building a thesis with a focus on a social issue including different social change makers. All of this is in preparation for creating our class presentations for Night of the Notables, May 7th. Math: This week we will begin our Volume and Measurement Unit. Students will estimate and measure shapes. Students will also explore liquid volume using water and make comparisons and conversions. Students will explore volume by building and counting unit cubes in order to understand volume. Unit...

Date April 15-19 Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students will continue to learn about social issues, human rights and activists through historical fiction, biographical and autobiographical texts. They are also focusing on informational texts in their Book Clubs throughout this unit. Students will also continue to review and practice informational and opinion writing in this unit. Readers at this level will be asking themselves about author bias, comparing varying opinions and learning how to summarize more complex ideas. This work all culminates in our Night of the Notables performance on Tuesday, May 7. Math: The students will continue the unit titled ‘Order of Operations’, practicing this skill using daily warm-ups, math lessons and in their math review home learning sheet. Students will continue to evaluate how to use numerical expressions with parentheses, brackets, and braces. They will explain how to use these symbols in order to iden...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Date April 8-12 Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students will continue to learn about social issues, human rights, and activists through historical fiction, biographical and autobiographical texts. They are also focusing on informational texts in their Book Clubs throughout this unit. Students will also continue to review and practice informational and opinion writing in this unit. Math: The students will continue the unit titled ‘Order of Operations’, practicing this skill using daily warm-ups, math lessons and in their math review home learning sheet. Students will continue to evaluate how to use numerical expressions with parentheses, brackets, and braces. They will explain how to use these symbols in order to identify, write and describe simple numerical expressions. Unit of Study: The students will continue our unit titled, ‘Social Change’. One of the highlights of the G5 calendar - the “Night of the Notables” pre...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Date April 1 - 5 Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Students begin to learn about Social Issues and Human Rights through historical fiction, biography and autobiography texts. We will focus on Informational text throughout this unit.  Students will revisit informational and opinion writing in this unit. Math: The students will begin the unit titled Order of Operations. We have been practicing this skill using daily warm-ups, so they are familiar with these skills. Students will evaluate how to use numerical expressions with parentheses, brackets, and braces. They will explain how to use these symbols in order to identify, write and describe simple numerical expressions. Unit of Study: We are beginning our unit on Social Change. This will conclude with the famous “Night of the Notables” on Thursday 9 May. This week we will: Start a historical fiction read aloud Begin reading historical fiction and social issue pictu...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: March 4-8              Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: G5 students will be spending much classroom time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week preparing for their student-led conference (SLC) on Thursday 7 or Friday 8 March. Students will be reflecting on their reading, writing, math and science work and preparing work samples to share with you that show learning growth. They will also be reflecting on their learning behaviors, work habits and attitude in a variety if areas and will prepare and share their learning goals to address areas of need. Learning in our reading, writing, math and science units may be temporarily suspended in the early part of this week, while teachers prepare their students for success at the SLCs. For more information and ways to support your child please visit the Parent Learning Connection page . Important Reminders/Informa...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: February 25-March 1              Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Grade 5 students are continuing to generate ideas for their fantasy stories. They will be taking all their great ideas and choosing the best one to write a story. They are including all the elements of a fantasy story including themes, life lessons, quests, magical creatures, metaphorical and literary dragons. Here are some questions you can ask your son or daughter about their story: Who are your main characters? Describe the setting of your story. Is there a quest in your story? How is your story connected to real life problems? What is the life lesson? What are the struggles your character is facing? What will come of the protagonist? How will s/he change? Math: The students are beginning Unit 5 in Math - multiplying and dividing fractions using a variety of manipu...

Weekly Newsletter Grade 5 Dates: February 18-22               Dear Parents, Curriculum Information for this Week: Literacy: Grade 5 students continue to work on their fantasy stories. This week we focus on making our stories believable by adding details to our settings, internal and external character traits and making sure to show not tell throughout our stories.  Fantasy book clubs continue as students analyze their books through the focus on metaphors, symbolism and thinking about how fantasy helps us understand the real world. Math: The students will conclude Unit 4: Place Value and Decimal Operations. Students have explored multiplying and dividing decimals using a variety of manipulatives to show their thinking . The assessment will be giving this week. (See last week’s newsletter for helpful video links.) Unit of Study:  Students will continue their second science unit: Modeling...