Special Delivery From 107, 109, & 111 J.K. Rowling Road

Mrs. Heilbronn, Mrs. Gallagher, Ms. Sorrentino & Ms. DiMenna

The year continues to be fun filled for our fifth grade classes. The children are immersed in many different genre studies. Between historical fiction and legendary people the students are now familiar with many infamous names of the past. The classes are fine-tuning their writing skills as well. We have completed our Editorial Unit. After spending time reading, debating and thinking about the “hot topics” of today’s world, the students developed a well thought out essay with the purpose of persuading the reader to see it there way. Their exquisite essays challenged us to understand a fifth grader’s point of view.

Our classes participated in the Rockland Read-In. Students brought in a great range of books from magazines to books of their choice. A great day was had by all! A special thanks to all of our parents who continue to support their children and daily reading.

The students traveled across the United States on the smartboard and have successfully mastered the location of each state and their capital. Taking a look into our country’s past we are examining the many historic events that have taken place from the time of migration to present day. As the year continues we are heading north to the chilly country of Canada to learn about its history, culture and land. By the end we will also know the provinces and their capitals.

In science we are working on completing our unit on models and designs. The children had the opportunity to investigate and construct black boxes. The children were more than enthusiastic while they work on designing and constructing their go-carts. They learned and followed the process of an engineer. The children also discovered the variables contributing to the success of their go-cart including friction, size of wheel, potential and kinetic energy. Students will have the chance to show off their high performing go-carts as we raced our way to the Cottage Lane 500. The students put their young engineering minds to work as they created their one-of-a-kind inventions. Their hard work was celebrated at our invention convention. Thank you to all who support our inventors at work.

WOW is all we can say in Math. We were visited by Detective Shape upon Ms. Sorrentino’s “mysterious absence” from Math. Using clues, and a little help from Detective Shape, we were able to discover what the mystery shape was. After several successful tries, we too rose up in the ranks and earned our detective license. Who knew calculating rate could be so much fun. Well in our math class we are finding out that when you discover how many sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks and hula hoop toss you can do in one minute, you use that rate to discover how many you would be able to do for a day, month and year. We sure were tired leaving that class!

We cannot believe how fast the year is flying by. The upcoming months will bring new and exciting projects the children’s way. We appreciate all of your continued support in helping to make this year a wonderful learning experience for the children.