Theme

Theme

Right now our 5th grade readers are learning about theme and how to determine the theme of a story.  Students are now being asked to not only think of the theme, but they are to also use evidence in defending the theme they chose. 

We have reviewed that theme is the message that an author has in their story and is trying to tell the reader.  We know that we have to infer the theme, and the best way to do that is to use our inference equation, which is Background Knowledge + Text Clues = Inference.  We also know that there may be more than one theme in a story, and that it is open to logical interpretation, which makes theme a little complicated! 

We have read Teammates  and The Lotus Seed to practice finding theme, and we are now about to read books that we have already read in class to practice some more.  This theme work ties right in with our writing, since we are also teaching our readers a theme in our personal narratives!  

Here is a picture of our class paragraph that we created together when choosing a theme regarding the story Teammates.

Point of View and Perspective

In our core ELA class, we have been learning a lot about point of view, and how the narrator and their perspective affects the story.  By doing this, we read the book, Voices.  This book takes one event, a simple day at the park, and tells it from four different "voices."  The voices are from a "snobby" rich woman, from a poor, jobless man, from the rich child who just wants to have fun, and the poor child who does not really care. It is a beautiful book and it led to a lot of discussion from students about the characters, their perspectives, their lives, and more.

We are going to be reading an all time classic this week (Cinderella) and then reading the story from the step-mother's perspective as well.  Learning point of view and perspective is very important for the upcoming project that we will be doing!

We are also learning different ways to read to someone, such as the strategy, "I Read, You Read" and Choral Reading.  I am hoping that we can build our stamina on this and offer it as a option during Guided Reading time.

For our word study, we have combined forces with the 4th grade.  We are working together to work on spelling patterns.  After this week, we are going to be back to 5th grade to work on Greek and Latin Root words, and then after 1-2 weeks, we will be back to spelling patterns!  We are going to continue this rotating schedule (spelling, root words, spelling, root words) to help students get the spelling that they need, but also the vocabulary that they need as well.

Now, for writing, we are about to move onto the second bend in our unit, which is all about the writing process.  Students will be creating their first written narrative that is ready for publishing over the next few days, and I am SO excited for them to do this! Shortly after that, they will then do another narrative.  The more writing students do, the better they will become at it.

Multiplication

Well! It is official! Your student can officially multiply 4 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers.  In other words, if I tell a student to multiply 4,357 by 5, they can do it!  I know that students were worried about learning this skill, but when I taught them the two methods that we learned this past week, they grasped the skill  quite quickly and rocked it! Below is a more in-depth look at the two methods I taught this last week.

Please remember, we are only multiplying by single digit numbers so far!

The Partial Products Method: 

The partial products method is a building block to understanding the standard algorithm (or the way we learned how to multiply).  Say, for example, I have the problem 475 X 3.  I would think of it as 3 X 5 = 15, 3 X 70 = 210, and 3 X 400 = 1,200.  Now, I need to add those up, so the answer would be 1,425.

A lot of students love this method, however, it is not always the most efficient way to multiply, so we also learned standard algorithm.


The Standard Algorithm:

Now, this may not be fully the way that you and I learned to multiply, but it is VERY close.  Let's use the same numbers, 475 X 3.  Students would look at this problem and go through the following though process:  3 X 5 is 15, so I put 5 down in ones place.  Now, I have 3 X 7, but plus 1 (from that 15), so I have 22.  So, I put the 2 down in the tens place.  Now, I have 3 X 4, but plus 2 (from that 22), and so I have 14, so I write that down.  This means my total number is 1,425.

Here is a video, but please remember that students are not writing the "carry" numbers above, they are writing the "carry" numbers on the answer line.

Math Video


It is very important that students memorize their multiplication facts.  I do know that they sell math flash cards at Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and at other stores.  I have found that students know the concept of multiplication, but what is holding them back is the actual knowledge of their facts.  Please keep working with your students on these.