Happy New Year!

Hello Aurorians and families!

It has been quite a while since we have updated you on all of our adventures in Fifth Grade.
In the month of December, students transitioned back into Social Studies, where they learned of Indigenous People and how the environment affected the way they lived. This was the unit question, as students researched various tribes, traditions and geographies to help make strong connections as to how our environment really affects the way we (and in this case, Indigenous People) live. Within these groups students worked on creating a wonderful codex to show their findings from research.

After returning from the long break, students found out about National History Day! What a fun project this is. Students will be researching moments in time that reflect tragedy and triumphs. We have a plethora of ideas on our team, so please reach out to your student and ask what they are interested in.

Math has been also exciting, introducing equivalent fractions and the idea of adding fractions together. Students have spent lots of time creating posters in partnerships to show relationships of fractions. We will continue to work on this throughout the month of January, before circling back into multiplication and division strategies.

Language Arts has had numerous memorable moments. From reading retreats up in the library, to conducting research to help grow our National History Day projects, the students are enjoying their time in class. Students continue to learn how to read non-fiction literature to help foster this work. They just recently finished reading fiction and writing about it. The stories that came from this were amazing!

The upcoming Science unit is Matter. Students will begin to explore the three states of matter and how it relates to the world around us. They will also begin to understand how these states can change physically and chemically. It is a really cool unit with LOTS of inquiry.

Overall, our month of December was quick, engaging and full of laughs! We gained a new student and then a month later, we were lucky to gain another! We are so grateful for the kids on Team Aurora and they really make our job feel easy (at times).

We hope to have you all in soon to show off some of the hard work that has been happening on team. Keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for more information regarding this. We hope you have enjoyed the first snow day of 2019 and can't wait to see you!

Happy New Year!