March *Tuesday, March 12th- Family Math Night 6:30 – 7:30 pm *Friday, March 15th 12:35 dismissal for students, wear green! *Week of March 25th- Better Than Broadway after school Finish Unit 5: Fraction and Mixed-Number Computation, Measurement and Start Unit 6: Division; Angles Students will finish Unit 5. They will work on skills such as fraction decomposition, finding the whole for fractions, adding fractions, adding mixed numbers, adding tenths and hundredths, subtracting fractions, subtracting mixed numbers, line plots, rotations and iterating angles, unit iteration for angles, creating symmetric figures, and multistep multiplication number stories. Students will also continue to review concepts from Units 1-4 through the use of Math Boxes and games. Students are always encouraged to continue to practice their math facts. Study of Historical Fiction As readers this month, we will study the genre of historical fiction and how this both relates to and differs from fiction and nonfiction. Students will be using the mentor text Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, as well as a handful of other wonderful historical fiction mentor texts, like Rose Blanche. Students will be working in historical fiction book clubs to read and collaborate with other students with on-level texts. We will continue to work on skills we’ve already learned, like noticing universal themes across books, as well as new skills, like realizing that a character’s perspective is shaped by the times and by his/her roles and figuring out how the main character’s timeline fits along with the historical timeline. Science Unit 2: Soil, Rocks, and Landforms (continued below) Students will engage in investigations that will provide them with first hand experiences with soil and rocks, modeling experiences on our earth. This module has four investigations that focus on weathering by the natural forces of water, ice, wind, living organisms, and gravity. They will learn the process of erosion and how deposition, or the movement of land, is the result of erosion. Students will conduct controlled experiments changing specific variables to examine the effects of water and slope on water tables. In addition, they will gain experience with concepts of stability and change, structure and function, cause and effect patterns, and models and propositions. Students will also explore mountain landforms and examine the patterns of change to explain and predict future events on our earth. Students will write literary analysis pieces. They will read various fiction texts, including short stories, excerpts from novels, poems, and plays. Then, they will notice similarities between the texts and write a literary essay analyzing these similarities, whether they involve character traits, themes, or any other literary skills. Students will practice writing multiple literary essays and they will type them on Chromebooks. Social Studies Chapter 3: As we enter Chapter 3 we will begin to discover the first people of New Jersey. In this unit, we will discuss what the first people ate, how they survived, their religious beliefs, and the way the Lenape lived day-to-day. This unit will also focus on the skill of cause-and-effect.