05+Fifth+Grade+Changes+for+the+End+of+the+Year

I am really excited about the new 5th grade curriculum for the 4th quarter. Moving students forward into 6th grade content will add great power to our curriculum. The new Pacing Guide has been completed and the lessons are being entered into SchoolNet. It is our goal to have everything ready by Spring Break. There are a lot of lessons for you. You will need to read through the sequence and decide how best to get all of it accomplished. As much as I would like to give you some time off after TAKS, I think you will need to start right away to get it all accomplished. We have put together a combination of Investigations, AIM lessons, Hands-On Equations, and new problem solving lessons. If you need help with any of the lessons, please let me know. Patti or I would be glad to visit with you about the lessons. The only piece that you have not seen before are the problem solving lessons. The selected lessons come from a group of lessons developed at Region 10. Each lesson has a warm-up (Waking Up the Brain), a group project, an individual project or reflection, and a closing/homework activity (Show What You Know). There is a scoring rubric that can be used with the problem solving lessons. There is a student-friendly version and a teacher version. Students are asked to score their own homework using the rubric. The scoring rubric for the lessons is introduced the lesson for the Bake Sale problem. It will also be included in the Resources section in SchoolNet. I think the lesson plans for these problem solving lessons are clear, but I can certainly answer any questions you have about them. There will be two tests for these units. We will use plain paper scan sheets and a new scanner. More information about these will be available by the end of March. Please understand that new curriculum efforts always have some problems. If you run across any issues with the materials, please ask for clarification. There is always something that we didn’t think about as we were planning. Adjustments to the curriculum and the two assessments will be made.
 * Fifth Grade Changes for the End of the Year **