Fifth and Sixth Grade
The 5/6 Unit offers a time of reaching for a more demanding academic excellence, exploring the arts and drama in new ways, expanding social friendships, and finding ways to serve the Berlin community. It is a fun time, but it is also a lot of work. It is very important that teachers, parents, and students are all actively involved and that the lines of communication are always open.
Literacy
- Literacy time will be for one and a half hours per day, five days a week. We will be working with novels, Time for Kids magazine, Junior Great books, and other texts.
- Response to Literature (RTL) will be written in Literacy classes.
- In writing, we will provide flexible groups throughout the year based on needs and interests of students, as well as integrated cross-curricular.
- The entire unit will be doing writing portfolios which are assessed by state benchmarks and rubrics.
Math
- The children will be placed in grade-level math groups.
- Fifth graders will use the Investigations math program, while sixth graders use Connected Math. Both grades will also do computation activities and problem solving, and we will supplement materials as needed.
Social Studies and Science
- There will be thematic units, focusing one year on ancient civilizations, the human body, and the earth/sun/moon system.
General Information
- We will continue to follow the guidelines for Responsive Classroom to help create a responsible, caring classroom community as we differentiate instruction for our students depending on their needs and desires in learning.
- Each month students will be required to read a book and share it with the class either in the form of a book talk, project and/ or Accelerated Reader quiz.
- During the first part of the school year we will offer Study & Organizational Skills 101 at an assigned time during the day.
- Students will be doing a lot of work on the computers using word processing, researching, and creating PowerPoint slide presentations.
- Band and Chorus is available to all students.
- All students will be involved in a 5/6 play.
- We will send home all work, newsletters, and notices in a Friday Folder which needs to be reviewed, signed by parents and returned on Monday.
- Students will be engaged in goal setting throughout the year.
- We use Parent Link as an additional resource for students for homework assignments, and parents sometimes find this helpful for clarification. Call 223-2796 and then dial a teacher’s extension.
Supplies
- We ask that students bring in a calculator, preferably scientific, with their name on the calculator. No specific brand, just a basic scientific calculator.
- We do provide an assignment book for each child. We ask that each student bring in a two inch binder (any color is fine along with paper and pencils.
- We also suggest that students have a USB flash drive (such as a Kingston) if they wish to transport work from school to a home computer. It is also a convenient storage method for all work.
- Students will be responsible for a twenty-minute nightly reading assignment as well as various assignments related to the work they are doing at school.
- The state requires students to read at least 25 books per year which are at their reading level.
We look forward to working with your children!
Mrs. Boucher, Mr. Keels, Ms. Farone
