PS 172 Class of 2016 video

Please use the link below to view PS 172's Class of 2016 end of year video/photo diary.
The link will be available for you to view, download and/or  share until September of 2016.
Congratulations to all our 5th grade graduates.  Have a wonderful summer!

PS 172 CLASS OF 2016

Reading

Why Social Issues?  Why Book Clubs?

Our students need and deserve the opportunity to read through books with the purpose of thinking and talking about an issue of importance; to be able to develop an opinion, point out stereotypes, and decide if they want to be the type of person who goes through life thinking about social change. We need to make sure that our students are still growing as readers, learning skills that will enrich their reading lives and strengthen their reading capacities.

         This unit will teach children that a book has many different points of view about real life topics, and we can use our minds to focus zoom in and focus on one, but without losing touch of the story as a whole. As students grow and mature in their reading lives, they will begin to find that they can make more sophisticated connections to the books that they read.  In this unit students are asked to analyze not only what is happening in the story, but why. They will be taught to question whose story is being told and with what purpose. They will be asked to think about whose perspective is being left out and why.  Students will be encouraged to consider these social issues from both sides of the table in an attempt to reach a fuller understanding of the topic and to develop a more informed opinion.  As a result, students will be inspired to take action in their own lives.  

Grade 5 Mathematics Module 6

Grade 5 Module 6: Problem Solving with the Coordinate Plane

In this 40-day module, students develop a coordinate system for the first quadrant of the coordinate plane and use it to solve problems.  Students use the familiar number line as an introduction to the idea of a coordinate, and they construct two perpendicular number lines to create a coordinate system on the plane.  Students see that just as points on the line can be located by their distance from 0, the plane’s coordinate system can be used to locate and plot points using two coordinates.  They then use the coordinate system to explore relationships between points, ordered pairs, patterns, lines and, more abstractly, the rules that generate them.  This study culminates in an exploration of the coordinate plane in real world applications.

April / May Read Aloud

Here are some questions we will use throughout this unit during read alouds, both as “think alouds” and turn and talk to a partner:

Who are the characters here, and what issues are they facing?

 What are the characters reactions to these issues?

 How do characters deal with these issues?

What perspective does each character have on this issue?

Is this fair?  Why?  Why not?

What did we just learn from reading this page/chapter/book about a specific social issue?

 If you were this character, what would you be thinking right now?  What would you be feeling right now?

 How does what we just read connect with some of the other books that we’ve read before?

Read Aloud Book

Maniac Magee 

By: Jerry Spinelli

Jeffrey Lionel Magee is living a normal life until his parents are killed in a tragic trolley accident when he's three. He's sent to live with his Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan, and, despite Dot's sporty name, it's not a fun household. Uncle Dan and Aunt Dot are strict Catholics who hate each other, meaning Maniac grows up in a loveless, largely silent house. When he's 11-years-old, he's finally had enough, and takes off running. Yup, literally running. He runs for a couple hundred miles and a year, and ends up in Two Mills, Pennsylvania.

Conversational Vocabulary:

• Desserted
• Commotion
• Cease
• Infamous
• Athletic
• Mirage
• Segregated
• Solitude

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3-CCyb5iLkAdGVGWm11Y2VYWFJmbHV3aTVzd3NIT2tIWVdN

APRIL MAY 2016 WRITING WORKSHOP

April- May 2016 Writing Workshop: Realistic Fiction

Realistic fiction is a genre that consists of stories that can tell about situations that occur in modern (present) times. The stories have true to life characters and events as well as problems that have to be solved in believable ways. Key concepts of realistic fiction are character traits and the actions of characters, as well as the choices these characters make. Students will write their own realistic fiction story that depicts major story events, contains a problem that is solved in a believable way and true to life characters, and is set in modern times. This unit will conclude with both a written piece by the students and if time permits allow for students to share their realistic fiction stories with the rest of the class orally.

February Readers Workshop

Grade 5
Interpretive Literacy Workshop

A Study of Complex Text

Text complexity is an important part of the Common Core Standards. In order to meet this demand we will give students more opportunities to learn from complex texts, and the hope is that by setting these high standards for students to read grade level complex texts “independently and proficiently” students will be ready for future challenges as a reader.

Through modeling, scaffolding, and support from the teachers students will…

•       Read complex texts

•       Notice & ‘name’ what is difficult in the text

•       Learn & practice strategies for getting through the difficult parts

•       Practice repeated & purposeful re-reading of different text

•       Use text-based evidence to answer questions

Work In Action!!!

1.  Students will read articles, mark the parts that are difficult & be ready to explain what made them difficult.

2. Share

–     Come together- Students share parts they found difficult

–     Help students give a name to what is difficult- Make class list of difficult parts

3. Teach Strategies

–     Refer to class list- (Teach strategies)

–     Guided practice of strategy

–     Create on-going list of strategies

4. Write from a prompt

 

Sample of Compiled Strategies from IL/Complex Text Work

Strategies for Getting through TRICKY SENTENCES

What is Tricky	Strategy
1. First sentence is weird; it’s a question-like a riddle	Sometimes writers start with a question to pull the reader in and get them thinking. Connect this to your preview work- what are they talking about?
2. Short, weird sentences	Authors use short sentences because what they are saying is important, they use a short sentence for emphasis.
3. Long, complex sentences with a list of 3 or more things with commas	Find one or two things in the series you understand to help you get the gist or the meaning of the whole list.
4. Long, confusing sentence with lots of commas	Read each part of the sentence slowly, pausing at the commas.
5. Weird sentence that has a comma with words after it	Strategy 1:  Sometimes the author provides you with extra information after a comma. Strategy 2:  Sometimes writers start their sentence by telling when something happened -comma- and then say what happened.  Look for Time Signal Words (that tell us when something happened):  Previously (means before), After, or During

Strategies for WORDS I DON’T KNOW

What is Tricky

Strategy

Hard or tricky words I don’t know

Strategy 1:  Figure out what at part of speech it is.  This will help you better understand the word.  Ask yourself, is the word a noun (person, place or thing) verb (action word) adjective/adverb (describing word) For example:  Here is a tricky sentence - “A world-record coprolite was recently found in…”  Try each part of speech in place of the tricky word, like this: “A world-record thing was recently found in…” OR “A world-record jump was recently found in…” OR  “A world-record pretty was recently found in …”  Which makes sense?  So a coprolite must be a thing- I don’t know what it is, but it is a thing. Strategy 2:  Root Word Strategy.  Look for the root word (take away the prefix/suffix).  You might recognize a word hidden inside.  Use the meaning of the prefix together with the root word to determine the meaning.  Example:  un- dis- in- all mean not, mid- means middle, sub- means under, pre- means before. Strategy 3:  Also known as strategy.  Sometimes the author gives us clue words that the definition of a tricky word is coming up, like this:  “also known as…” or “called…” Strategy 4:  Sometimes, the author gives you the meaning of the tricky word right after it in parenthesis (). It’s almost like the author is whispering the meaning to you.