5th grade social studies

[Carla]

My fifth grade daughter started using T4L this week. My question has to do with social studies. Is there a recommended atlas for the fifth grade class? I ask this because in the first lessons/activities the student is to locate the Tuxtlas Mountains and then name the mountains to the south and east of this area. In the quiz they also ask what Olmec civiliaztion is closest to the Tuxtlas Mountains. We could not find a map giiving this information, we used the World Atlas by Time for Kids and Google search. My daughter frustrates easily and I do not want her to become discouraged.

[hearthstone_academy]

The information is included in the text and illustrations within the lesson. The instructions to your first question say:

•Locate the Olmec civilization, and outline it in red.
•Label the mountains to the south and east the Tuxtlas Mountains.

Notice it does not say to label the mountains to the south and east OF the Tuxtlas Mountains. It says to label the mountains to the south and east (of the Olmec civilization) as "the Tuxtlas Mountains".

The addition of quotation marks would make that instruction clearer.

You will find the answer to the quiz question on page two of the learning activity: Near the Tuxtlas mountains was Laguna de los Cerros.

I hope this helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask for clarification.

[Carla]

Thank you.
What a great lesson for both me and my daughter. For her, how just adding the word "of" changed the meaning on the sentence. She had read to me, "Label the mountains to the south and east (of) the Tuxtlas Mountains." Of was not in the sentence given. For me, to pay closer attention when she is reading.
She has a reading comprehension problem. I wonder if she is frequently adding words, or deleting them, that may be causing or exasperating the problem. I am going to have to pay a lot more attention.

[hearthstone_academy]

Good for you for turning a frustrating situation into a learning experience for your daughter.

[seashell]

In her defense, I would totally have subconsciously inserted an "of" in there, unless there had been quotes around "the Tuxtlas Mountains". The sentence is also unclear in that it does not give a point of reference for "south and east"- south and east of what? Without looking at the activity itself, I can guess perhaps it is relating to the bullet point above (the Olmec Civilization I circled), or maybe it is just referring to the map as a whole, and there are mountains in the south and the east portions of the area pictured, but either way should have been specified and would have clarified the instruction:

- Label the mountains to the south and east of the Olmec Civilization the "Tuxtlas Mountains."

[Carla]

Kelly,
I have found an error in the 5th grade lesson plan. Lesson code 4 of the chapter "Olmec" gives LA number 5842. That number should be 5843, this is the number that comes up when I check the reports page. When I tried putting in 5842 in the activity number box (to check to see if my dd had skipped it) it came up with a message that there is no such page. Thought you would want to know to call a heads up to the staff working on the new lesson plans.
Carla

[Carla]

Wow! The new lesson plans are very well done. The error of S.S. #5842 is also corrected with the #5843.
The new post about the plans came out just a minute after I wrote the above post. What timing

[hearthstone_academy]

Carla, I moved your question about the social studies quiz to the Tech forum. They'll keep you posted over there on how it's being addressed.