REPORT CARDS GO HOME TODAY!

Most students have completed their portfolio and they are ready to view.  I encourage students to come to conferences if they can make so we share their great work and discuss 3rd trimester goals.  Below is a picture showcasing students who increased their report card marks in one category or another.  All of our students do excellent work but I wanted to praise those who worked to improve their performance in one area or another on the progress report. Way to go, kids!

MONDAY?

Mondays at school have been scarce this month - either I've been out or school has been off.  Anyway, this Monday we focused on reflecting about our second trimester work for our portfolio.  Students are looking for work that matches their first trimester goals.   We also found time to discuss more moon phases and practice some fraction addition as well as share some book shares.  Check the button designs below for our Read-A-Thon buttons.

 Design by Stella Will and Adelaide Becking

                      Design by Elizabeth Henderson

HAPPY READ A THON

Below you'll notice the Mad Hatter and Alice invited Junie B. Jones and Sky Penderwick over for tea and reading.  The group was celebrating the kick off of Read A Thon!  Please use the envelopes in the Friday Folder to help us with our yearly fund raiser. We cannot express enough thanks for your support.  The kids and I promise to keep reading and we look forward to celebrating on March 7th.
In other news today, students did really well on the American Revolution test.  We also finished up our lit journals, worked on Book Shares, did a little more opinion research and started to organize our 2nd trimester portfolios.  Have a great weekend!  Remember we will have our student garden survey graphs displayed at the ARC from 12-2 at the Community Garden Coalition Spring Thaw!  You can meet other community gardeners here and pick up some seeds for your spring garden!

BEEING LEARNERS

The title is not a typo - it is a reference to the fantastic bee presentation we received from Maggie Science today.  It was inspiring and educational.  I linked her Prezi presentation below and the kids can tell you about the BEEHAVIOR movie she made with other students from her UMC entomology class.

Our morning was spent as readers and writers working on our Ecoliterature book groups and researched based opinion articles.  Students also prepared for an American Revolution quiz we will have tomorrow.  The essay type questions are listed below so students can practice framing their answers tonight with the study guide and their notes.

Maggie Science Bee presentation:
http://prezi.com/_1mklfdyjobs/bees-and-pollination/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

American Revolution Essay Questions:
1. Compare and contrast the New England, Middle and Southern Colonial regions.

2. Choose one of the events below and explain how a Patriot would feel if they read about it in a newspaper.

Boston Tea Party

Boston Massacre

Townshend Acts

Sons/Daughters of Liberty

3. Why would an American colonist remain a Loyalist?

Good luck!  

WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY

Today's schedule started with a math variables test that students rocked!  Readers today worked on finishing their books and writing plot connections.  Writers did more research on their opinion topics.  Historians compared Loyalists and Patriots.  Scientist looked at our plants to document changes and we graphed results from our garden survey.  I included pictures of them all below because, well, they are super!  These graphs will be shared at the the annual Community Garden Coalition Spring Thaw scheduled for Saturday, February 22, from noon until 2:00 p.m., at the ARC, 1701 West Ash.

ECO EXCELLENCE

We are certainly living up to the Ecoschoolhouse vision with our ecology learning right now.
In reading, students are writing ecology connections to the plot of their book for their Ecoliterature diorama.
In writing, students are choosing ecology topics to write research based opinions on.
In science, we are already taking data on our chard plants and we have a bee presentation on Thursday.

Student thoughts:
Allen noticed more plants are growing in the worm soil.  In fact, 11/24 pods of vermicompost pods are sprouting, 8/24 pods of the mix are sprouting, and only 3/24 pods of the seed starter are sprouting. Check out the way we used grids to locate sprouts in our plant trays by clicking on the Gardens as Ecosystems link.

Jordan N wants folks to know a 6th grade counselor from Gentry came today to help us start choosing classes for 6th grade!

These students are sorting through research for their opinion writing. There are links to the topics and the research to the right.

Happy Almost Valentine's Day

Rainbow Chard Day 2, No change evident.

Look at all the awesome Valentine's boxes!!!!  You can see the super creativity in our classroom.  Way to to reuse resources kids!

Below are various super silly compound word sentences followed by very perceptive kindness paragraphs.  Check out the kindness in our community during Random Acts of Kindness Week.

Valentine's Fun!!!  Thanks families for helping us celebrate.

Wednesday Learning Photos

This first pic is of the chard seeds we planted for our garden ecosystem experiments.  All 5th graders worked together in the Ecoschoolhouse to plant these seeds in 3 soil treatments.  The darker soil is worm compost, the lighter soil is store bought organic seed starter and there is a variable with a mixture of the two.
We are thinking of shooting the plants everyday to document day to day differences.

This second pic is of our spelling bee reps.  Notice Samaranjay with the second place ribbon!  They are adding American Revolutionary words to our word wall.

Below is a picture of Stella's super organized variable math work.  Tonight kids are working on an algebraic rule for how much kibble Chaco eats in a year!

These two kiddos are practicing interviews for job applications!  We had our first money and banking session today.  Ms. Holly, from our Partner in Ed, Boone County Bank, came to teach us about the world of Human Resources.

Congrats to Spelling Bee Contestants!!!

Congratulations to Samaranjay who took 2nd place in the 2014 Grant School Spelling Bee!  Sadie and Alec also did very well.  And I want to mention our alternates - Ellie and Elizabeth who were ready to spell if called on.  Great job, kids!

We were so busy in school today continuing our learning I failed at posting pics! The highlight of our learning was both 5th grade classes in the Ecoschoolhouse planting Rainbow Chard seeds while reviewing our experimental design knowledge.  We now have 72 seeds ready to grow in 3 different types of soil.  By next week we should be able to gather some data.  Maybe the kids can help me post the plants' progress daily on the blog! 

Monday, February 10, 2014

Welcome back kids! School doors are open! 

We also opened up Garden Ecosystem work in science. Today students were social scientists as they collected and began to analyze data from their garden ecosystem survey. They pored through 70 surveys from community gardeners with the goal of designing a garden ecosystem model/display. Tomorrow we will plant chard seeds to kick the first if many garden ecosystem experiments. Our 80 plants will be planted in 3 different types of soil: one consisting of a mixture with our vermiculture (worm compost), another mixture with our outdoor school compost and a generic seed starter mixture. 

Mathematicians reviewed and practiced order of operations.  Ms. Sweeny began appropriately with a word problem about playing in the snow!   Tomorrow we will check our work, practice a few more while applying order of operations to word problems.  Students are continuing to see and use variables as well.  We will look at patterns and have an assessment for their algebraic variables work.  

Readers today reviewed their book share progress and spent a day working on book share projects.  Tomorrow we will look at week 3 of our Ecoliterature cycle.  This week we will focus on main and supporting problems.  Student will also start writing plot connections to the ecology of the setting from their books. 

Writers today focused on practicing spelling patterns while getting used to our word study cycle.  They have word study work due Thursday.  This week we are focusing on r influenced vowel sounds, homophones, more compounds and suffixes.  Our opinion writing this week will focus on finding ways to craft, revise and organize evidence for student opinions.  We will soon be taking our research-based opinion skills to investigate and form an opinion on a current event.

Historians today continued to organize causes of the American Revolution in a flow chart.  Our discussions involving American Colonial ideas and British governance are include various viewpoints on fairness and taxation without representation.  Kids read about various tax acts and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty.  We discussed vocabulary words like "boycott" and "repeal".

Tomorrow we are going to share our work with pictures to represent each subject.