TIME TO CELEBRATE!!!

After a wild weekend of weather we are ready to celebrate our learning and community.  We have earned this time to celebrate with a month full of excellent work!  I was constantly amazed by students' reading thoughts, science ideas, and creative social studies passports.  This morning, we will celebrate our Discovery learning with an all 5th grade "Journey" in one of our classrooms.  After lunch, we will enjoy time in our class before heading to the school wide celebration at 2:00.  The 5th grade Winter Party will be in the gym following the choir program.  I wish everyone a very safe and happy Winter Break!  See you next year!

Enjoy the pics of students working with their preschool buddies and starting our math service project.  Also, below is a link to the Thankful Video we made together as a class.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5UdYhWCzyU1ZjQtaTc0ak9XR2M/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

FUN WITH DISCOVERY

We have really been enjoying setting up our Discovery role playing game.  Out literacy work and now some of our math will be connected to this game for the rest of 2016.  Students are researching explorers to use for their 3rd Passport this week.  We will also be making journals of our Discovery journey to the New World.  Colonies set sail Monday!  This will be another productive and enjoyable week in Classroom C as things wind down before Winter Break.  Below are a few pics of Passport 2 assignments and an update for each subject.

SS/WRITING:  We will be using our Discovery role playing game to simulate and record challenges and successes and consequences of colonization.  Students will work on their 3rd passport and we will being sailing and landing the New World.   Students will be using events from the game as inspiration for their own narrative writing.

READING:  Readers will be reading their 3rd section of their journey book and competing their 3rd Literature Journal.  This work will be connected to our narrative writing and social studies learning about explorers too. Students may also have time to work on book shares.  We will likely do the STAR reading assessment as well.

MATH:  After spending a day reviewing and revising our decimal multiplication and division tests, we will be working on a contextual real life math problem.  This is a project for our Grant School community.  Our work will include multiplication, division and some variables.

SCIENCE:  We will continue learning about principles of water through experimental design and mini experiments.  This next experiment scientists will be working in pairs or threes on designing and recording their work.

DISCOVERY DECEMBER

December is a great month all around.  We have 3 weeks of focus and hard work and then a well deserved break.  Students are already enjoying the work we have for this month.  Most of our work is centered around our Discovery theme, based in learning about European explorers and the Age of Exploration.  Already we have talked about explorers from Marco Polo to Da Gama and Dias.  This week we will look at Columbus, Magellan, and some Spanish Conquistadors.  There will also be a Decimal Division quiz this week and another science experiment on water and evaporation.  We will find time in the next couple of weeks to enjoy our Pre School buddies and celebrate Winter Break with our school community.  Please read the snapshot of this upcoming week below and enjoy the pictures of Powwow projects, Astrolabes, and science work.  And know we have weekly assignments due each week in most subjects.

Reading: I will continue reading short stories of characters who go on journeys while students read their Journey chapter books.  In our Lit Journal, we will be comparing our characters' journeys to the real journeys of European explorers.

SS/Writing:  We will continue to take notes on explorers from our text book and get ready for our Discovery game.  Already students are working together in colonies on mapping assignments.  It is likely we will set sail this Friday after we prepare our ships and gather supplies.

Science:  Last week, we worked together on setting up an experiment about evaporation.  This week we will study a new variable of evaporation.  These mini experiments are covering the scientific method, the hydrological cycle, and hopefully give us more inspiration for our community project (which we haven't decided yet!).

Math:  Last week, we had a quiz on decimal multiplication.  This week, we will wrap up decimal division and take a quiz on that topic.  Next up will be a look into algebra.

Have a great week!

 

 

 

 

POTLATCH PARTY!!!

Our Potlatch Friday was fantastic!!! We are so thankful for volunteers and presenters who made the day go smoothly.  Thanks, families! Below you can see some pictures of artifacts we saw in our presentations. Monday and Tuesday is booked with student presentations of their Native American topics. We will be looking at displays, models, media presentations, and Native American arts and crafts made by students.  This is a great way to end our Native American learning.  Since this is our focus for this short 2 day week, there will be almost no math work today and tomorrow.  However, students know they can use extra time at home and over break to work on having 3 book shares completed by next Monday.  Book Shares will also be our in class focus if we have time between presentations.

I enjoyed talking to everyone at conferences.  Over break, I will be looking over my notes and making any changes or plans that came out of our talks.  Below are the topics we will focus on during the 17 school days between Thanksgiving and Winter Break.  Take care and have a wonderful Thanksgiving Break!

SOCIAL STUDIES: We will be kicking off our DISCOVERY theme, which focuses on the Age of Exploration and mostly European Explorers.  During this theme, we learn about explorations, mostly focusing between 1200-1700 AD.  However, we do discuss modern explorers and some ancient African/Asian kingdoms.  In class, we will also be forming "colonies" to play a role playing game highlighting the struggles of explorers, natives, and colonization of the New World.  In the game, students will forma colony and try to successfully settle in the New World on a journey from Europe.

READING: We will be in book clubs again using books that focus on characters who go on a journey. There will be weekly Literature Journal Assignments each week in December.

WRITING: Our writing focus will shift from Nonfiction to Narrative.  We will be using inspirations from our explorer studies to write narratives taking place during this time period.

SCIENCE: In December, we will begin weekly mini experiments to support our Community Project theme.  Our exact theme hasn't been decided yet but it seems it will focus on stream habitats/ecosystems.  So our experiments will be a lot about the Hydrological Cycle and weather patterns.

MATH:   We have finished lessons on multiplying decimals.  After Thanksgiving, we will have a day of practice and quiz on multiplying decimals before covering division of decimals.  After that unit, the focus will be on algebra and variables until Winter Break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TIME TO CELEBRATE!

Not only did we have a great time celebrating fall/Halloween last Friday, we also are celebrating our hard work this 1st Trimester.  Today (Friday) we are wrapping up our division math unit and other assignments.  This weekend I will be working on Progress Reports and preparing for conferences.  Therefore, there will not be comments in the Friday Folder since I will be writing on the Progress Report which will go home next Wednesday.  Next week, we will take a break from a lot of our learning to reflect on our progress so far.  Every student will be making a portfolio of their best work from each subject and setting goals for Trimester 2.  We will look at these portfolios during conference time.  In 5th grade, we strongly encourage students to attend conferences and share their portfolios.  This is not a requirement of any sort, just encouraged.  Of course, if a family feels the need to have a private conference, that is understandable. Thank you so much to all who helped make the Halloween party go so well. You can see from the pictures below, a lot of fun was had by all.

Focus for next week:
Student Portfolios
Finish Book Club book/Book Shares
Native American rough draft