WEEKLY UPDATE

Congratulations to:
- all choir members on a wonderful performance!
- all All Stars who tried out for the basketball team!

Events and clubs at Grant such as choir and basketball and hiking club and art club and book club and on and on and on are a huge part of what makes Grant a Grant School.  We are always impressed with the skills and talents our All Stars have.  Below is a list of the academic skills we are focusing on currently.  There is also a picture of Ms Emi, a biology student from UMC who is teaching us about experimental design and helping us plan our Community Project.  Her project focuses on zebra fish development.

READING: We are integrating some reading time with our Health Power unit and also focusing on having 5 book shares completed.  Next week we will be using all our reading time integrated with nonfiction reading about the New England Colonies.

WRITING: Writers are completing their Narrative drafts.  They look fantastic!  I imagine many of them will make it into their 2nd trimester portfolios.  We have focused on dialogue, story structure, describing character actions, commas, and transitions.  Next week will be a solid word study week!

MATH:  After exploring fractions with manipulatives the last two weeks we are applying our knowledge.  Kids are doing great and we will have a quiz this Friday.  Next week, we will start actively adding and subtracting fractions.

SCIENCE:  As a 5th grade we have finally decided on the focus for our Community Project.  The guiding science question is a psychology study: How do outdoor education activities affect learners' attitudes and knowledge?  We are actively investigating science objectives of elementary grade levels and beginning to discuss our methods.  Ideally, our 5th graders will be planning outdoor education activities for younger classes and recording their attitudes and knowledge.  This has been fun planning already.  We will keep you posted!

SOCIAL STUDIES: We are using our social studies time this week for our Health Power unit.  When Power is over sometime next week, we will be delving into the New England Colonies leading up to the causes of the American Revolution.

Meet Ms. Emi, our graduate biology partner, who is assisting us with our science work.

HAPPY MLK DAY!

Families, I wanted to update you on our learning for the week.  I hope your family enjoyed an extra day off in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. Wingert honored this great man on the announcements and we have a pic/quote from Dr. King posted on our smartboard this week.  I also posted a photograph of the historic voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in the room.  Finally, I shared this sports story of Marshall "Major" Taylor with a civil rights background to share with the kids.  Dr. King's novniolent message of peace and equality fits in well with Grant School's current focus on kindness and mindfulness.

Below is a snapshot of this week's learning:

READING:  We are integrating nonfiction reading assignments from science and health.  Readers will also have time to work on book shares (5 total due next Friday!).

WRITING:  Our writing focus this week will focus on drafting our Journey narratives.  Writers will be planning, trying a few strategies, and drafting.  Handwritten final copies are due next week.  Our word study time will be spent on classroom spelling bees to determine our class representatives.

MATH: Continue with fractions we will with a focus on comparing and ordering mixed numbers and improper fractions.

SCIENCE:  Our science work will include planning for our community science project!  More details to come but in general we are focusing on the community of Grant School this year.

SOCIAL STUDIES/POWER:  After finishing our exploration work but before moving on to the New England Colonies, the 5th grade team chose to spend 2 weeks on the I've Got the Power health unit.

Your student will be participating in the “I’ve Got the Power” to stay drug free program as part of the 5^th grade health curriculum.  The purpose of this curriculum is to provide students the tools necessary for healthy decision making.  The lessons talk about but are not limited to substance abuse with an emphasis on goal setting and strategies for good decision making. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!  I don't think I posted a congrats to Classroom C for winning the Holiday Door Dec contest.  Our winning door is pictured below. The theme was "Bees on Earth".  Great job, kids!

FINE ARTS EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

We had a wonderful experience today at the Fine Arts Extravaganza on the UMC campus.  5th graders from across CPS were treated to examples of arts experiences they can be a part of in middle and high school.  We enjoyed performances from band, orchestra, drama, art, and choir from various school programs.  This event is a lead up to our Instrument Try Me Out Nights at the middle schools next week.  The days and times for those events are below and in the Important Dates section.  Please do your best to make it to one of these nights later this month.  There are also a few pictures from our experience today.

Instrument Try Me Out Nights 6:30-7:30 or later
Tuesday, January 19 Lange Middle School
Thursday, January 21 Smithton Middle School
Monday, January 25 Gentry Middle School

 

 

 

http://goo.gl/forms/8NyM56wXhC

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season with their family.  We had an enjoyable week as we eased back into our learning and routines.  This past week we visited with our preschool buddies, enjoyed more of our Discovery game, attended a Kindness assembly, and organized our learning spaces.  Below is an academic focus for the upcoming week.

Please note we have an all day field trip, the Fine Arts Extravaganza, this Wednesday.  We sent home information about this wonderful opportunity before the Winter Break.  Students will be introduced to the amazing fine arts experiences available to them in middle and high school.  One important consideration is we will be eating lunch in Jesse Auditorium and we will not have coolers.  Please send home lunches with disposable bags for this trip or students can purchase a sack lunch from the cafeteria.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Reading:  During reading time, we are integrating nonfiction reading about early colonies in American (Jamestown, New Sweden, New Amsterdam, St. Augustine, etc) and also spending some time each day progressing on book shares.  Each reader should have 5 book shares by the end of January.

Writing: During writing time, we are engaging in daily writing tasks focused on our colonial historical fiction narratives.  Currently, our focus is on punctuation.  This week we will craft dialogue for our narratives and begin to plan a story plan for our final copies.  Next week, we will also be revisiting our word study routine.

Math:  We started the New Year in math focusing on fractions.  So far our focus has been on the meaning of fractions, how they relate to percents, and comparing fractions.  This week, we will learn a new game and focus on comparing fractions.

Social Studies:  In SS, we will enjoy our Discovery game for one more week.  Each group of students has established a colony in the New World.  The events in this role playing game have matched the nonfiction information about colonial settlements in our textbook and other books.  These events are also used as inspiration for our narratives.

Science: In science, we are finishing up our Matter unit.  Students have all had live experiences with physical and chemical changes.  On Monday, we will look at 2 more examples of changes.  During the rest of the week, we will analyze real world examples of physical and chemical changes.  Also, we will begin planning our community science project.

DECEMBER DOINGS

Families, this is one of my favorite months of the school year.  We will be very productive for 3 weeks with interesting, fun, creative learning and then it is time for Winter break.  This week we were very productive as we introduced new learning in each subject.  Below is a description of the learning we are enjoying in each subject.  You will see our Discovery theme is well integrated with writing and reading.  Check out the pics of great astrolabes students created!

 

 

Social Studies:  We are getting into our Discovery game.  Students are forming their colonies and we will set sail on Monday.  The Discovery game will highlight the adventure and challenges Explorers faced on their journeys.

Reading: For read aloud time, we have been reading about the Age of Exploration in our textbook.  We have learned about the Silk Road, African trading kingdoms, and the new technology of the Renaissance in Europe.  We will are drawing connections to these famous journeys and the journeys of the characters in our chapter books.  Next week, we will continue to read about European Explorers during read aloud.  Readers will also continue their journey chapter books.

Writing:  We introduced a word study routine this week.  I planned to continue this routine through December.  However, I realized we need to shift this week for two reasons.  First, we will take our nonfiction post writing prompt.  Students will look at their pre nonfiction work and then use the skills they learned writing nonfiction during the Native American unit to respond to a writing prompt about Harriet Tubman.  Also, we are going to write some facts about bees for our Holiday door decoration: Bees on Earth.  I think you will enjoy our theme!

Math:  In math this week, we finished our decimal multiplication and division work.  Next week, we begin our algebra unit.  This is a unit kids enjoy quite a bit.  Remember Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally?  Yes, it is variables and order of operations.  Fun!

Science: We started our Matter unit this week.  We got our toes wet by exploring what matter is, practicing describing solids and liquids, observing the Periodic Table of Elements and demonstrating the Law of Conservation of Mass with lemonade.  Yum!  Next week, we will start to look physical and chemical changes.

HAPPY POTLATCH, HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Families, we started a new Friday Folder checklist for the 2nd Trimester.  Since I met with each family last week, I had the children make their comments Friday about the Potlatch and their Native American learning.  Below is a snapshot of our focus for each subject.  There is also links to Native American presentations, science inspirations and pics too!

Social Studies: We will finish everyone’s Native American presentations by Thanksgiving Break.  Then we will begin our focus on European Explorers and Colonization. This learning fits within the context of our Discovery theme.  There will be a letter with details of our theme work and due dates for more creative projects coming home soon.  

Reading: To match our Discovery theme, each child is reading an award winning chapter book with a character who goes on a journey.  We will have weekly literature journal assignments to practice our comprehension skills.  Students are independent readers for this cycle.  I will be reading shorter picture book children’s literature also focusing on characters who make journeys and European Exploration too.

Writing:  During our writing time in the Discovery theme, students will be practicing their narrative writing.  We will use inspirations from our social studies learning to craft narratives of various personal or fictional journeys.

Math:  Our math focus is on multiplication and division of decimals.  There will be a quiz over this work the first week of December.  Then our focus will be variables and algebra leading up to Winter Break.

Science:  Next week, all 5th graders are joining together to discuss our inspirations from our field work and mini experiments.  After sharing, we will begin the process to choose our Community Project Based learning focus.  This work will be integrated with our science units, starting with Matter through December.

Here are pictures and links to our Native American projects and decorations.

Ashlyn's Wampum Presentation

Ezra's Apache Presentation

OLIVER'S BOW AND ARROW

PEARL'S SHELTERS

WINTER COUNTS

MORE WINTER COUNTS

TOTEM POLE

MORE TOTEM POLE

MORE TOTEM POLE

HARPER'S TOTEM POLE DISPLAY

JACK'S IGLOO DISPLAY

SACRED BUNDLES FROM HANNAH'S LESSON

MORE SACRED BUNDLES