Happy Friday all!
Another great week in Room 15! It was so great to see those smiles coming down the hallway on Monday! Lots of great stories about vacation week and happy to say they all got right back into the rhythm of our days! This week we have been busy kicking off our work on argumentative essays. We have been reading and analyzing different points of view about serving chocolate milk in school as we learn how to research evidence to prepare to make our claims and back them up with evidence. Some lively discussions have already started, and I am excited to get them started ! Once we finish going through the process together with the chocolate milk argument, students will be choosing another topic to research and write about. This is always a great unit, with lots of great discussions and work on use of transitions to state claims and counter-claims! In Science, we continue our work on the Earth, Moon and Stars, this week we began with a focus on why stars appear different in the night sky and ended the week beginning to analyze the moon phases! Today, we modeled the moon phases in class and next week students will be building their own models on Wednesday afternoon - always a fun project! In Math, WOW! I have been so impressed with their effort as we started multiplication of fractions. We have looked at modeling whole numbers x fractions and fractions x whole numbers. Students have worked hard to understand how to draw models for each and why the different models are important especially as we look at word problems. We began looking at fraction x fraction and will continue that work next week before moving on to multiplying with mixed fractions. In Reading, we have started a Science Fiction novel Among the Hidden. This is a new genre for many students, but I believe many are really starting to enjoy. It is very different from many of the books we have read, but still has a great lesson about courage and perseverance. Kids are already asking for me to read more to them in class as they are often left with "cliffhangers" when listening to their chapters at home! Love that enthusiasm. Next week we will be looking at how figurative language is used in novels. This is always a fun unit as students look for examples as they do their independent reading and share daily with the class. As you all know, reading is definitely a passion of mine, and I am hoping you will also share your passion for reading with our class by volunteering to read a favorite picture book or chapter from a favorite novel with our class. I sent out an email this morning with a link, but I am putting it here again just in case! Please choose a time convenient for you and I will then send you the link for our Google meeting! www.signupgenius.com/go/8050D4DA9AF2BA7F58-read To celebrate World Read Aloud Day, next Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Fuller has put together some guest readers for students - grades 3-5 will log in from 1:40-2:15. We will celebrate VIRTUAL LITERACY NIGHT on Thursday, March 4th at 6:30 and as part of that celebration, students can dress up as their favorite characters for school on Thursday - should be tons of fun! (See the flyer attached o this email!) A few parents have asked recently if the class needs any supplies. We are down to our last 2 rolls of paper towels and need some sandwich size ziploc bags. We have about 4 boxes of Kleenex left so depending on allergy season, we may need to replenish those in a few weeks (HERE COMES SPRING!!) Lots of great things happening! Thank you, as always, for your continued support. Can you believe our 100th day is Tuesday??!! I know we have much to accomplish in our final 70 days, but I am looking forward to many great adventures! Best, Maura Important Dates to Remember
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We made it!
I am so proud of our kiddos and our whole community! Thinking back to the beginning of the year we thought we might be fully remote by Thanksgiving, but by working together we have been together in our classroom since day 1. In appreciation for all the kids have done and to let them know how proud we are, the teachers created a video message for them. I shared it with my classes today, and we talked about staying safe over vacation week so that we can be back together as a WHOLE class sooner rather than later ! Here is the link again for anyone wanting to see the video. BELIEVE We had a busy week, working with fractions again, but this week looking at building Line Plots and then interpreting the data. Students did a nice job with this! We will review after break and then begin our work on Multiplication & Division of Fractions. Keep working on fact fluency at home - this a key to success with fractions! In reading, we finished our Fighting Ground Projects - they were AMAZING - see our photo gallery for a few pictures. We definitely have some creative students! I loved that some students chose to write chapters from the book from a different character's perspective! Well done! We also finished our work with the Non Fiction Notice and Note Strategies, by looking at quoted words and word gaps. We talked alot about what to do when we come across words we don't know and how it can impact our understanding of a text. Prairie Lotus was completed and we had some great discussions about overcoming fears, acceptance of diverse cultures and being true to oneself ! Students have chosen Among the Hidden as our next read aloud. It is a Science Fiction novel which should definitely make for some great conversations! (And I love that it is part of a series, so if they like this one, I am hoping it will get them to read the others!!) In writing, we finished up our feature articles. We will be sharing them right after break and then diving into our next unit on the Argumentative Essay. Students will be lead through the argument "Should Chocolate Milk be Allowed in School", making claims, finding evidence etc. They will then choose a new topic from a list to write their own essay. This is always a fun unit for kids! In Science, we are working on the Earth, Moon and Stars and this week talked a bit about the Earths's rotation and how it impacts day and night as well as how shadows are formed. Students are coming home today with a model they built to show the Sun, Moon and Earth and how they are connected. We have lots more to cover in this unit when we return. Today, we also had some fun with a STEM Project! We were engineers for a Rock N Roll band that needed a sturdy stage built! With just 10 sheets of paper, 4 popsicle sticks, 4 straws, 1 balloon and some tape students had to build a stage that was freestanding, at least 6 inches off the ground and could hold the most pennies. Lots of learnings as they made and remade to fit the requirements! See the photo gallery for some of the trials! The first week in March we will be celebrating World Read Aloud Day, and each year I typically have invited parents in who want to come and share a favorite read aloud or a chapter from a favorite childhood book. I don't want to lose this opportunity to show our students how important reading is to all of us, so I thought I could set this up as Google Meets. I will be sending out a Sign Up Genius the Monday after vacation with times for numerous days in March to have "guest" readers sign up for a Google meet with our Class. Each day I will have a morning and afternoon session option and different time slots, so I am hoping I will be able to get many of you to join us! I am happy to help choose a book if you need help, but in the past it has been fun for parents to share different books their 5th graders liked as a young child. During the month of March the fifth grade typically does a "March Madness of Picture Books". Each day we read a picture book to work on Story Elements as well as Theme. These books were chosen to highlight diverse cultures and themes and this month has always been a lot of fun! I was hoping to add some more personal titles by having parents involved from home this year! Once the Sign-up genius is out, if the times do not work for you, but you really want to share with us, please just reach out, and we will figure something out! Hoping to have many of you join us! Have a wonderful, safe and relaxing week! Cheers! Maura Important Dates to Remember:
Happy Friday all! Well, we started off the week with some crazy weather, changes to schedules, yet, once again we made it through! Students did a nice job getting work completed on our half day and settled right back in on Tuesday! This week we have been organizing our thoughts for our Feature Articles. We have been using a frayer model to note our main ideas (with details), quotes to support our articles, illustration drafts and our overall planned organization (choosing text features we have decided to use). We started our drafts and will be focusing on developing strong leads and also work on paraphrasing next week. In Math, we used some pattern blocks to look at adding and subtracting with unlike denominators. We practiced renaming whole numbers to fractions in order to subtract. Finding the common denominator and watching the signs continue to be our focus as work with larger numbers. In reading, we finished reading The Fighting Ground, and are working on a choice board to show some of our learnings from this great historical fiction novel. We are also really enjoying Prairie Lotus, waiting to see what will happen to Hannah and her father as they open their store! Lots of discussion about a sense of belonging as this Chinese American girl tries to fit in with her new classmates and community. In writing, we have also been working on Open Response questions. We have been using the A.C.E (Answer Cite Explain) strategy to organize our thoughts and find good evidence to back up our claims. Their first response is in their Friday folders today. You can see the article, their first draft (before we started using ACE) and then how they edited their responses to restate the question and add good evidence. We are working on our second example now and those should come home next week. We have also continued our work with Non Fiction Notice and Note Strategies, this week looking at Numbers and Stats and Quoted Words. These strategies will help us decide what information to add or edit from our feature articles! Good effort from all! Please be sure all VALENTINE Compliment Hearts are in school by Tuesday. They must be quarantined to be able to be distributed on Friday! A reminder any store bought Valentines must be in by Tuesday as well (these are not necessary) * remember no food!) Projects on The Fighting Ground should be well underway. These are due on Thursday! We are wrapping this novel up, so we will be ready for our next novel after February break! In Science, we have begun our work on the Earth, Sun and Stars, this week focusing on gravity! Students are finding out why gravity is so important and how it impacts life on Earth. We had some fun today with a Marshmallow Pasta Stem Challenge! Be sure to check out the photo gallery to see some of the results of our STEM challenge today! Enjoy the weekend! Seems strange to be watching a Super Bowl without the Patriots, but I guess we still have the G.O.A.T to watch! Thanks for all of your support to keep these kiddos safe and healthy! Best, Maura |