Happy Friday everyone!
We have been working hard this to finish up a few projects and get lots accomplished before we celebrate our Thanksgiving recess. Students have been working really hard with Order of Operations in Math and today we even dipped our toes into algebraic expressions! Very impressed with their hard work and focus! Keep working on fact fluency at home, it is building confidence and making a difference! In Science, we took a look at electrical conductivity this week as well as reviewed physical and chemical changes and the Law of Conservation of Matter. Some great questions and discussions took place and students are now working on a Tic Tac Toe Choice board to show what they have learned about Matter. This project is due Thursday, December 3rd. Today, they were given everything they need for a STEM challenge! Who can build the best turkey (mini-marshmallow) catapult! They will work on this at home, testing and redesigning until they have their best catapult ready for testing in class on Tuesday! Can't wait to see their contraptions and how far our turkeys fly!! In Social Studies we are finishing up our look at early colonization by doing a project to answer the important question "Was North America a Land of Opportunity for all?" Students are choosing a group to research and discuss either by a poster, google slide show or poem/song. These projects are due Tuesday, November 24th. We will start looking at the Road to the American Revolution after Thanksgiving break! In Writing, we are completing our drafts of our Fictional Narratives and next week will really start the editing process. We will learn to add invigorating verbs, dialogue and elaborate on character thoughts and feelings as we bring our stories to final copies. Looking forward to sharing their stories with everyone in a few weeks! In Reading, students did a great job during our first round of literature circles. Most commented they wanted more time to discuss their books with their classmates! Love hearing that! We continue to ask, what are the problems the characters are having and what do those problems tell us about possible themes in our stories? We have been comparing characters to those we recently read about in The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise and are using our present read aloud Mustaches for Maddie to also dig into theme ! Lots of great connections being made! Be sure to ask your child about the characters in the books they are reading. Whether they are reading Hatchet, The Young Man and the Sea, Ban This Book or The Bridge to Terabithia, there are some great conflicts happening and lots of great opinions and predictions being shared in class! This week we created comic strips of our favorite scenes from Coyote Sunrise and we will continue to discuss this book as we get ready for our google meet with the author, Dan Gemeinhart (thank you Cole PTO) on December 2nd! I hope you all enjoy a safe and relaxing Thanksgiving! I am very grateful for all the support you give our classroom, especially your children each and every day! Cheers! Maura Important Dates to Remember:
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Good afternoon everyone!
I have to admit I was a bit leery of this day, knowing that the last time we had a Friday the 13th was the start of remote learning! Thankfully Norwell is doing its part, and we are staying healthy and IN SCHOOL!! This week we finished up our math unit on Whole Number Multiplication and Division with larger numbers. Next week we will begin our work with the Order of Operations (GEMDAS - Grouping Symbols, Exponents(Although we don't do exponents this year), Multiplication/Division and then Addition/Subtraction). Continued work on fact fluency will provide more confidence for students as we work through these rules! We will also be looking at writing numerical expressions with variables in them! In Reading, we are diving into our unit on THEME! What are the lessons authors try to teach us in their novels? What lessons are we learning as we begin our realistic fiction literature circles? We read a bunch of picture books to look at character problems and conversations and how they help give us clues about themes. We also had some fun listening to song lyrics, really paying attention to the repeated words and phrases used to let us know the theme. I am really excited to listen as the kids have their first literature circles next week during our Remote Learning on Wednesday! Keep up the great work! Today we finished reading The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart, and I am thrilled to share I was able to contact Mr. Gemeinhart, and he is going to get on our Google Meet on Wednesday, December 2 at 9:30am to talk to our class! The PTO is very generously funding this amazing experience for us! We will be compiling questions to ask during our hour together! He is absolutely amazing with students, and I am so thrilled he has the time to spend with my class again this year. I am even more thrilled that the whole fifth grade is experiencing this fabulous book and all classrooms will be able to meet this dynamic author! In Writing, we continue to dig into our Fictional Narratives, this week our focus was on internal and external conflicts and then how we bring them to a resolution! Next week we work on introductions and then finally get to writing our first drafts! Kids have spent a good deal of time in each piece of this process and are DYING to get going on their writing and I know I cannot wait to read and then share their stories with all of you! In Science, we are finishing up our unit on Matter! Lately our focus has been on what the signs of a chemical change are and how the Law of Conservation of matter works in Science. Today we investigated the Law of Conservation of Matter by modeling a bunch of scenarios to see if there was a physical or chemical change and if so, was there a change in mass. Students did a great job realizing if we capture the gas, the mass will stay the same, but if we create open systems, like fire pits or open bottles - gas will escape and the mass will change! Great work by all! In Social Studies, this week we took a look at the harsh realities of the beginnings of the Slave trade and the Middle Passage. We are getting ready to finish this unit on early colonization by answering the question,"To what extent was North America a land of opportunity, and for whom?" We have looked at male and female colonists, the wealthy vs the sharecroppers, slaves vs apprentices and indentured servants. Students will be choosing one group and then show IF North America was truly a land of opportunity for them and why. More information coming next week! With the cold and damp weather coming, please be sure your kids come to work bundled as we still want to take our mask breaks outside even if it is cold and misty! Fresh air is a welcome break and a much safer way for us to take our mask breaks! Our classroom could use some more paper towels, we are in good shape with Kleenex for now, but with all of our activities and washing of hands, regular paper towels work so much better than the brown school ones :) Please be sure your child has a set of headphones in school. They have cheap pairs at the Dollar Store that work great - we just need to be sure everyone has them ready for all activities at any time! Thank you for your help with this. I appreciate all the support you are constantly providing your children at home and us as a classroom! Room 15 is very lucky! Have a wonderful weekend! Cheers Maura Important Dates to Remember:
Happy Friday all!
Can you believe this is November? I will take this weather any day! We had a short week this week, but managed to accomplish much! Students did some reading and note taking on the New England, Middle and Southern colonies after completing some nice projects on Jamestown and Plymouth. Now that we are looking at the different choices the early settlers had when choosing where to live, we are going to start looking at some of the more difficult decisions they had to grapple with. Next week, students will read about slavery in the colonies and how the slaves impacted the economy in the southern colonies. We will look at the triangular trade route and conditions and discuss why the colonists didn't continue to just use indentured servants. What made them begin to buy slaves? In Science, this week we looked at changes in matter, observing the different evidence of chemical changes. Next week we will look at the Law of Conservation of Matter which is always a bit confusing to some! All reading and videos need to be reviewed each night, students should be spending time each day on both social studies and science work. These assignments are given out on Monday so students can budget their time due to their crazy schedules. We need to really work on not waiting until THURSDAY to start these assignments. Next week, I am putting suggested "chunks" of work on their daily assignments, to hopefully keep them on track. In reading, we finished up our Notice and Note signposts, looking at Memory Moments and how they can help us figure out the theme, conflict or even foreshadow events to come. We will be looking for all of our signposts as we move into our THEME unit next week. Students completed a realistic fiction book tasting and will be put into literature circles next week. More information on this will be coming home early next week - stay tuned! We are almost done reading The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, be sure to ask your child about this book! They are on the edge of their seats waiting to see what Coyote is going to do next! Ask them how Coyote has changed throughout the story or perhaps what one word do they think describes Coyote best. Their explanations will let you know how engaged they have been in this novel! In writing, this week we worked on developing our setting and looking at internal and external conflicts and how they help to bring a story to life! We will work on how to write powerful introductions and conclusions next week and then get our first drafts done! I am excited to read their stories! Friday folders are coming home today with a comment. Please review and sign and send pink slip and folder back on Monday. Please be sure to find the YELLOW flyer in the folder - it is about a promotion at the Toy Box that supports Cole School! Please remember all students should be attending all remote meetings with Art, Music, Library and Physical Education. It is important that students are signing in and participating in all of their specialist activities! Enjoy this gorgeous weather! Cheers! Maura Important Dates to Remember Wednesday, November 11th - No School - Veterans Day Tuesday, November 17th - 2pm - PTO MEETING Wednesday, November 18th - Half Day Professional Development - No afternoon work Tuesday, November 24th - Time Travel Day - wear any outfit from a previous time period Wednesday, November 25th - Early Release - Thanksgiving Recess Thursday, November 26th - Thanksgiving Friday, November 27th - HOLIDAY |