Good afternoon and Happy Friday!
We have been busy all week in Room 15 and I honestly couldn't be any prouder of how the students handled our first remote snow day! I loved seeing the pictures of the geometric figures they built with either the marshmallows or actually in the snow! So fun for all! Students worked hard while online this week, and I know it is not as fun, but we accomplished much and I am a very proud teacher! In Science, we have spent the week looking at the Water Cycle and discussing how we impact the Earth. What are ways we can conserve and help take care of the Earth? WE learned more about how we impact the Earth so we can help change behaviors to protect our resources. In Social Studies, we covered events leading to the American Revolution and will be starting a project reminding us of what we have learned during this unit. A google slide show will be completed and due by TUESDAY. Students will choose a person, battle or event that we have studied and explain why they were significant. I am looking forward to reviewing their work and seeing what they have learned. In reading and writing, we continue our work with evidence based text and theme. We will be finishing Mustaches for Maddie on Monday, and reflecting on the themes throughout this wonderful story. We have also continued working with figurative language as we worked through The Santa Clauses - short poems from the North Pole. Students have created winter haikus to depict some of their favorite things about winter and the holidays. This week we learned about Kwanzaa, and holidays in France and next week we will finish our journey with a look at American traditions before we compare and contrast what we have learned. I loved to see student creativity in our Santa Parachute challenge. We were able to safely land Santa in many of our trials (thank goodness)! Next Wednesday during our remote time, students can wear comfy Christmas PJs and have a cup of Hot cocoa as we enjoy some holiday learning! Looking forward to a fun morning with them! Enjoy the holidays and again, thank you for everything you do each and every day to keep your child healthy and the Cole Community healthy. I feel blessed we have made it to Christmas in our hybrid model! Cheers to a festive but restful break! Maura Important Dates to Remember:
0 Comments
Good afternoon all!
Happy Hanukkah to all! I love that our classroom is learning about holidays around the world as we compare and contrast the different traditions and learn about other cultures. So far we have read about Christmas in Australia (more of a barbecue on the beach!), Spain, Germany and also read about traditions around Hanukkah. In school we have made paper dreidels and today we played dreidel a bit - which the kids loved. It was a little different, keeping them distant and all, but we did it safely and with lots of smiles! In reading our focus is on researching the cultures and traditions as we begin to look at non-fiction. We are also doing lots of reading for Social Studies and Science as we dig into the Earth's systems and the Road to the Revolution. Students have been journaling about whether they would have been involved in the Boston Tea Party and also researching why certain people are considered significant to this time period in history. Lots of great discussions as we did a simulation so students could better understand how the colonist felt about "no taxation without representation!" In Math, we are continuing our work with quadrilaterals and triangles and are also continuing to work with coordinate grids. This week our focus was on naming triangles but looking at the measure of the angles as well as their sides! Great job done by all! Students are on the edge of their seats as we continue reading in Mustaches for Maddie. Be sure to ask what they think about Maddie's upcoming brain surgery as well as the way Cassie has been treating her! I love to see them get so excited about books! We have started our Days of Holiday Spirit - Monday is a big day for Room 15 to show their 5th grade pride by wearing as much blue as possible! Let's show our spirit and fill the hallways with BLUE! We are in the home stretch to Christmas break but still have a lot to accomplish. I am posting work ahead of time so if students want to get a head start on Science and Social Studies they can, or if their schedules are a bit crazy, this allows them to budget their time to work for them. Assignments for Science are due by end of day Tuesday and Social Studies by Wednesday 10am, so students can choose to "chunk" the work as it works best for them. (and you!) Report cards have been posted and Friday folders came home today! Please be sure to review the report card and review my comment. Please sign the pink comment sheet in the Friday folder and return on Monday! Thank you for all of your continued support! Have a great weekend! Cheers! Maura Important dates to remember: 12/14 Monday - School Spirit Day - 5th grade is BLUE 12/15 Tuesday - Get your GRINCH on! Wear Green and anything "grinchy" 12/16 Wednesday - Remote day - wear your holiday hats to our Google Meet COLE CONNECTIONS from 1:30 - 1:55 with Mrs. Burns (google meet will be posted) 12/17 Thursday - Holiday Sock Day - wear ANY holiday socks you've got! 12/18 Friday - Holiday GLAM DAY - Wear your best to school! 12/24 - No School - Start of Winter break - see you on January 4th! HAPPY FRIDAY!
It does not seem possible, but December is here. I, myself, am so very happy we are still in school learning together and although I want to be back full time, I am trying to remind myself to be grateful for the daily time I do get to spend with your children. Thank you for all that you have been doing to support our community! Norwell has been doing such a great job and I hope we can continue this through the holidays! After a restful Thanksgiving break, we jumped right back in! This week, we finished our unit on Order of Operations and Patterns & Expressions and began our exploration of Polygons. Students have been doing a nice job discussing the different attributes of quadrilaterals, realizing why a square is different than a rhombus and also why a rectangle can be a square but not all squares are rectangles! This hierarchy of quadrilaterals can be confusing, but so far they have been doing a great job! We built shapes with popsicle sticks to talk about how polygons need line segments and vertices. We also took a look at regular vs irregular polygons! Next week we will dive into triangles as well. Students are also sharpening their skills when graphing with coordinates. In writing, our finishing touches are being put on our Fictional Narratives. Next up will be personal narratives where students will write about a very specific event in their lives. Now that they have practiced building the story elements for their fictional narratives, their personal narratives should flow more easily! I can't wait to see what they want to share! In Science, we will be moving into the Earth's systems with a look next week at the 4 systems: hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere and biosphere. As we learn about each system we will also look at how human's impact each! Be on the lookout for a STEM challenge next week as we try to build a parachute to save a favorite old ELF! In Social Studies we are on the Road to the Revolution. This week we discussed how the tensions began to rise in the colonies as King George III began taxing the colonists. "No taxation without representation" was discussed at length and we did some role playing so we could feel the frustration of the early colonists. Next week we will learn about the decision by the colonists to fight for their Independence. Students are definitely enjoying these discussions and remembering trips to Boston to dump tea on earlier field trips. So great when these connections are made. As part of the lead up to the holidays we will also have some fun looking at poetry. There is a book titled; "Santa Clauses: Short Poems from the North Pole". It contains 25 haikus that describe different things happening on the first 25 days of December. We are analzying each Haiku and later next week, will try our luck writing some of our own Winter haikus! Additionally we are looking at traditions around the world. We will learn more about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and how Christmas is celebrated around the world by using our research skills to gather facts about the similarities and differences we find! In reading we had an especially amazing week. Author Dan Gemeinhart joined our google meet and told us about his early life and life as a writer. He taught us about determination as well as setting dreams and goals and never giving up. Be sure to ask your child about this and thank you again to the Cole PTO to funding this amazing experience. Students also finished their realistic fiction books for their book clubs and got together in small group breakout rooms to discuss the themes they found in their novels. Next week they will be comparing the themes found in their realistic fiction book to the themes they found in The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. I am looking forward to reading their thoughts and seeing how much they have learned about THEME! Presently, we are reading Mustaches for Maddie by Chad Morris and Shelly Brown, another fabulous book about learning to stand up for yourself and never giving up. Students have been very open with their opinions about certain characters, one in particular, Cassie, has them very upset as they see her as a bully. We use these discussions to reinforce what we have learned about standing up for others as well as ourselves! This is an awesome book, another great one to talk to your child about. Looking forward to another 2 1/2 of solid learning before our Christmas break! Thank you for all you do to support your students at home! Have a wonderful weekend! Cheers! Maura Important Dates to Remember:
|