November 15

This week we celebrated Veteran's Day with an assembly.  The students enjoyed honoring those who have served or continue to serve our country!

Our first field trip was a success!  Last Friday we went to Cahokia Mounds.  We didn't have a lot of time to spend there, but we had fun!  The kids loved climbing to the top of the mound.

We have another field trip coming up on December 2nd .  We will be going to Busch Stadium and participating in the CAPS program.  CAPS incorporates baseball into a variety of hands on learning activities.  This is a very fun field trip!  Permission slips went home on Wednesday.  Please send these in sometime in the next week or two if you haven't yet.

In math, we are finishing up Chapter 3 and 4.  We started dividing by one digit divisors, and now we have learned to divide by two digit divisors.  The test will be coming up later this week, and study guides will be coming home on Tuesday.  Please be on the lookout for these.  This week in one of the math centers, students planned a road trip and had to stick to a budget.  This was a way for them to have fun while practicing multiplication.

In writing, we are focusing on writing informational pieces.  Students have been researching Native Americans, and they are choosing a topic within this subject to write about.  Before starting the unit, we reviewed note-taking and paraphrasing.  After doing a little research, students organized their thoughts and ideas about Native Americans on post-its.  Then, they used their post-its to categorize the different topics they could write about.

In reading, we are are also focusing on informational texts.  Our mini lessons have focused on point of view, fact and opinion, summarizing, and text features.  By combining these topics in reading and writing, students are getting a firm grasp on how non-fiction pieces are organized.

In science, we are finishing up the water cycle and weather tools.  On Monday, we made water cycles in a bag.  We taped them to the window where they could get sunlight.  After a few days, students observed how evaporation, condensation, and eventually precipitation happened in the bag.  Our test on the water cycle and weather tools will be coming up soon.  Look for study guides to come home this week.

Here are a few pictures from the Halloween party.  Thank you so much to those that came and helped plan the party!  The kids had a great time!

October 24

Just a few reminders: Parent teacher conferences are this coming week, October 27th and 29th.  Please check Sign Up Genius for your time, or feel free to email me if you don't remember.  I would happy to let you know.  Also, the Halloween party will be Thursday, the 30th, and there will be no school on Friday, the 31st.  We will be going on a field trip to Cahokia Mounds on November 7th.  Permission slips went home with their mail on Tuesday, so please return them this week if you haven't yet.

Today we had Ability Awareness Day.  We traveled around to four different presenters who taught us about different disabilities.  We met a lady named Katie who shared her story about an accident that caused her to become a paraplegic.  She is a very funny and interesting lady, and the kids really enjoyed meeting her.  We discussed learning disabilities, depression, and physical/motor disabilities in our other sessions.  It was a great interactive way for students to learn to appreciate differences and to realize how much we all have in common.  Be sure to ask your child what they learned about today!

In reading, we are currently learning how an author's point of view and perspective affect how a story is told.  We reviewed the difference between first and third person, and we also learned the difference between third person limited and third person omniscient.  This week students practiced writing from each of the different points of view.  Students looked at the same picture and were given a certain point of view from which to tell the story.  It was interesting for them to apply what they knew about point of view in their writing!

We finished multiplication at the end of the quarter, and we have been focusing on division.  We are currently on Chapter 3.  Homework is being assigned most nights and goes along with the lesson from the day.  Everyone is being very responsible about completing this and returning it to school, which is great!  In our math centers, we typically do activities and real world problem solving that apply to the previous chapter.  This way we are constantly reviewing concepts and vocabulary that was previously learned.  We will be continuing with division for the next few weeks since Chapter 4 covers division, as well.

In science, we started learning about water and the water cycle.  We did several demonstrations and hands on activities to review and reinforce different concepts relating to the water cycle.  We evaporated water in class, did an experiment to create condensation, and actually made it rain in the classroom (on a very small scale).  Below are pictures of the students as they discovered condensation on the inside of their cups!  We will also be learning about weather and weather tools in this unit.

Students finished writing and publishing their personal narratives, and these will shared at parent teacher conferences.  Everyone participated in a 5th grade writing celebration on Tuesday.  Each student displayed their writing on their desk, and we went to each classroom for about 10 minutes.  Everyone read a few pieces from each class and left a compliment for each one they read.  It was a  fun way to share their hard work with peers from our own class and from the other 5th grade classrooms.  Next week we will be starting informational writing.

I look forward to seeing you all at conferences!

September 28

A lot has happened since my last post!  We met our buddy class, Mrs. Burns 2nd graders.  We are doing a school-wide service learning project this year on the military.  Each time we meet with our buddies, we will be learning about the military and participating in activities that will help those who are serving our country.  We played a few get to know you games with our 2nd grade buddies, and then we watched a short video that talked about the different branches of the military.  We will meet again with our buddies at our early release day.

We completed our Oreo investigation in science!  Students had fun investigating our testable question, and they learned a lot in the process.  We didn't get a definitive answer to our question of which Oreo sinks the fastest, but we talked about the different variables that caused the groups to get different results.  We have now learned all of the different parts of the scientific method, and this is a skill we will be applying all year.  Later this week, we will be completing a study guide together in class to help prepare for the upcoming test on the scientific method.  Look for this to come home this week, and be sure to ask your child when the test will be.  I am still deciding, but it will probably be Tuesday, October 7th, or Wednesday, October 8th.

In math, we have been working on chapter 2.  We started by learning about prime numbers, and then we used what we learned about them to help us with the prime factorization of numbers.  Then, we began learning about exponents last week.  This is all new material for the students, so it might be helpful to check out the online textbook at home.  The end of this chapter covers multiplication, so please review multiplication facts with your child nightly to ensure that they are memorized.

We have been reading a variety of picture books in class to review story elements of fiction.  Students are working to identify the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution of stories.  We read a book called Mr. Peabody's Apples that taught students the important lesson that words are very powerful.  Also, we have started analyzing characters in fiction books.  We will continue this skill this week.  Reading groups are going well, and we are reading books that are on each student's level.

In writing, we have also been discussing story elements.  We talked about how narrative writing needs a story arc, where the action builds up to a climax and then slowly falls to the resolution of the story.  Students shared their drafts with their writing partners to decide if their stories had a story arc.  Below are pictures of students working together with their writing partner(s).

 Some decided their story didn't really have much of a plot, so they began new drafts.  Others are continuing to develop their current drafts.  When conferencing with students, I am always looking to praise something they are doing well with their piece of writing.  Then, I offer a tip to help develop their writing craft.  I try to give advice that will carry over to different pieces of writing, as well as to their current piece.

It is still a few weeks away, but just a reminder that the quarter will end Friday, October 17th.  There will be a half day of school for students on that day.

September 14, 2014

Things have been going very well in 5th grade!  I am really enjoying everyone, and we are doing a lot of learning!

We are having fun in math workshop.  Math typically begins with a short mini lesson where the skill is introduced, and students get to practice the skill with my support.  Then, we break into our small groups, which are formed based on their understanding of the skill.  All groups get more individualized practiced with me, and they engage in hands on or technology based activities with their group when not meeting with me.  Also, students are provided with problem solving and real world math problems to work on during math workshop.  We are almost finished with chapter one, and the students have done very well with it.  Study guides went home last week, and we will be having our test on Tuesday.  If you study with your child and sign their study guide, they will receive a small amount of extra credit on their test.

Here is one of the activities that students did where they shaded in their initials in a grid.  Then, they practiced writing decimals and word form of fractions based on the number of squares they colored in of each color.

One of the activities students worked on in math this week was creating the perfect schedule for their school day.  They had certain requirements to meet, and they came up with some very creative ideas!

Our class of writers is continuing to work on personal narratives.  Some students are struggling with ideas for small moments in their life.  Ask your child what some of their ideas are, and maybe you can help them brainstorm a few other specific moments in their life that they could write about.  Last week, we examined many examples of small moments.  Students also made goals to focus on in their personal narratives.  They will be working on these goals this coming week.

In reading groups, we have been focusing on quality answers when responding to text.  Quality answers include using PQPA (part of the question in part of the answer) to restate the question, as well as using text evidence to support answers.  Using evidence from the text is extremely important this year.  We are learning how to quote the evidence that we find in the story.  Complete sentences, capitalization, and punctuation are also a big part of quality answers.

We have been learning to write a testable question and a hypothesis in science.  We also learned about the three variables in an investigation.  Our first investigation will be this week, where we will test our question: Which Oreo sinks the fastest?  Results will follow soon!

August 24, 2014

We are back in the swing of things already!  We had a great first full week of school.  It has been fun getting to know one another.  We have a wonderful atmosphere in the room, and the kids are getting along well.  Below are some pictures of a fun group activity we did where students had to work together to build a tower out of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows.  I was very impressed with what they came up with!

   

In reading, we have been discussing how to choose a book that is not too easy or too hard.  Choosing books on our level helps us improve our reading!  We also reviewed book genres, and we did a project where students cut out books from the Scholastic book orders and decided which genre they fit into. Reading groups are starting this upcoming week, and we will be setting our routines for reading workshop.

                                
         

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
We started off writing name acrostic poems as a get to know you activity in writing.  We also worked on decorating our writer's notebook which we will be using daily in writer's workshop. We will start learning about personal narratives next week.

Math workshop will also be starting next week, so we have been doing some practice centers on multiplication facts.  Students are learning about the types of activities they will be doing during math workshop.  Our first chapter that we are starting covers place value.

Students learned that anyone can be a scientist this week in science.  We talked about how we are being scientists when we observe things in the world around us, as well as when we use a process to solve a problem.  We also began learning about the tools scientists use, and we will have a quiz next week over the tools.  Look for science notebooks to come home next week so students can study their notes for the quiz.  I The quiz will be on Friday.  I will have the students write this in their assignments books on Monday.  Earlier in the week we practiced being scientists by doing a fun problem solving activity.  Ask your child how they saved Fred in science class.

March Update

A lot has been going on lately!  Before Spring Break, Long celebrated Read Across America week.  We all decorated our doors with favorite books, and our class made a Readbox with books, similar to Redbox with DVDs.

Students had the opportunity to see the Lincoln Pierce, author of the popular Big Nate series, in an assembly before Spring Break.  He showed them how he comes up with his ideas as well as how he draws his cartoons for his books.  He was very interesting!

This week another author/illustrator will be visiting Long.  On Thursday, students will meet Debra Frasier, who has written and illustrated several books for children.  Meeting different authors will hopefully encourage our little writers to keep working hard!

The MAP test, which is Missouri's standardized test that we take, will begin the week of April 21st.  Since 5th grade is tested in Communication Arts, Math, and Science, our testing goes through the week of May 5th.  During these three weeks, students will not be assigned homework.  We highly encourage them to continue their nightly reading, but it will not be officially assigned.  The goal is for students to relax and get a good night's sleep each night so they come in refreshed and ready for the test.  Please make sure they eat a nutritious breakfast each day that we are testing so they do not get hungry in the middle of the test.  

If your child is trying to earn the award for service hours, the minimum of 50 hours is due on April 11th.  Let me know if you need any additional service logs.

Please ask your child if they need more dry erase markers.  At this point in the year, many students are out of markers, so if needed please get them a few more to last until the end of the year.  Thanks!

Currently in math, we are learning about measurement.  An emphasis is place on measurement conversions for customary length, capacity, and weight, as well as metric length, capacity, and mass.  We have learned several tricks in class to help keep all of the different measurements straight.  

Memoirs are being wrapped up as we begin poetry in writing.  Students enjoyed writing acrostic poems about themselves, as well as about other topics.  At the end of the poetry unit, the students will make a book to hold all of their poems.

Our reading groups finished the books we were reading before Spring Break, and we are starting to do some test preparation for the MAP test.  

In science, we have been learning about the solar system.  The test over the unit is coming up on Wednesday, and students took home their study guide on Friday.  Please make sure they study at home before the test.  Next up, we will be focusing on simple machines and forces.

The students are always making neat things in art, and here is a sample of what they were working on recently.  They all turned out really well!