Good afternoon,
Room 15 continues to make steady progress as we dig into the fifth grade standards. We started the week with our first meeting of our Connections Groups. Students were read Tough Boris and then completed a STEM challenge with their Connections team members. Today, we revisited what we built on Connections Day and gave our all to re-engineer our "boats" to hold more "pirates". Please be sure to ask your child about this activity. What did they learn about the structure of the boats that helped them hold more "pirates" (marbles)? We definitely have some great scientific minds in Room 15! Also in Science this week we kept working with Matter. Following our look at the States of Matter, this week we focused on why materials are different and how they can be identified. We discussed solubility and did a hands on lab today. See our photo gallery for some great pictures. We talked about electrical conductivity as well as thermal conductivity and are looking forward to testing different substances next week to determine what makes a substance a good electrical conductor. I have been very impressed by their questioning! In Social Studies our Landmark projects are completed and WOW the creativity was awesome! I loved how many chose a theme for their projects and kept all details on their map related to that theme. Donut Island, Basketball Island, Hogwarts and even Sponge Bob - so great to see their individuality shine through! In Math we worked hard this week with variable expressions. We were challenged to create algebraic expressions and to also evaluate them when given a specific variable. We had a great day of review, using Jeopardy as our class game! It was great to see teams working together (but I forgot to take pictures! I think I was trying to be a true game show host!) . We showed unbelievable perseverance today on our tests. Each student made an attempt at the Bonus questions - challenging themselves to use the order of operations to solve problems. Tests will be sent home on Monday for review and signature! In Reading and Writing our focus has been to increase our stamina and stay connected to our work. How do we set goals for our reading? How do we stay connected to the story, even when we hit a dull spot or a tough word? We worked hard using post it notes to set page goals where we would stop and jot what we were thinking. We went back into our writing to elaborate with details and check spelling rules. Next week our focus will be on strong leads, how can we change the beginning of our stories to really capture the attention of our readers? Looking forward to more great work! In another week, we will be starting our first round of literacy circles! Stay tuned next week for details! I cannot wait to get these started and watch students listen and learn from each other as we dig into some great novels! A few questions to ask?
~Cheers Maura Important Dates to Remember
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Happy Friday All!
Another busy week in Room 15! We started the week with an amazing program sponsored by the Cole PTO. The UNH Similarities program brought students to the gym for a wonderful lesson on adaptive sports. After listening to the ways UNH reaches out to people with disabilities, students played a few games while in wheelchairs so they could experience how disabled students are able to participate in different activities. We had lots of fun as "Tacos and Chimi-Chungas"! Ask your child about this great experience! In Math we continued our work with the Order of Operations (G/E M D A S) and learned about variables and algebraic expressions. We have also been spending some time sharpening up our math facts with Reflex to get our fluency back in great shape. We ended the week playing 24, which challenges students to use what they know about the Order of Operations to solve problems. I was thrilled with their work on this - great use of mental math! Next week we will be digging into our first EXEMPLAR - where students will take a multi-step word problem and break it down with 5 steps: Understand, Plan, Solve, Communicate and Connect. We will be focused not just on solving the problems, but using mathematical terms as we communicate how we arrived at our answers and any connections we may have made with the problems! Can't wait to see how they do! Our Readers and Writers Workshops are picking up steam! We focused this week on finding the perfect reading spot and finding ways to connect to our texts. Strategies such as "Stop and Jot" and "Fix the Fuzziness" reminded students how important it is to stay engaged in our reading. We talked about being able to have a movie in our mind, or having an emotional connection, or maybe just thinking about the who, where and why of a chapter. Great discussions came out of these lessons and our reading stamina is continuing to build. In writing we looked at our heart maps and then thought of some "what if" stories we could write. Students were very creative with this! We wrote our first baseline narratives and will now use these to build our skills as we focus on better leads, stronger vocabulary, conclusions and even some use of dialogue to bring our stories to the next level. In Social Studies we are working on our Landform projects. We are building a map with at least 10 different landforms, properly labling and watching our project timelines as we go. I have been very impressed by their creativity so far and cannot wait to see the final products! In Science we are digging into Matter. This week our focus was on the States of Matter. We looked at different models showing us how particles move differently for solids, liquids and gases. We definitely have some scientists among us! We are also continuing to build our classroom community, sharing compliments and experiences during our morning meetings. We are learning how easy it is to fill our classmates' buckets by simply smiling and saying good morning! We have 5th grade ambassadors among us and look forward to supporting them as they learn to be community leaders! A few questions to ask your child:
Important Dates to Remember
Maura Happy Friday everyone!
Week 1 is in the books! Room 15 is off to a fantastic start! I cannot tell you how amazed I was at not only their enthusiasm to be back but also the way they worked with each other as we began doing some class activities. You should hear them telling you that I am "all about kindness" as these first few weeks is when we really build a solid foundation for a fantastic year. To accomplish this goal, we are working hard on understanding and appreciating each other's strengths and weaknesses and realizing that together we are one AMAZING TEAM! Be sure to ask your child about our Saving Sam STEM challenge today! They were absolutely amazing as they persevered through this challenge and took great effort to let me know what worked well, and what they struggled with at first. Each team worked so well together - all positive comments, working together towards a common goal - just fabulous! Each Friday I will send along some updates as to what we are working on and some pictures will be posted into our gallery for you to see your kiddos in action. At the end of 5th grade students are asked to create a memory board of their years at Cole, I am hoping our photo gallery can help to provide you with some fun pictures to add! At Curriculum Night, I will go over how I will use Friday folders to send home all work and to communicate with you via a biweekly comment sheet (I will write you a comment every other Friday, but you can send me a comment every week if you want!) I am hoping to see everyone at Curriculum Night next Thursday. If you cannot make it but want to come in and see our classroom at another time, just shoot me an email and we will arrange something that works! I am thrilled with our classroom's attitude and effort so far and am looking forward to a great adventure together. A few questions to ask your child:
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER: Thursday, September 13 6:30 PM. Curriculum Night Monday, September 17 - UNH Similarities program (I will send time next week in case you want to observe) Thursday, September 27 - Early Release - Professional Development Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for sharing your child with me! Cheers! Maura Happy Friday everyone!
Week 1 is in the books! Room 15 is off to a fantastic start! I cannot tell you how amazed I was at not only their enthusiasm to be back but also the way they worked with each other as we began doing some class activities. You should hear them telling you that I am "all about kindness" as these first few weeks is when we really build a solid foundation for a fantastic year. To accomplish this goal, we are working hard on understanding and appreciating each other's strengths and weaknesses and realizing that together we are one AMAZING TEAM! Be sure to ask your child about our Saving Sam STEM challenge today! They were absolutely amazing as they persevered through this challenge and took great effort to let me know what worked well, and what they struggled with at first. Each team worked so well together - all positive comments, working together towards a common goal - just fabulous! Each Friday I will send along some updates as to what we are working on and some pictures will be posted into our gallery for you to see your kiddos in action. At the end of 5th grade students are asked to create a memory board of their years at Cole, I am hoping our photo gallery can help to provide you with some fun pictures to add! At Curriculum Night, I will go over how I will use Friday folders to send home all work and to communicate with you via a biweekly comment sheet (I will write you a comment every other Friday, but you can send me a comment every week if you want!) I am hoping to see everyone at Curriculum Night next Thursday. If you cannot make it but want to come in and see our classroom at another time, just shoot me an email and we will arrange something that works! I am thrilled with our classroom's attitude and effort so far and am looking forward to a great adventure together. A few questions to ask your child:
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER: Thursday, September 13 6:30 PM. Curriculum Night Monday, September 17 - UNH Similarities program (I will send time next week in case you want to observe) Thursday, September 27 - Early Release - Professional Development Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for sharing your child with me! Cheers! Maura |
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June 2019
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