Good afternoon all! We started this week off with a fabulous Connections meeting! We read Iggy Peck, Architect and then used toothpicks and mini marshmallows to build structures. Today we worked together in our homerooms to use what we learned to try building the structures again! Check out the photo gallery for some of our masterpieces! Great to see the students persevering through the STEM process, realizing plans need to be adapted and rebuilt to fine tune their final products! On Wednesday we had a fabulous trip to the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset. Students drew insects and then filled in the backgrounds using sharpie pens to bring their scene to life. Tissue paper tearing was a way to add some dimension to their pieces and they were absolutely focused on their projects throughout the time at the Center. Please be sure to check out the photo gallery as you will see how intent they were on their art! In Math our focus is continuing with Multiplication. We are now multiplying up to four digits by two digits. Students are most comfortable with the Area Model, but are using either partial products or the traditional algorithm to check their work. Very proud of their effort! All students have realized that "graph paper is their friend" - it helps keep them organized as they work with bigger numbers. We also focused a bit on word problems, looking for key words that help us know the proper label to put on our answers. We talked about the importance of a label and that without a label the answer is "mush".. they get a kick out of that! Next week will be working hard to make connections with multiples of 10, remembering that 50 x 30 is the same as 15 x 100 or 15 x 10 x10 etc. We have played a game of concentration a few times as part of our centers to help review this important strategy. I have lots of copies if you want to play at home!! In Science we are still working to learn all about Matter. We did a lab this week where we looked at the Law of Conservation of Matter. We weighed materials, mixed them, then weighed again. They loved watching the vinegar send gases to fill a balloon in our closed experiment and saw what happens to the weight when the experiment was open. Students have done REALLY well during these labs, making good notes and asking fabulous questions! We will be finishing up with Matter next week and then getting ready for a test. We will review in school and a study guide will be given to help prepare at home as well! In reading we continue to work on making connections to our books. We use our Notice and Note Strategies to look for contrasts and contradictions as well as Ah Ha moments. We talked about what we saw in Out of My Mind and students also shared many examples from their literature circle books. We finished our literature circle books this week and students all illustrated their favorite scene from the book and discussed why. It was great to listen to their discussions as they explained why they chose different scenes etc. They are realizing books connect to people in different ways - this is wonderful! Next week we will be starting to read The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare and we will begin a look at our Native American Cultural regions. We will make connections from our reading to our Social Studies and begin a project on a tribe of choice. Stay tuned for more details. In writing students are almost done with the first draft of their personal narrative. Now the fun begins! We will be pulling these drafts apart as we work to make stronger leads, use stronger language and more vivid verbs, add dialogue and check to be sure our we have strong transitions, proper punctuation, spelling and capitalization. Lots of work ahead, but as they see their stories come to life with more details I am sure we will see them getting excited to share their finished products. I will schedule a celebration once we have all stories ready for publication! Thank you to all of the parents that sent in supplies and/or came in to help with our pumpkin activities. Students were amazed as they learned about how big pumpkins can actually get and also had the chance to make predictions based on weight, circumference, number of ribs etc. It was great to see their enthusiasm. Next week, we will be very busy again. Wednesday we will have some fun for Wacky Wednesday! Students are encouraged to dress crazy for the half day of school. I can't wait to see how creative they will be.. I am trying to put my outfit together as well! I sent home an email earlier today looking for some feedback on the best days/times for conferences. Please let me know by Monday if possible as I would like to get a google form sign up out by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. As always, thank you for all of your support. We are working hard in Room 15. As a class we are working to spell out the word TEAMWORK, by listening when directions are given and staying more focused during lessons. Students have been asked to really work on waiting to move until all directions are given so they don't miss key information. So far, we have made an improvement and I look forward to it continuing! Have a wonderful weekend! Maura Important Dates to Remember Wednesday October 31 - WACKY WEDNESDAY and EARLY RELEASE Sunday, November 4 - Daylight Savings Ends Monday, November 5 - Community Meeting 9am Tuesday, November 6 - Picture Retake Day
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Happy Fall everyone!
We certainly felt the change in the season this week - we have moved quickly from shorts and t-shirts to knit hats and jackets to keep us all warm at recess. Please be sure to watch the weather as we do try to have students continue to get fresh air each day even as the temperatures continue to dip! We had another productive week together. In Math, I have been pleased with students effort in learning to multiply using 3 strategies. To truly understand multiplying by larger numbers, it is important students have number sense. When multiplying 40 x 3, we are not just multiplying 4x3 to get 12 and "adding a zero", students are learning to use better mathematical language. They are adding place values, multiples of ten depending on the number sentence. We use the area model to help us see this break down. Students were doing really well as we moved from simple 2 digit by 1 digit numbers to be able to multiply 3 digits x 1 digit , 4 digits by 1 digit and also looked at multiplying by 2 digit numbers. It is really important students have confidence with their math facts and know they should be practicing facts at home for at least 15 minutes, three times a week. Please keep up the great work! Using graph paper will also be key as we move to work with larger numbers. Graph paper helps to keep students organized. Students have a graph paper notebook we use in class and always have access to bring some extra paper home if needed for homework. In Reading, we had our 2nd literature circle book discussions today! I was really impressed as I listened to students share opinions and challenge each other about character motives in different situations. Students will be finishing their first novel by next Thursday! They are already asking me what our next books will be ... stay tuned! Students are continuing to use post its as they read, to "jot" down reactions to the books, connections, questions etc. Places where they stop to re-read or say "I wonder". We look at our jots from time to time and write about them in our reading response journals. Our work is progressing as we challenge students to make deeper connections to the characters and themes. A great discussion to have with your child would be to ask them about their favorite character in their literature circle book and ask them to tell you WHY! Also ask them to make a prediction about what will happen next! In writing, students have decided which "seed" story they want to take our our Writers Workbench to be published. They chose the topic and now we are working to use graphic organizers to be sure we are thinking of strong leads, using our senses to pull our readers in, and looking at good use of transitions as we tell our story. Next week we will be taking our first drafts and focusing on different parts of our stories, to take them to the next level. We have some great stories started and I can't wait to see what happens as they learn through the editing process! In Social Studies, we read and discussed EarlTy Native American Regions and we will be taking a closer look at some of the early tribes. Students will be looking at how the environment impacted not only the types of houses they built, but the food, clothing and tools they used in every day life. Is we dig into this unit the class will be reading a great adventure story about survival called The Sign of the Beaver. There should be some great discussions as students hear a story about a boy left to survive on his own and is forced to make friends with a nearby Native American tribe. Science has been so much fun lately. We are really getting pretty good with google slides as we dig into our vocabulary terms for our unit on Matter. Early in the week we read and discussed the differences between a physical reaction and a chemical reaction. We sorted pictures to show we had an understanding that in order for a chemical reaction to have occured a NEW substance would be formed. Today we had tons of fun testing what happened when different substances were mixed together! Did we see a gas created? Did the color change without us adding any dye? Did the temperature of the mixture change without applying any heat or cooling? Was a new substance formed - like the white solid that forms from the egg when you fry one? Ask your child what they thought about these experiments! We have had a couple of class discussions about making sure we are always listening to all adults in the building. Lunch has become quite loud with students needing reminders to talk quietly at their tables, rather than yelling across the cafeteria to a friend at another table. We now have some music playing at lunch. If students can't hear the music, this is their sign that it is too loud. This seems to be helping! We as a class our trying to settle back into a solid routine with our transitions throughout the day. This past week, we had started off being quite chatty and lost valuable time because we missed directions etc. As a class we had a meeting and talked about being responsible for ourselves and helping out our groupmates, so we can transition well and be able to enjoy all activities. I am looking forward to renewed focus as we come back to school on Monday. Monday we will start the day with our second Connections meeting. This year each of our Connections books has a STEM activity involved. On Monday we read the story and do the activity with our groups and then on Friday the homeroom classes try the STEM challenges again to see if they learned anything from their first round. We definitely have some future engineers in our class so I can't wait to see how they do with this challenge! Looking forward to some fun next Friday during our pumpkin carving activity! A fun way to celebrate Fall and learn some real life Math and Science as well! Thank you as always for your support! Don't forget to check out our photo gallery for some pictures of our students in action!~ Cheers! Maura IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:
Happy Friday everyone! This week just seemed to FLY by and I think it was because we were a busy bunch! In Science we have been continuing to work using Google Slides as we make our way through matter! We looked at some physical and chemical changes this week (ask your child what happened when I added some baking soda to half a glass of vinegar)! Next week we will have a hands on lab so we can pull everything together and make the connections needed. Students are getting the hang of Google Slides and we will continue to find ways to give them practice with these tools as we move through the curriculum. In writing and reading we are working hard developing different "seed"stories for our Personal Narrative unit. I can't wait for students to choose a story to take to our writer's "Workbench" as we then dig in to our writer's craft! Once we take those stories to publication we will have a celebration so we can share our growth with you! In reading, this week we focused on how to make deeper connections to our books. When do we see contrasts and/or contradictions in our novels, when are we wondering or making predictions? Our literature circles met for the first time today and I was absolutely THRILLED with the discussions I jumped in on! Students were debating reasons why characters made decisions, what they think will happen next and why and were chatting about their favorite parts of their novels so far. After sharing some of our learnings as a group each met to decide how many chapters they will read by next Thursday and new jobs were assigned. I love that there were some arguments with students wanting to read MORE.. and yet they were able to compromise based on kids schedules etc. I left it up to them to break the book into manageable sections, and so far so GREAT! Frindle is a great story about a boy who decides to make up a new word for pen. It has lots of adventures as he tries to prove to his teacher that he can get his new word added to the dictionary. Runaway Ralph is about a mouse who lives in an old inn with his family, but he wants more adventure and is in search of a good PB&J sandwich! He decides to take off on his own to a "medium sized" kid camp nearby. Students were really debating some of the decisions this silly mouse has made so far! Lastly, The Report Card is a great story about friendship. Nora is a great student but decides to purposely get bad grades on her report card. Is Stephen the reason? What will her parents think? Students are digging in now and can't wait to see what happens. Ask your child to tell you about their book! We also finished reading Out of My Mind, students were so quiet as we finished the last few chapters - so enthralled with it all. It was a great lesson about courage and perseverance and hopefully left students thinking about showing empathy to all those with disabilities. In Math, we focused a great deal this week on Base 10 and Exponents as well as the Properties of Multiplication. Students played "spoons" for the first time and it was definitely a hit! Hopefully they will tell you about it. I have lots of copies of these games so if you ever are planning a game night or want to play some math games with your child, let me know and I will send a few home! Fact recall and fluency still remain a high priority. Students should be practicing their facts minimally 3 times a week for 15 minutes. If they prefer not to be on a computer-based program, flashcards are always a great answer as are Speed Squares (www.speedsquares.org) We are planning some pumpkin Math and Science Activities on Friday October 26th from 12:45 - 2:45. If you wanted to come in to help, please let me know by Sunday so I can send out information to all those coming in. This is always a fun day of learning and special for the kids and parents! Officer Phelps will be in earlier in the day to remind us about Halloween Safety as well. Thank you for all of the support at home! It makes a BIG difference! If you have any questions, please reach out anytime, I am here to help! Room Parents for this year are Leeanne Gibbons and Tracy Concheri, they will be helping me to organize different class events and will help me gather supplies when the classroom needs them! Thanks in advance for the help! Cheers to a great weekend - a few wins for the Sox and one for the Pats would be great! ~ Cheers Maura Important Dates Wednesday, October 24th - Fieldtrip to SS Art Center - all need to bring peanut free snack AND LUNCH Wednesday, October 31st - EARLY RELEASE - WACKY WEDNESDAY - wear crazy clothes for the day . Students released at 12:20 Happy Thursday and Happy LONG Weekend all!
First off I need to say "GO PATS and GO SOX!" What a great time to be a Boston Sports Fan! Room 15 remains a constant source of energy and enthusiasm! We started the week with our Community Meeting - the fifth grade chose a message of kindness as the theme. We enjoyed hearing Have You Filled a Bucket and then worked on doing something nice at home and in school to help fill buckets everywhere! It's great to see students realize, something as simple as a smile or a "thank you" can really change someone's day! Keep up the great work. Throughout this month we are going to continue to work to fill our bucket of kindness which hangs on the wall outside our classroom. This week in Math our focus was on Exemplars. These are multi-step word problems where students learn a 5-step process: Understand, Plan, Solve, Communicate and Connect. We worked together, as teams and then worked on one problem individually today. Students have really been doing a wonderful job taking each step and using graph paper, pictures etc to help them solve the problems! As your child about "Bottles and Cans" or today's problem "Chickadees and Cardinals" - they used tables to find patterns in order to solve! Proud of their effort to remember to use graph paper to stay organized and to clearly label the tables they create as well as their final answers! In reading and writing we have been looking at basic parts of speech and how authors use them to elaborate in their writing. We have create some super sentences, by brainstorming nouns, vigorous verbs ,adverbs and adjectives to help bring our sentences to life! Mrs. Fuller came in and share our first Notice and Note Strategy: Contrasts and Contradictions. These strategies help students remain connected to what they are reading and to stop and ask themselves questions from time to time. With Contrasts and Contradictions students are asked to find times when a character says or does something that surprises them. This was a fabulous lesson and connections were immediately made to our oral reading novel "Out of My Mind". Ask your child to tell you about what happened when Claire was interviewed by the reporter after the Quiz Show and why her answers surprised them! Next week we will start our first literature circles - stay tuned next week for more details! In writing we finished up our Trouble Stories into Google docs so I can review over the weekend and next week will have a focus on our first personal narrative. This personal narrative will be used to take us through the complete writing process to publishing! When we are further along I will be in touch as we will definitely celebrate their publishing! In Science we really dug further into Matter this week! Students were given open circuits so they could test the electrical conductivity of 6 different materials: nylon, acrylic, brass, copper, pine and aluminum. We then talked further about how Scientists use all of the properties we have been discussing in order to figure out what different materials are. Some great questions and discussions were heard throughout the week. Tying Science into Technology, students have created Google Slide presentations on Matter. They have been defining vocabulary on slides and learning how to insert pictures into slides as well. We will use activities like these to teach them more about how to change fonts, background, and even add transitions so they will be ready to present research and other projects to the class in the future. They have been doing an awesome job! Mr. Tinker has been working on keyboarding with them, so it's great to get them this practice in our day to day work! Great things to come as Mr. Tinker and I work together to find other ways to integrate technology to build students' enthusiasm for learning! In today's Friday folder (sent home on Thursday!) you will see a permission slip for our first field trip on October 24th to the South Short Art Center. Please sign and return permission slips by next Thursday. Students will all need to pack a lunch that day as we will not be back to Cols School in time for lunch. This is always an AMAZING experience as they are able to learn from the artist in residence! Also in the folder is a permission slip to run for our Student Government Representative. I am hoping many students will want to get involved in this process! Looking forward to a long weekend, but excited to dig into our literature circles when we get back - nothing gets me going more than watching kids discuss books with each other!! Have a wonderful weekend and don't forget these questions: 1.) What can you tell me about electrical conductors? Does wood make a good conductor? What does? 2.) How did Claire respond to the reporter? How did that make Melody and Rose feel? 3.) What can you tell me about the steps for an Exemplar? Important Dates to remember:
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June 2019
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