Weeks 12 and 13

Reading
The students learned how to create an interactive image using Thinglink. While learning about the tool and figuring out all of the great features the students created an interactive image about their favorite restaurant or fast food joint. Check out this presentation to see where we like to go eat! This week the students will show their understanding one of the novels A Long Walk to Water or Home of the Brave using Thinglink.

The students enjoyed their first READ IN! Nothing beats a cozy spot, snacks and a great book. 

The students here are participating in a walk and talk as they discuss 2 different articles based on the National Refugee Act and the Syrian Refugee Crisis. It was great to listen to their discussions and to hear how they can form an argument or side and support their thinking with evidence from the texts.

Here the boys are having an in depth conversation about how to order a group of synonyms.



Science
We moved on from our Environments Unit and dove right into the Levers and Pulleys Unit. Students learned the vocabulary words lever, fulcrum, load, pivot, effort and Newtons. They were excited to explore the various lever systems and will continue to try and figure out where to place the fulcrum, load and effort so that you can lift an object with the least amount of effort.

Ms Y getting the students engaged in science.

Math

Fractions Galore!  The students have been using fraction circles and pattern blocks to take the abstract concept of fractions and make it more concrete. We have been working in small groups, with partners and individually on creating equivalent fractions, ordering and comparing them. 

Hour of Code

Last week was the Hour of Code, check out this website to learn more about what The Hour of Code is and what Coding entails. We watched inspirational video messages from President Barack Obama, rock stars, basketball players, Mark Zuckerberg and others who encouraged all children to have fun and learn how to code. We Skyped Wolf, an employee of Brandpoint, who explained how coding is part of his job and how students can start coding now. He was so inspiring and engaging! He shared many great resources that are out there for students to code, create apps and games. The Hour of Code can continue at home, this week, next week and beyond!

Sandwich Making
We were able to make over 400 sandwiches for Mary's Place right before Thanksgiving. It's amazing what can be done when we all work together to help others. Last week Mary Jo Carpenter, the director of Mary's Place, sent us a heartfelt thank you card for our hard work and community service. Thanks to those parents who were able to join us and help control the chaos and rapid sandwich making.

Week 11 - Reality has set in...winter has shown up

Music Concert
Wow, our 5th graders sounded fabulous at their practice performance during school on Thursday. They can sing, dance and play the xylophone...they can do it all!

Reading

We enjoyed our second trip to visit our Grandfriends at Chapel View on Monday. The students used cray pas to color in a fall leaf and then using a craft stick they added some creative lines and swirls to make it pop.

The students finished their novels A Long Walk to Water or Home of the Brave and will be reading the other of the two novels after Thanksgiving break. I was extremely impressed with their daily annotations and the depth of their group discussions. Many students enjoyed their novels and had their eyes opened to the hardships and struggles that other children their own age have had to deal with. Check out Katherine Applegate's response to our tweet...we were jazzed that the author knew we were reading and discussing her book.

Science
What an exciting week we had in science! The students recorded their first observations for our Salinity Investigation. They are trying to figure out what the salinity (amount of salt in water) range of tolerance is for their seeds. Now that was fun but not nearly as much fun as watching brine shrimp hatch and swim around in the water. I have to admit I was a little skeptical, I have not taught this specific lesson before and I wasn't quite sure if the shrimps would hatch and that we would be able to witness it. Boy was I completely wrong! Not only could the students see the shrimps jerkily move around they witnessed the shrimps hatching.

Math

The students have been working extremely hard learning long division and figuring out what to do with the remainder in story problems. We will be taking our Unit 4 - Division test tomorrow and moving on to Unit 5 after Thanksgiving break. 




We also took some time to play fun games that will help us learn and become quicker with our multiplication facts. The students played a version of head bands, Shake Rattle & Roll and Safety Zone.

Week 10 - still a beautiful fall!

Randomness

Musical Books - no one gets out and everyone is a winner. The students were able to see what their classmates were currently reading and gain some great new titles to read next.  

Academic All Star Trifecta!  

Suhayb - Mrs. Beaverson's class

Alexa - Art class

Moni - Music class

Congrats Moni, Suhayb and Alexa keep up the all star work!

Reading

We are close to finishing up our novels A Long Walk to Water and Home of the Brave. We have been building our knowledge of Sudan, Africa, The Lost Boys of Sudan and the current refugee crisis. After Thanksgiving break the students will switch novels. The students have shown their knowledge of the assigned reading by having discussions both in person and online. I am blown away with their critical thinking, insights and connections as they discuss the novels.

Science

The ipads were brought in to our science class this week so that the students could practice using the app Book Creator. This will be used to document our new Salinity Investigation. Students will be creating a book that has pictures, video and notes describing the investigation and its outcomes. We broke up into new science groups and planted our seeds to see how the amount of salt in water affects their growth. 

Math

Division and ski jumping...what do they have in common? Ask your child if they have Mrs. B and Ms. Y for math class.

Finally! I managed to get a few shots during math this week. We started Unit 4 - Division and will be working on it until Thanksgiving break. Our goal is to test next Monday or Tuesday. The students worked really hard this week to learn the partial quotients method of dividing. They also worked collaboratively to put word problems into groups based on what operation they would need to solve the problem. 

Week 9

Math
The students worked hard to learn many new geometry concepts last week. Unit 3 was vocabulary heavy but they didn't let that get in the way. The students participated in a 4 corners activity to show their knowledge of each vocabulary word as we reviewed before taking our test. The tests are waiting for me to be corrected later on tonight after it gets dark, trying to enjoy the beautiful fall weather as much as possible right now. We are moving on to Unit 4 which focuses on long division. It is imperative that students continue working on learning and memorizing their multiplication facts if they don't already know them. For some reason I have been negligent on my picture taking during math time, I have no math pics from last week. 


Reading
We started reading 2 of my favorite novels (I may say that a lot, I do have a lot of favorites) A Long Walk to Water and Home of the Brave. We have been building our knowledge of  Sudan, Africa and the Lost Boys of Sudan by looking at pictures, watching videos, reading articles and reading our novels. I tweeted a picture of the students doing a walk and talk and tagged both authors. Within days both authors had favorited my tweet and Katherine Applegate, author of Home of the Brave, responded to our tweet. I do think I was more excited than the students but it's pretty cool when an author knows you are reading their novel. The students completed their first vocabulary homework and will continue to have this vocabulary homework each week. 

          We just had to take advantage of the beautiful weather and do our walk and talk outside!


The students discuss their assigned reading with a partner before having a large group novel discussion. They are enjoying the novels and doing a wonderful job of thinking critically. 

Social Studies
Last week Ms. Yesnes taught an engaging and valuable lesson on savings goals and saving money. The students participated in a game to see how quickly, or not they could reach their savings goal. It was hilarious to hear students getting frustrated because they had to pay money out instead of saving it. I said, "welcome to being an adult and to reality!"