I am so impressed with how my students are falling in love with our read aloud book, Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. We are having so much fun connecting with other classrooms around the globe for The Global Read Aloud! We have even watched the author read two chapters and watched her answer questions about the story... see some of our classroom tweets to watch how engrossed the kids are!
MATH- Topic 2 complete (add/subtract decimals) Onto Topic 3 (Multi-digit multiplication) This is the first year that many of my students are continuing to use the partial products method to multiply. I introduced how to use the standard algorithm-- and will continue to do this all week. If your child is struggling, please direct him/her to watch the videos on the Pearson website as this will help. Thank you! READER'S/WRITER'S WORKSHOP We are continuing to infuse our learning about Notice and Notability signposts with our read aloud and independent reading. See the picture of the signposts below and the Padlet where groups of students posted their thoughts on chapter 18... The students researched dyslexia last week after asking wonder questions about it first. I was amazed with how in depth the students went in their research and how they are able to use this information to make predictions within the story. We are getting so much out of this book, and I love hearing the students talk about it. Many of the daily exit tickets ("What stuck with you today") have been about this book/ Global Read Aloud experience! As we didn't finish The One and Only Ivan before the read aloud began, I let the students borrow copies of this book to finish on their own. I cannot tell you how impressed I was in how connected the kids became to this book-- all while being open to learning about another book at the same time. I heard amazing stories of staying up late to finish because they were so into it. SO, I apologize if we caused some late bed times, but the conversations about a book (unprompted by me) have been well worth it! I have a room full of book worms, and I love that this is just the beginning of the year! ZANER BLOSER SPELLING If you run into any issues on the online homework, I have told the students that they should still do spelling homework. The options are: sentences, story, dictionary, write each word 3 times, etc... DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP As Mr. Grenham mentioned in his blog post, I helped run an assembly for the students with an overview of what digital citizenship means. I talk about this a lot within the classroom as I believe that it is important. One post-discussion topic that came up with my particular class was about what to do if you feel uncomfortable online/ in text messages. Many of the students thought that they should delete the message/ site/ words/ etc... and then tell an adult. I have been urging them to know they should tell an adult first-- and let the adult see the content. It is up to the adult to delete/ report it. Just a heads up as I want you to know that I will always let parents know if anything like this comes up in conversation. EXPLORER TIME The students learned about atoms and just how small and atom is. We are extending this knowledge into connections to the Periodic Table of Elements. Now that we are world explorers, the students are continuing to dive into the big picture of why study history. Next week we will complete a web quest about the Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations. Students will be asked to justify which inventions/ contributions to society were (and still are) important. CONGRATULATIONS ON FILLING THE ERASER JAR! On Friday, 10/23/15, we will celebrate our first filling of the eraser jar! The students voted on an electronics/ pj party. As per the student handbook, students are not allowed to bring in outside devices (I tried to override this, but no luck!). We will be able to access the iPads to help us enjoy our day of learning while getting full access to the iPad cart! STAR OF THE WEEK We are off to a great start with star of the week! I just love having lunch with my students, and I look forward to this all year long! Shannon started us off. We loved her bulletin board pictures and creative movie-- great job, Shannon! Taylor was wonderful too with beautiful pictures for the bulletin board and a fabulous movie. Thank you, Taylor! Next star... Lily! Room Parent Update... Thanks to Kristen Giordano for volunteering to be our class room parent. She is hoping to reach out to the class, but must do so only if you email her directly saying it is okay for her to add you for classroom updates about volunteers, donations, class parties, etc... Please email her directly letting her know that you would like to opt in to her email group-- thank you! [email protected] Thank you for all that you do! ~Kerry Thank you so much for such a successful P.I.N.! It was so nice to meet everyone and to share our exciting adventures in room 16! If you did not get a chance to come, you can find my P.I.N. slideshow in the "Parent Info" tab on this website. If you have not signed up for conferences or filled in the "About Your Child" form, please do so as soon as you can (links in previous blog posts below). MATH - Completed topic 1- Place Value (but will continue to review concepts as a spiral review all year) -Moved onto topic 2- Adding/ Subtracting decimals -We've had some great math center and workshops with stations this week... the students enjoy this fun learning style! SPELLING We began our first spelling unit this week. I wanted to ease into this, so every student had the same words with all online homework assignments. Next week I will differentiate this more by what each child needs. EXPLORER TIME Mrs. Lowerre and I assessed on the scientific method today after completing "The Great Banana Challenge" and getting some great discussions going about this. We jumped into how scientists and explorers are similar and why asking "I wonder" questions is so important. I showed this great video on why studying history is important, and the students really loved it! I am including the link below... Next week we will assess their understanding of the continents and oceans as in order to dive into our world explorer unit, they need to appreciate and be able to locate these points. READER'S/ WRITER'S WORKSHOP/READ ALOUD Author's Craft in Informational Text Our Reader's Notebooks are finally here! The students are officially documenting books for the 40 Book Challenge-- which they are very excited about! As we are reading The One and Only Ivan, we are documenting how this story-- which is based on a true story-- is written. The author's craft of writing informational writing in a fictional way is a focus area for us right now. The students have done an excellent job of being able to identify techniques that author's use in making writing sound more interesting. This will help them when crafting their own written work. CLASS MEETING/ DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP We continue to try and build our classroom community by getting to know one another and talk about respecting one another and our school. Our discussions moved on to the theme of Responsibility today. As we have jumped into using the iPads, we are continuing to talk about the importance of making good decisions with any device. My goal is to get the students ready for the middle school. Our theme of "it's okay to make mistakes" is helpful in getting the students to take risks in a safe environment while learning all of these rules. Devices in a school setting have different rules than at home use. A great article about Instagram on Common Sense Media... worth checking out! Click here for the link. OCTOBER THEME OF THE MONTH: Responsibility, Self-discipline, & Reliability FIRST STAR OF THE WEEK... Shannon! Come see me at Park Street Books on 10/7 at 4:30 pm for the Dale Street fundraiser by PTO! Have a great weekend! Thank you for sharing your wonderful 5th grade student with me! ~Kerry Cowell |
2015-16Year of the eraser! Archives |