Friday, November 2, 2018

Week of October 29, 2018

Hi All,

We have all survived Halloween and the candy rush that followed :-) Mrs. Conley even had a big, hairy spider show up to join the class in the reading corner!  REALLY!



In language arts we worked on writing two different types of leads to a story about our favorite holidays. ( see chart) We shared the leads together and helped each other decide which lead worked better.   The students will bring a draft of a story to completion next week.  Our Friday poem is "Dinnertime Chorus" that is filled with personification.  The teapot sang as the water boiled.  We worked on writing our own 'Dinnertime Chorus', imagining Thanksgiving dinner.


Our class read aloud contains many new vocabulary words that we have defined and discussed.  We keep our new vocabulary lists from our read alouds and vocabulary words of the week in the Writing About Reading section in our Reader's Notebooks. A few of the new words are: segregate, integrity, justified, oppression, and portent.  This week our main character, Gabe, decides to name his pet spider Jimmy after Jimmy Carter.  Even though Gabe is afraid of spiders, he decides to keep one as a pet so he can overcome his fear of them.

Today we met with our 8th grade buddies for a monster activity.  The students wrote paragraphs about their own 'made up' monsters.  Their 8th grade buddies drew pictures of these monsters from the descriptions written by their 5th grade buddies on their lap tops.  They had fun comparing pictures.


Fourteen paperclips!  We built our first electro-magnet this week and while many students struggled to hold even four paper clips, one student used both ends of the magnet and was able to pick up a record fourteen paper clips.  Our next step will be to design a controlled experiment to try and increase our electromagnet’s strength.  We will investigate the variables that we can change and each group of students will test a different variable.  When we’re done, we will hold a scientific conference to discuss our findings.  

In math this week we were able to finally get our unit 1 assessment in.  One class was also able to go on an adventure with our “friends” at Blue Falls Elementary school, Fizz and Martina.  The other class will get to it on Monday.  This adventure is an animated problem solving simulation that helps children learn how to “talk math”.  We practice solving problems and explaining our thinking.  We even learn to explain our thinking without using numbers!  It’s tough at first, but students quickly adapt to using the language of math.  


Each class voted for October's student of the month.  Kids nominate a classmate and support their nomination with evidence to show how the student has demonstrated some of the important qualities of a good classroom citizen.  Congratulations to October's awardees, Emma Shannon and Erika Fong.


Secret spy words of the week:
  • Croach Head
  • Electro-magnet
  • Jimmy Carter
  • Dinnertime chorus
  • Student of the Month
  • Catching some Zs 

PS: We sent a survey for t-shirt size-explanation in that email.  Please respond as soon as possible, but by the end of the day Monday at the latest.  Thanks!







No comments:

Post a Comment