T1W5 midweek update

Please see below for this week's notes.

 

We began the writing process for this term's summative narrative.  Students will be working on their stories in class for the rest of the term.

T1W5

Central Idea:   Processes and procedures create structures that develop order in our world.

Math -  I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals using a variety of methods.
Homework: T1W5 Homework
Videos: Lesson 10, Lesson 11, Lesson 12, Adding Decimals, Subtracting Decimals
Review Concept:  Place Value of Decimals

ELA -  I can use the writing process to improve my writing. I can quote accurately from a fiction text to support my thinking.
This week we are going to continue reading The Giver and use it to work on comprehension and understanding theme. Students will begin writing their term 1 narratives this week. They will receive their organization documents and work through the writing process for the remainder of the term. Students will also have new vocabulary this week. They will receive a list of words to study at home; however, they won't have the sentences as part of their homework. We will complete the sentences and other review activities in class during the week.

Social Studies - I can understand the rights and responsibilities of a U.S. citizen. I can understand and discuss the causes of the Civil War.
Students will learn more about the attitudes regarding women's suffrage and we will begin to cover the lead up to the Civil War.

Science - I can classify living things.  I can understand plant structures and how they work.
Students will complete their celery lab and continue learning about how to organize living things.

T1W4 Weekly Recap

We had another great week.  Here's the powerpoint I used during Curriculum Night, if you have any questions, feel free to email me or share with me during our parent/teacher conference.

Have a great weekend!

T1W4

The 5th grade Curriculum Night is this Thursday!  

Be sure to visit the PTO table in the main hallway for information and volunteer opportunities.

6:30 - 6:45 - General in Cafe

6:45 - 7:30 - Visit Classrooms (I'm in 186 in the outer building)

7:30 - 8:00 - Meet with Specialists & Support Teachers

--Links - Cafe

--Art - Room 135

--Specials - Multipurpose Room

This week we will be focusing on the following learning targets and lines of inquiry:

Math:  

I can use various procedures to round and add decimals.

T1W4 Homework, Lesson 8

I'll be giving a mid-module assessment on Wednesday.  There isn't a video for it; however, students can view the videos in previous posts for help.

ELA:  

I can use the writing process to improve my writing.

I can quote accurately from a fiction text to support my thinking.

Social Studies:

I can understand the rights and responsibilities of a U.S. citizen.

I can understand how the U.S. constitution can be amended.

Science:

I can classify living organisms.

I can identify plant parts and understand their functions.

Sign up for a Parent/Teacher conference!

I’m using SignUp.com organize our upcoming parent/teacher conferences.

Here's how it works in 3 easy steps:

1) Click this link to see our SignUp on SignUp.com: http://signup.com/go/prvuv2

2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.

3) Please include your child’s name in the notes section when you sign up.

4) Sign up! you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on SignUp.com.

Note: SignUp.com does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me and I can sign you up manually.

T1W3 - Midweek Update

Please see below for a mid-week update about our progress on this term's lines of inquiry. 

ELA:  Processes and procedures to understand texts and effectively write

We have reached an exciting part of The Giver and students practiced empathy today by being assigned their own jobs.  They had to write about their feelings and understand the positive and negative sides of not allowing people the choice to choose their own job.

During our writing time today, I modeled how questions can be used to improve a story.  Students free-wrote, peer reviewed, and generated questions.  During our next writing time students will have the opportunity to use the questions to revise their own stories.

Social Studies:  Processes for revising rights and responsibilities

This week students are learning about the amendment change process.  Today we talked about the connections between the early U.S. economy, slavery, and the Constitution.  After taking notes, students read an informational text about the economic aspect of the Middle Passage and began working on a 3D map.

Genius Hour

This term I'm focusing on sharing various organizational methods for note-taking and finding sources.  Next term I want students to use those skills on a project of their choosing.  This week we are focusing on Cornell Notes.

Math:  Processes for understanding number systems

Students are making great strides this week with understanding number systems, comparing decimals, and making metric conversions.  

T1W3 - Week of August 15, 2016

ELA

Students will be practice on understanding explicit and implicit evidence.  We will also continue our focus on understanding parts of speech and narrative writing.  This week students will work on developing ideas and organizing their thoughts via pre-writing.

Vocabulary/Spelling

For vocabulary and spelling I focus on Latin and Greek root words.  Focusing on root words, and later on prefixes and suffixes, helps students to understand the foundations of language.  Additionally, I’ve found that students use their new understanding of words to improve their word choice while writing.  The vocabulary will be part of their homework approximately every other week, and they’ll have their quizzes on Fridays.  Students can visit my quizlet site to help prepare for the quiz.

Math

This week we are continuing our focus on understanding number systems and how they create order in our world.  We will expand our understanding of using powers of 10 to make metric conversions.  Additionally, students will be able to name decimal fractions in expanded, unit, and word forms.  Lastly, students will be able to compare and contrast the value of decimals to the thousandths and express comparisons with <, >, and =.  

T1W3 Homework 

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

Lesson 6  

Science:  How are living things organized

Students are going to continue working on understanding how living things are organized.

Social Studies:  Bill of Rights & Amendment Change Process

The first social studies assessment on the Bill of Rights and the Amendment Change process will be on Thursday, August 25^th.  Students should use their notes and the quizlet  to study. 

Students have been working well together and I appreciate how they practice their social and communication transdisciplinary skills.

T1W2 - Term 1, Week 2

This week were are continuing our Unit of Inquiry, How We Organize Ourselves, by learning about the following:

Math:  We are beginning our inquiry into how number systems create order.  Students will learn the procedure for using a place value charge to understand dividing and multiplying by multiples of 10.

T1W2 Homework -- parents can print this at home if they want to see a bigger sheet. Students may also attach scratch paper to their homework if they need more space to write.

Students can use the following videos to help them with their homework if they get stuck:  Lesson 1 Video, Lesson 2 Video, Lesson 3 Video.

ELA:  Students are continuing to work on supporting their explanations with text evidence.  We are also going to review parts of speech, subjects and predicates.  In writing students are practicing TAG (ask your child what this means) and we are beginning the writing process for this term's narrative essay.

Science:  We are inquiring into how we develop order in our natural world by exploring classification.

Social Studies:  We are continuing to learn about the Bill of Rights and see how they maintain order in our communities.  Students are beginning to get a pretty good grasp of many of their Constitutional rights.

Author Visit Announcement

5th grade will see Jewell Parker Rhodes, Coretta Scott King Honor winner and author of a new novel, Towers Falling. Ms. Rhodes is known for taking tough subjects and helping upper elementary kids understand them through novels. Her last book, Ninth Ward, was about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her current book, Towers Falling, is about a 5th grade girl. Deja, who knew nothing of the events of September 11, 2001. Deja is homeless and living in a shelter, going to a new school as she learns about what home, family, and community mean to her.

She will present in assembly format and after the assembly, students who brought books by that author will come to media center to meet the author and get their book autographed. If you would like to purchase books through F.AVE, 20% does go to the media center, however, students are not required to pre-order their books through us. All F.AVE orders are due to the media center by Friday, August 19th. Your child has one in their Monday Communication Folder. 

Thank you to DEF and Little Shop of Stories for bringing these wonderful authors to F.AVE every year!

Message from Ms. Smith, your media specialist

As most of you know, F.AVE has a wonderful 1:1 technology program using iPads. Your student will have an iPad assigned to them to use at school during this year. This week, I visited all classrooms to introduce or review our school-wide expectations for student use of iPads. Your child will be bringing you a permission/terms of use form very soon. In order for a class to begin using iPads for learning, all terms of use forms must be returned by all students in the class.

Please sit down with your child and look over the iPad Terms of Use form together. Ask your student what expectations we discussed this week in our orientation session, and discuss the form as you initial and sign it together. This is a great opportunity to discuss one of our IB Learner Profile traits: Balanced. We need to balance our enthusiasm for technology with being responsible and concentrating on our learning objectives.

T1W1 Recap

We had a great first week and we are off to a productive start to the 2016-17 school year. Our primary focus was to explore our Unit of Inquiry and Central Idea -- How We Organize Ourselves and Processes and Procedures Create Structures That Develop Order in Our World.  

See below for a few details about how we completed some of our work this week.  Please feel free to look at the pictures with your child and discuss the questions.  They should be able to share with you what we did in class and their own reflections.

----   ----   ----   ----   ----

People organize themselves and establish rules and expectations.  On our first day together students discussed the similarities and differences with their peers.  They also reflected on MY teacher goal of having safe and stable learning environment.  On our second day, students discussed how we should communicate in class depending on the task at hand.  They also had a chance to participate in the paper airplane challenge.  The goal of that activity was to see how important communication is when working with others.

Ms. Smith came to talk to us about our iPad agreements.  The forms will come home in the Monday communication folders.  We had our training with Ms. Niemeyer's class...it was a packed!

Reading:  What are the parts of a literary story (fiction)?  How can we understand the literature we read?  How can we dig deeper and understand the essential literary elements?  We began reading The Giver this week and students will use that book, along with some other texts, to meet the 5th grade literature standards.

Science:  What's the purpose of science?  What is the function of organization IN science?  Why do scientific beliefs and methods change over time?

Writing:  How can we organize our writing?  How can we use the writing process to express our thoughts in a detailed, factual, and logical manner?  

Social Studies:  What rights should people have?  What are the differences between rights and responsibilities?  How does the Bill of Rights help U.S. citizens to organize themselves?  What's the purpose of the Bill of Rights?  We will continue exploring our Constitutional rights next week.  

Math:  During Math this week students took a pre-assessment so that I can organize them into learning groups.  Additionally, we spent our math time working on some team building activities and Ms. Theisen, who will be my math co-teacher this year, completed a fun decimal dice activity during one of our math times.

I like to believe that part of bringing order to our world involves being social and having fun.  We spent some time throughout the week getting to know each other.  

It's going to be an awesome year!