10/20/2019 0 Comments Week of: October 21-23Religion:
Science:
Important dates: Wed. 10/23- P/T conferences in PM Thurs. 10/24- No school, P/T conferences Fri. 10/25- No school Tues. 10/29- Boys basketball meeting @5 Thurs. 10/31- Trunk or Treat @1-2 Fri. 11/1- All Saints Day Wax Museum @10 Mon. 11/11- Veterans Day Pancake Breakfast, Program, and Mass starting @7:30am- Please invite a veteran and send any veteran or current servicemen/women pictures to [email protected] We visited the fire station with our first grade buddies on Monday. :)
0 Comments
10/11/2019 0 Comments Week of: October 14-18*Please send a small- to medium-sized pumpkin with your child by Monday, October 21st for a science project. Thank you!
Religion:
Grammar: Continued study of conjunctions Writing: Personal narrative Reading: Begin new novel: The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare Social Studies with Mrs. Bright:
Important Dates: Mon. 10/14- Field trip to fire station for Fire Prevention Month Mon. 10/21- Native American Museum Project due Wed. 10/23- P/T conferences in PM Thurs. 10/24- No school- P/T conferences Fri. 10/25- No school Please return the Parent-Teacher Conference form that went home on Thursday. I look forward to meeting with you all in a few weeks! 10/4/2019 0 Comments Week of: October 7-11Religion:
Grammar: Continued study of conjunctions (coordinating, subordinating, and correlative) in compound and complex sentences Writing:
Read-aloud: Restart by Gordan Korman Important Dates: Monday, 10/7- Scholastic Book Order due Wednesday, 10/9- Book Project due! Friday, 10/11- Special Persons Day- Lunch at 11, Mass at 1; Turn in lunch order form (Form is for guest(s) only and students need to sign up for and pay regular price for hot lunch that day if eating) Highlights from last week: Project-Based Learning! We turned our classroom into a "house divided" between Wrigley Field and Busch Stadium for a math project. Students applied many 5th and 6th grade math skills to design a concession stand with a partner for a baseball stadium. They first decided on a name and logo. Then they chose the foods to serve. Next they researched best prices on those foods. After that they "purchased" the foods within a given budget using decimal addition and multiplication. Then they calculated unit prices using decimal division in order to determine a selling price to make a profit. They had a blast shopping at each other's concession stands and making change while practicing decimal subtraction. Some of the groups offered freebies with every sale such as dances, puppet shows, and fortunes. :) They are still in the process of calculating profit or loss, learning about absolute value along the way and using decimal addition and subtraction. I wish you could see the amount of calculations they completed for this project... way more than in a traditional math book and way more meaningful, applicable, challenging, and memorable too! We've had a baseball theme going on in our classroom since the beginning of the year with our Jackie Robinson novel and math activities, and it's safe to say a whole lot of learning and fun has taken place. We can only hope at least one of our favorite teams will make it to the World Series! I cannot begin to express how impressed I am with this class's deep discussions and critical thinking! We explored some really tough topics these past few weeks alongside our Jackie Robinson novel and they were respectful and contemplative. I think they learned a lot of new information about the Civil Rights Movement. They examined several primary sources with difficult vocabulary and content, and they were rock stars. I'm so proud of their perseverance in analyzing challenging texts! 9/26/2019 0 Comments Week of: September 30-October 4Religion:
Reading:
Science: Exploring ecological primary and secondary succession with Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens by Patricia Lauber Read-aloud: Restart by Gordan Korman Important dates: Tues. 10/1- Author Rosie Bosse visits Fri. 10/4- St. Francis Pet Blessing at 2:45 Mon. 10/7- Scholastic Book Order due- You can order anything on the website, not just from the flyers! Wed. 10/9- Book Project due Fri. 10/11- Special Persons Day- Lunch @11:20, Mass @1:00 Highlights from last week:
9/20/2019 1 Comment Week of: September 23-26Religion:
Reading:
Science:
Important dates: Tuesday, 9/24- Wear Cubs/Cards/sports clothes again! Wednesday, 9/25- Conservation Day at Lake Argyle- This is an all-day field trip that reinforces many of our 5th grade science standards. Please send a sack lunch with your child and make sure your child dresses appropriately in tennis shoes and layers. Thanks! Friday, 9/27- No school, Rummage Sale Highlights from last week:
9/13/2019 0 Comments Week of: September 16-20Religion:
Wordly Wise Vocabulary and Spelling:
Writing: Writer's Workshop Reading:
Science:
Important dates: Tues. 9/17- Hy-Vee KidsFit Day at WIU, 9-11:30- I could use 1 more driver to and from! Students should wear athletic clothes and shoes. Thurs. 9/19- Day of Awesomeness- 12:30-2 Wed. 9/25- Conservation Day field trip to Argyle Lake, all day Thurs. 9/26- Wordly Wise vocab lesson due, spelling & vocab tests Fri. 9/27- No school, Rummage Sale Highlights from last week: During math last week, the students were introduced to the concept of Math Workshop. Math Workshop is how we run our math block in fifth grade. It begins with a whole class lesson and is followed by differentiated small group rotations. It is important to note that small groups are flexible, and all students will interact with all other students at some point during the various rotations throughout the week. The purpose of Math Workshop is to meet the individual needs of all students, whether that is reteach, practice, or enrichment. During the rotations, small groups may meet with the teacher, play games, work on projects, use manipulatives, practice skills in center activities, or utilize technology such as Khan Academy and Prodigy. During the very hot days last week, we brought our Unit 1 centers down to the lunchroom for more workspace. They're a super hard-working, bright group. I'm looking forward to all the learning and growth that will take place this year! Here are some pictures of our class practicing the Math Workshop rotations: 9/6/2019 0 Comments Week of: September 9-13Religion:
ELA: Greek & Latin Roots (no Wordly Wise lesson) Writing: Literature response Reading:
Science: Energy flow through ecosystems Read-aloud: Restart by Gordan Korman Important Dates: 9/9- Open House @5:45, Home & School meeting @6:30 9/13- Approval of book for Book Project #1 due 9/17- Hy-Vee KidsFit Day at WIU for 4th and 5th grades, 9-11:30- Please let me know if you can drive! 9/19- Day of Awesomeness (Step It Up Kids Fundraiser) 9/25- 5th grade Conservation Day field trip at Argyle Lake- all day- Please let me know if you can chaperone and/or drive to/from. 9/27- No school, Rummage Sale We did not have a chance to start the MAP testing last week. We will hopefully complete both the reading and math tests this week. We have been lending our touch screen Chromebooks to the younger classrooms to complete their MAP tests, so we will not be starting our online Wordly Wise lessons quite yet. In the meantime, we've been studying Greek and Latin roots during our "Word Work" time which will greatly benefit us when learning new vocabulary in our Wordly Wise lessons! So far we've studied astr, audi, bene, bio, chron, cred, and dict. This week we plan to add a few more roots to our repertoire. Help! I'm looking for several volunteers for our upcoming field trips. I need at least 3 drivers to take us to the Hy-Vee KidsFit Day at WIU on September 17 around 8:45 AM, and then I'll need 3 drivers again for our return to school at 11:30. The drivers do not need to stay for the activity. I also need one chaperone to accompany us for our Conservation Day field trip at Argyle Lake on September 25. This is an all-day field trip (8:30-2:30). In addition to the chaperone, I will need at least 2 more drivers to take all of the fifth graders there at 8:30, and I'll need drivers to bring us back to school at 2:00. If you can help us, please let me know asap. Thank you! We would love to see you at Open House tomorrow night! We've worked hard on some special projects and can't wait to show you. Our classroom was "project central" all day Friday and it was so. much. fun. These kiddos are such hard workers! If you can't attend Open House, please try to stop in sometime and see them. They'll be displayed for several weeks. Here is a sneak peek: 9/1/2019 0 Comments Week of: September 3-6Religion:
Writing: Elements of a newspaper Reading:
Science: Food chains and food webs in an ecosystem Read-aloud: Restart by Gordan Korman *We will start MAP testing this week. My plan is to complete the reading test this week and the math test next week, but this is subject to change. We have until September 20 to complete the tests. Each test takes about 45 minutes. *Our class is welcoming a WIU block teacher tomorrow! We are excited that Miss Hilary Crowl will be with our class this semester. She will be with us every morning for the first eight weeks and then afternoons for the last four weeks. She will be observing, assisting students individually and in small groups, and teaching lessons in all subject areas. Important dates: 9/3- Picture Day 9/4- School lockdown drill 9/9- Open House 9/13- Approval of book for Book Project #1 due 9/17- Hy-Vee KidsFit Day at WIU for 4th and 5th grades, 9-11:30- Please let me know if you can drive 9/19- Day of Awesomeness (Step It Up Kids Fundraiser) 9/25- 5th grade Conservation Day field trip at Argyle Lake- all day- Please let me know if you can chaperone and/or drive 9/27- No school, Rummage Sale Highlights from last week: During our math period on Fridays, we like to play games that practice problem solving with our concepts from that week. Word problems can be intimidating for many students, and therefore we often tackle them in groups and in a game setting. We also love to learn from our classmates their different strategies for solving problems. I introduced the class to a game called "Attack the Castle." They worked together to solve word problems applying their knowledge of place value and the powers of ten. In writing last week, we learned how to write an opinion essay. We use the "OREO" method in fifth grade: 1. State the Opinion 2. Give three Reasons 3. Give Examples for those Reasons 4. Restate the Opinion. We completed a graphic organizer, examined a mentor text, used colors to organize the parts of the essay, and wrote our drafts. Our opinion essays will be featured in a special project for Open House! During our buddy time on Friday with first grade, we explored "sink or float" with apples. I challenged the fifth graders to explain in science terminology "why" the apple halves and the whole apples floated. Most were stumped. Later in the year we will learn all about atoms and matter!
8/24/2019 0 Comments Week of: August 26-30Religion:
Writing: Opinion writing Reading:
Science: Ecosystems
Important dates: 8/30- 5th grade leads Mass- wear green polos, no shorts 9/2- No school, Labor Day 9/3- Picture Day 9/9- Open House @5:45 9/13- Approval of book for Book Project #1 due 9/17- Hy-Vee KidsFit Day at WIU for 4th & 5th grades @9-11:30- Please let me know if you can drive 9/19- Day of Awesomeness (Step It Up Kids fundraiser) 9/25- 5th grade Conservation Day field trip at Argyle Lake- all day- Please let me know if you can chaperone and/or drive 9/27- No school, Rummage Sale Highlights from last week: During math last week, we got to know our classmates better by surveying everyone and collecting lots and lots of data. We reviewed the elements of a graph and learned to display our data by making bar and circle graphs online. We also measured everyone's heights and converted into inches to the half-inch. Then we displayed the data in a line plot. We found the median and mode and calculated the range and mean of these 19 numbers. This involved addition of fractions, and long division with decimals and double-digit divisors... wow! The students shared their strategies for adding that many data points. Perseverance was put to the test, and this class did AWESOME! I'm so proud of them. Also in math this past week, we began our place value unit with a review game. We rolled dice to create large numbers from the millions place to the thousandths and practiced saying the numbers correctly. The students were introduced to the basics of coding last week with our robots, Sphero and Ozobot! They will continue to learn block code, and then hopefully many will transition into writing JavaScript! STEM rocks! On Friday, we met our new first grade buddies! This class really "let their light shine" for the little ones and set amazing examples. Everyone was all smiles. :)
8/17/2019 0 Comments Week of: August 19-23Religion:
Writing: Introduction to Writer's Workshop Reading:
Science: Introduction to Ecosystems unit Read-aloud: Restart by Gordan Korman Important dates: 8/30- 5th grade leads Mass 9/2- No school, Labor Day 9/3- Picture Day 9/9- Open House @5:45 9/13- Approval of book for Book Project #1 due 9/17- Hy-Vee KidsFit Day at WIU for 4th and 5th grades- Info and permission slip will come home Monday 9/27- No school, teacher workshop It was a wonderful first two days of school! They are an amazing group of kiddos. On the first day, the first thing they did was take a test. :) It was a trick test to see who could follow directions. Make sure to ask your child how he or she did! We completed a time capsule, made desk nametags, decorated our door, read books about friendship, discussed growth versus fixed mindset, set goals for the year, played a game about our summer adventures, collected class data for a math project, and completed our first STEM challenge. We also smiled and laughed a lot. It's going to be a fantastic year! |
Welcome to Fifth Grade at St. Paul! I am excited to start a new school year with your children. This website will be updated frequently with pictures and posts of the fun things we are learning, important dates, and class info. Be sure to set up the Remind app to receive alerts to new posts.
|