5th Grade Info

Reminders from the Office:

• No School Monday, September 24th for teacher meetings
• Flu Vaccine Consent forms are due by Friday, September 28th

5th Grade Info

Book Projects

This week we discussed expectations for book projects.  Students filled out the book project planning sheet to show me (and you!) that they have ideas for what they need to do to complete their book project by the due date (October 19th). I also showed the class how they can use the class blog to get info about book projects, if needed.

States and Capitals

This week we began identifying the states and capitals of the southwest region.  We will continue with this practice through all the U.S. regions.  We will spend 1-2 weeks per region.  We spend some time on it at school, but your child may need a little more practice at home too.

Call for Batteries!

Next week, many students will be ready to start typing their final copies of their personal narrative.  We have bluetooth keyboards for our Ipads, but we are need of AAA batteries to power them (unfortunately, the keyboards drain batteries rather quickly).  If you are able to send in some AAA batteries, I would really appreciate it!

Check out some pictures of our learning and fun the past two weeks!

Science

In science we learned that air makes up a lot of the weight of plants and trees.  To see if air has mass, we made a balance scale and added blown up balloons to each side.  After deflating one side of balloons, we could see the scale move to show that air has mass.

We also are learning about decomposers in a food chain.  Ask your child about our Mold Terrariums.

Dot Day

On Dot Day we helped our Kindergarten Buddies learn how to make their mark by being creative with an art project and our Ipads.

Character Kid of the Week - Malaya

Missouri Credit Union

Volunteers from the Missouri Credit Union taught us how money flows through an economy.

Taking it easy in the teacher's chair (aka, the cadillac)

They don't fool me!

Have a GREAT three day weekend!

5th Grade Updates

Kindergarten Buddies

Last week, 5th graders met their Kindergarten Buddies.  Our class has partnered with Mrs. Godier's Kindergarten class, so the 5th grade students can serve as mentors to our school's youngest students.  We will meet with our buddies occasionally to help them with projects and activities throughout the year.  It is so neat to see the older kids rise to the occasion and jump right in to be positive role models and helpers to the younger students.  

Character Kids

Last week, I awarded this year's very first Character Kid Award to Asa!  This is an award that I give occasionally to a student who has shown great character at school.  As a class we talked about what it means to have character.  We decided that honesty, kindness, effort, and empathy are all qualities and behaviors that show character.  Congrats to Asa for being an all-around great kid and setting a great example for others.

Classwork

The past two weeks in reading we have been using some different graphic organizers to help us summarize the most important details of a story or text.  Look for some of these to come home in Friday Folders.  

In writing, we have finished brainstorming ideas for our personal narratives, and students have chosen a small moment to write about.  Students are beginning to plan out their stories and make notes about the details they remember from that moment.  Today we looked at some past student examples of narratives and discussed things that these authors did well and some things we think they could improve upon.

In our first math unit, students are learning how to find area and volume (with fractions! eek!) and  write expressions with grouping symbols. This week, we took a mid-unit quiz.  Students have seen their graded quizzes, and we have gone over all the problems and corrected our mistakes.  This quiz isn't recorded for a grade, but instead used as a tool to see what we need to continue to practice before our Unit 1 test next week.

In Science, we are learning about matter in ecosystems.  This week students worked in small groups to create a model to show how energy is passed from the sun to the producers, consumers, and decomposers in a food chain.

Food Chain Models

Have a great weekend!