You could not have told me a year ago that I would have kids so excited to start a new project. We were in between projects for about two weeks and everyday I had a few students ask what our next project was going to be and when we were starting. As I was walking around yesterday I noticed one of our very shy students sitting with his new group and talking excitedly about the new project. This is one of the wonderful things about PBL! It is so exciting to see the kids growing in how the communicate with each other. We did not let the students pick their groups this time and we tried to mix them up quite a bit. Not all groups are perfect but they are learning to accept others even if they are not their "friends". These are great skills and we really feel that our discipline problems have been much less this year due to the fact that these students are working together and really getting to know lots of different people on our team. Fifth graders tend to group themselves with their "friends" and don't venture out much. This year we really see them caring for each other not just their friends. This is a great group of students and it has really made this new adventure easier to start!!
Hopefully, you are aware of what our new project is all about. Our "Driving Question" is How can one person or group of people change history? We are learning about the Civil Rights Movement and hoping that the students will be able to see how we all can make a difference. The students have a Tic Tac Toe to help their group in this project. The students are excited about this and we have heard some wonderful conversations already and we have only just begun. We hope that the students will share with you what they are learning. We are covering a lot of language arts standards in this project and we are hoping to make the kids more aware of the history of our country.
In math, we have begun to study geometry. This will be the main focus this quarter in math. We will also continue to work on the standards we have covered so far this year to get the students ready for the ISTEP. Please encourage your students to practice at home their facts if this is a struggle. Also, IXL math has great practice and they are all registered for this. All students are also registered for SumDog and we are now participating in a contest so any encouragement you can give at home is helpful.
In language arts and social studies we have been working on things we will need for our project. Studying civil rights and how to write dialogue have been a focus this week. The students also took Aims Web tests this week in the areas of reading comprehension, fluency and math.
We hope that you have a wonderful weekend and that the students are ready for the next two busy weeks of working on their new projects.
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