New Project Kick Off Week!

    What a fun kick off we had on Monday for our newest project.  Our "Driving Questions" for this project is, "How would knowledge of sun and moon positions help you to survive in a new environment?"  The students did a wonderful job of coming up with our "Needs to Know" after our entry event.  We were so excited to see them come up with the skills that we were hoping they would realize they need.  This should be a fun project for all of us. 

     With our needs to know the students realized that we needed to read the book the City of Ember to find out more about this situation and where the people are coming from.  We have spent the past four days working in groups reading and learning more about the people of Ember as well as working on finding similes and metaphors in the book.
     We also, realized that we needed to learn some things about the sun, moon and shadows to complete our projects.  So, in science this week we started to work on these topics and will continue to explore these for the next few weeks.
     In math, we have been working on long division this week.  Some students are really struggling with this skill and it is not because they don't know the steps to long division.  Some students are struggling because they do not know their multiplication facts.  We have many programs that the students have been signed up for online to help them with this but old fashioned flash cards work great as well.  Ask your child some facts at the dinner table or at breakfast.  Quiz them on the way to school or to practice.  We are going to be skip counting around the school as well to help with this.  Anything you at home can do to help with this would be GREAT.
     We have three weeks left in the grading period so students need to remember that their Riverside Reads needs to be completed by the end of each grading period.  Also, students need to remember each week they need to do two Achieve 3000 articles.
     We will be sending home midterms on Monday.  Please look for these in the red folders.

Photos from our Entry Event!

    

Week of September 16-20

    Another full week is under our belts!  (Ask your kids if that is a simile or a metaphor!)  We have all been working hard, facilitators and learners (teachers and students).  The students gave their first presentations to their homerooms this week.  This is a big learning process for a lot of the students.  They all did things well and they all have things to work on.  We have been discussing these things together and the kids know that, "as good as we are we can always get better!"  We are very proud of them and the way they presented to their peers.  We will be asking for people to come in and watch future presentations and we hope a lot of you will be able to attend.  Students will present this year in a variety of ways and we know they will learn from each new experience.  Parents you are always welcome to come and check out what is going on in our classrooms.  Just shoot the homeroom teacher an email and we can tell you what time things are happening each day!
     We will be kicking off our next project on Monday.  We are all excited for this next project as this is totally new for all of us.  We hope your children are coming home excited about what we are doing here at school.
     Students have been finishing up this quarter's social studies content this past week and we will be starting on science this week.  We hope you hear a lot about the sun, moon and shadows in the next few weeks.  In language arts, we have been working a lot with simile's and metaphor's.  We also read an interesting article about Niagara Fall.  In math we have been working on multiplying whole numbers and the students learned a different way to multiply called the Lattice method.  They do not have to use this method but it is an option.  (It is how they multiply in China!)  In advanced math we have finally started into the 6th grade content and are working on multiplying and dividing decimals.
     Achieve 3000 and Riverside Reads are something students can always be working on!  Two Achieve articles each week at 75% or higher first try and four books on the Riverside Reads for each quarter.  Thanks for encouraging your children in both of these areas!
     We hope you have a great week!  Please let us know if we can help with anything!

Our Student Council Representatives for this year!

September 9-13

     Well, we made it through the first full week in awhile!  We have lots of things happening here in the fifth grade!  The students projects are in full swing with first round presentations happening this coming Thursday.  We are excited to see how all of these wonderful ideas are going to be presented.  We have had a few bumps in the road which is to be expected when working with groups.  The learners all seem to be working out their issues and in a few cases we have stepped in to help resolve them.  This is a new way to learn for some students and we all have to work together to make is a positive experience so if you hear of any issues at home please shoot us an email and we will try and resolve them. 
     We went to visit the sixth grade Innovation Academy on Friday and got to do a walk through and look at some of their first projects.  This gave the students some different ideas of how they might want to present their future projects.   This was a great opportunity to learn from other students. 
     Achieve 3000 is a program that the students work on weekly.  This is a reading program that is on the computer and it focuses on non-fiction reading.  The students read articles and then answer questions about the article.  We have a contest each week between the other fifth grade teams and between our four classes as well.  These articles are given at each students reading level as determined by a pretest they took a few weeks ago.  Each article is written at many different levels so each student can be successful.  The expectation for all full weeks is that the students complete at least two articles at an average of 75% or higher.  The students are expected to go through the five steps for each article and that includes a writing step at the end called a Thought Question.  These are also leveled depending on their reading level.  Students completing the requirement each week receive a ticket to put in a box in the office and each quarter we have a drawing for a Kindle (one for each grade!)  Ask your child about what they have read on Achieve 3000 there are a lot of very interesting articles. 
    We hope you have a great week! 

A Long-Short Week

     Wow, this was a short week but a busy one!   The kids were in a bit of a Blueberry overload on Tuesday!  They were a little tired and so were we! 
     This week we had two more speakers come in to talk to us about their role in the Blueberry Festival.  Mrs. Linda Atkins came in on Tuesday to talk to us about what it is like to live right next to the park during the festival.  She shared the positives and the negatives for her.  Then on Wednesday, Officer Mark Owen came in and shared what the Plymouth Police have to do for the festival.  He gave us lots of good information on what it takes to make the festival a success. 
     After our speakers, students had to write a letter detailing their opinion of whether or not the Blueberry Festival should stay or if something else should take its place.  These letters are now being used to make new groups for next week.  Students will work together to come up with something to either help make the festival better or something that can replace it.  We are excited to see what the students come up with. 
     We have been working on decimals in math class, comparing and rounding them has been our first task.  This week we will work on adding and subtracting them.  We are finally up and running with technology and students will have some of their assignments loaded onto Echo. 
      In Social Studies and Language Arts, we have been working on regions, latitude and longitude and the compass rose.  We have been working on reading non fiction articles that tie into these topics as well.  We have been working on reading strategies and have begun to work on Achieve 3000.  Students will have to have 2 Achieve Articles done this week with a 75% average.  We appreciate any encouragement you can give at home. 
       Students seem to be doing very well on their Riverside Reads sheet.  Students have to read four books and complete an activity for each book each nine weeks.  Please ask your child about this. 
      Mrs. Dennie has had a student teacher with her and she has started teaching some lessons in math this past week.  She is actually in a program called Co-Teaching where Mrs. Dennie is with her and does not ever release the class totally to her.  This is a new program at IUSB and we are happy to have Miss Marijke Kunnen here with us,  She is here for another four weeks before heading to another placement. 
     We hope you have had a great weekend and are ready for a full week!  As always, please let us know if there is anything we can do to help! 

 Miss Kunnen teaching a math lesson

 Mrs. Linda Atkins sharing with the students

 Officer Mark Owen talking to the class