December 10th

Blog written by the students of Room 14

We have had a busy week in room 14.  We had the Holiday Shop on Wednesday.  We started using Google Classroom in our class to discuss books and post our thinking.

In Readers' Workshop this week, we have been working on making claims about characters and providing evidence to support our claims.  We also read a book called Voices In a Park by Anthony Browne.  There was a little girl (Smudge), a little boy (Charles), the mother and a father.  We were in different groups as different character perspectives. We used the book to analyze character voice and perspectives.


In writer’s workshop we are finishing our Tall Tales. Also we are working on “Voice.” We are starting our writing project. Some of us are drafting our projects.


In math we are working on fractions.  Specifically reducing, adding, equivalent and subtracting fractions.  We also played a game called "Fraction of" and it is about seeing how many times a fraction can going into a whole number.   

In science, we have been working on physical and chemical reactions.  We are doing experiments that create really cool items.  We made chalk and weird fizzing stuff that we think is Sprite.  

In Social Studies, we have been studying the first colonies in the "New World." We have been learning about The New England, Middle, and Southern colonies. This week each of us are assigned to a colony and we need to write pretending to be colonist.

December 3rd

Blog written by the students in Room 14.

Reader's Workshop

In reading we started a new book with Mrs. Athan called Phantom Tollbooth.  We are finishing Fish in a Tree with Mrs. Faley.  We have been working on using our meta-cognition while reading.  We are working on thinking about our thinking.  We have also been working on finding word study parts while reading.

Writer's Workshop

In Writer's Workshop we have been working on publishing our tall tales.  As we finish our tall tales we are starting new writing projects. This can include; fiction, realistic fiction, informational, or horror. 

Math

In math we have been working with fractions.  We have been adding and subtracting fractions.  We have been converting improper fractions into mixed numbers.  We have compared fractions on a number line.  We learned how to estimate fractions by playing a game called Build It.  

Social Studies

In Social Studies this week we have been studying the 13 original colonies.  We have been studying the New England Colonies, Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies.  We learned that the people in the New England Colonies were Puritans looking for religious freedom.  The Middle Colonies came to the new world looking for trade and profit and religious freedom.  They were people from many countries and religions.  The Southern Colonies were filled with people looking for trade a profit.  There were many plantations in the Southern Colonies.

Science

In Science we are learning about mixtures and solutions. There are many solutions.  These include saturated, super saturated, concentrated, and diluted.  If the solution has more dissolved salt or citric acid it is called concentrated.  When a solution has less salt or citric acid dissolved in it.  It is called diluted.

Fine Arts and PE

In Art we have been working on our yearbook covers.  Some 5th graders have started to trace their covers while other 5th graders are sharpening their yearbooks.

In Music we are working on a project with a partner.  The project is to make our own song.  

In Media we have been working on logging into our accounts and logging out properly.  We have also been working on practicing our typing in Typing Master.

Reminders

1. Friday is group picture day at WLE

2. Next Wednesday, December 9th our class will shop at the Holiday Shop

3. Don't forget to read at home every night.

November 19th

*Written by the students in room 14.

We have had a full week this week.  For diversity week, the whole school colored butterflies to show diversity.  We are all different. We all wore orange today to show our unity.  We are all different at WLE but we are also all the same.  On Wednesday, we watched the Kid President Pep Talk.  Click on the link below to see the video.  On Friday, we will work with a first grade class to create a kaleidoscope.   Ask your 5th grader about diversity week.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o


Kaleidoscope Activity with 1st Grade

In Writers' Workshop we have been working on creating Tall Tales.  Tall Tales are stories that are exaggerated but not fantasy.  For example, a baby could do something that an adult can do and as the baby gets older his or her powers increase.  As we finish each paragraph of our Tall Tale we are editing and publishing with illustrations.  Ask your 5th grader about his or her Tall Tale.  


In Readers' Workshop we have been using our meta-cognition. We been thinking about our thinking as we are reading.  We are working on organizing our thinking on sticky notes or in our Readers' Notebooks.  We have also been working on finding our word study word chunks in our reading.  This helps us to understand new vocabulary.  


In Math, we prepared for and took our second benchmark assessment (BA).  This took a long time!  We are going to start unit 3 today.  

In Social Studies, we worked on our BA Review and played a Jeopardy game to prepare for our BA.  We took our first BA in class today.  WE LOVE SOCIAL STUDIES!


In Science, we have been working with mixtures and solutions.  We have done several experiments with mixtures and solutions.


We had our student council election this week. Our class representatives are Joey and Dior.  Congratulations to everyone who participated in the election.  

November 5th

This has been the best week of weather we have had all school year.  Who would have though it would come in November.  Even with this wonderful weather, we have been working hard in the classroom.

In Readers' Workshop we have been working on articulating our theories as we are reading and supplying evidence for our thinking.  We have been working on ways to organize our ideas using our reader's notebooks, sticky notes, and conversations.  We have also been working on prompts for productive classroom discussions.  We are working on listening to what our classmates say and building on each others' thinking.  See the chart below with a list of our conversation prompts.

In Writers' Workshop we have been finishing up our memoirs.  We have also started a genre study on Tall Tales.  We have read several Tall Tales and we are charting the characteristics we notice as we read.  Soon we will be writing our own Tall Tales.

                    

In Science this week, we have been preparing for our first Benchmark Assessment.  We took our first BA today.  

In Social Studies we reviewed Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortes and determined which was the worst conquistador.  Ask your fifth grader which conquistador he or she thought was the worst.  Then we studied French explorers.  This week we studied Giovanni da Verrazanno, Fransisco Pizarro, and Jacques Cartier.  

Math was a challenge this week.  The 5th graders were introduced to traditional division. We have done division in three ways (area model, partial quotients, and traditional).  Please practice division at home!

Boo Bash/Fun Run and Halloween