Christmas Giving Project: We raised around $250! A name was drawn and it was Seth Hartz. He chose to donate the Make-a-Wish foundation.

DECEMBER 17- DECEMBER 21

Many pictures below!

I hope you know that I sincerely enjoy being with this class each day! Thank you for the gifts, kind words, notes, and emails. I hope all the thank you cards got home to you!

Christmas Giving Project: We raised around $250! A name was drawn and it was Seth Hartz. He chose to donate the Make-a-Wish foundation.

LOG CABINS- These were creative and a lot of effort was put into them. Kids and teachers from other classes enjoy viewing these in the library and hallway. The kids are really proud of their work as they should be.

 

ElOQUENCE DAY: What fun! We went to the Cafe' de Eloquence' at Haven Church where parents did an incredible job of decorating, cooking, and serving. We so appreciate it! I hope to get the picture that was taken of them to post here. The kids did practice their manners and I thought they did quite well. The pictures are below- if I receive others I will add them!

We missed Brendan and Chenin

Our menu

Being "Uneloquent"! Being silly sometimes is what holds you together as a team!

The guys- dapper!

The girls- lovely!


The Log Cabins- amazing!

 

 Math:   We took the test today- some didn't finish and I also couldn't get all of them graded. We will review and wrap up after Christmas break.
  PLEASE HAVE YOUR CHILD PRACTICE MATH FACTS!

Reading:  Sign of the Beaver is completed and we all enjoyed it. We will watch the movie when we return to school and compare it to the book. They are quite different! Then we will work again with non-fiction texts and then Guided Reading Groups. We have practiced many strategies together as a class and often the kids like us to read aloud together so we can practice during discussions- posing questions, discussing as a group and then responding. We talk vocabulary a lot!

 

Writing: We learned about comma usage and practiced using them. Then we read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves which shows students how commas and apostrophes can completely change meaning. Pairs of students took a sentence, wrote it two ways, and illustrated it. Some chose to draw and some used the Kerpoof! site.


We are moving a little slowly on getting things transferred to their websites. They had another lesson on Thursday in infotech. Hopefully when we return the science and writing items will be on within a week. I have a new strategy called; remember to remind the kids and myself that when they have spare time they could work on this instead of waiting until infotech now that they can do it on their own!

Merry Christmas to all of you!!

12-12-12 We celebrated 12-12-12 by having each of us bring 12 items in a bag. We wrote clues for them to see if the class could guess what we brought. We had a lot of fun with that! Since we have been giving our persuasive election speeches for the best fruit/vegetable, I brought in a variety of 12 fruits.

DECEMBER 10 - DECEMBER 14

12-12-12 We celebrated 12-12-12 by having each of us bring 12 items in a bag. We wrote clues for them to see if the class could guess what we brought. We had a lot of fun with that! Since we have been giving our persuasive election speeches for the best fruit/vegetable, I brought in a variety of 12 fruits.

Even picky eaters had fun with this!

 We tried star fruit, mango, a red pummelo, cactus fruit, mini bananas (just cuz they're so cute!) and persimmon which left the weirdest dry feeling in our mouths! We also broke open a coconut brought in by Nathan Haverdink for his speech and tried the coconut milk. Austin Rudolph brought in fresh fennel. Most agreed it was really good! Who knew? Here's a picture of the fruit we ate.

LOG CABINS- (OPTIONAL)......  Due Tuesday December 18th

Eloquence Day:.....................  Friday, December 21st from 11-1. 

    Our location is always a SECRET! Students are expected to dress up- girls skirts or dresses if possible. Boys wear khakis/slacks and a nice shirt. We prefer no jeans, but I would NOT expect anyone to purchase something new for this. Wear the nicest ones you have if you don't own dress pants.  This should be fun, not stressful!

Reading at home:   There will be no project for December, but I expect students to read. They will be able to give me a short summary, written or verbal, and receive a certificate to Pizza Hut.

HOMEWORK: 1) Division page with 2-digit divisor for practice and review.
                                  2) Read, read, read
                                  3) Log cabin if you are making one.

 Math:   We have been working with 2-digit divisors and practicing strategies such as estimating, rounding, and using compatible numbers in order to work with these larger numbers. We are reviewing decimal concepts and practicing upcoming concepts as well.

  
  PLEASE HAVE YOUR CHILD PRACTICE MATH FACTS!

 RTI:   As you know, this time is spent reteaching concepts that students should enter 5th grade with. We have begun focusing our attention on fractions; comparing fractions, converting improper fractions to mixed numbers, adding and subtracting fraction and mixed numbers with like denominators. I will expect them to not only be able to work the algorithm, but be able to draw and explain it as well.

Reading:  Sign of the Beaver is our new genre unit and the class is thoroughly enjoying this book. It ties in well with our social studies unit.  The class chose to read it as a class- they like to stop and discuss along the way and ask questions! Students are also doing some written comprehension work. 

 

 

Writing: 

This week students presented their campaign speeches for their fruit or vegetable. They are working on placing the videos of this on their web pages.I will video these and put them on my fusion page- kids should place them on their websites. (Have you checked out their websites from infotech??)

   I am now requiring the kids to perform a lot more revising and editing on their own. Complete sentences, main idea with details that support only that idea in the paragraph, paragraphing, punctuation... some of the things we talk about frequently. Here are some pictures:

































 

Spelling: 

This week's skill was contractions. I sent the list home for lesson 12 and 13. This skill next week is homophones. 
 

Science:
  We discussed point of reference and measuring distance. We used plastic jumping frogs to test  this out.

 Enjoy your weekend everyone!

DECEMBER 3RD - DECEMBER 7TH

DECEMBER 3RD - DECEMBER 7TH

We ended the week with some Christmas music, candy canes, and an art project. Then we had an impromptu competition with Mrs. Maxson's class to see who could sing Jingle Bells the loudest!

Eloquence Day: Notes went home on Wednesday for Eloquence Day volunteers. Be sure to get that in if you want to help out with this event. This will be on Friday, December 21st from 11-1. Our location is always a SECRET! Students are expected to dress up- girls skirts or dresses if possible. Boys wear khakis/slacks and a nice shirt. We prefer no jeans, but I would NOT expect anyone to purchase something new for this. Wear the nicest ones you have if you don't own dress pants.  This should be fun, not stressful!

Reading at home: There will be no project for December, but I expect students to read. They will be able to give me a short summary, written or verbal, and receive a certificate to Pizza Hut.

HOMEWORK: There are 8 division problems for review.

 Math:   

   We will take our first division test on Tuesday. We have been doing quite a bit of review.  Our next unit is division as well, dividing by 2 digit divisors among other concepts.
  PLEASE HAVE YOUR CHILD PRACTICE MATH FACTS! Flashcards, computer program, just practice. This is a year where more steps are required for many concepts and knowing the facts is going to save your child some frustration and time.
  RTI: As you know, this time is spent reteaching concepts that students should enter 5th grade with. We have begun focusing our attention on fractions; comparing fractions, converting improper fractions to mixed numbers, adding and subtracting fraction and mixed numbers with like denominators. I will expect them to not only be able to work the algorithm, but be able to draw and explain it as well.

Reading:  Sign of the Beaver is our new genre unit and the class is thoroughly enjoying this book. It ties in well with our social studies unit.  The class chose to read it as a class- they like to stop and discuss along the way and ask questions! Students are also doing some written comprehension work. 

 
We keep reading about cornmeal, corn cakes, corn mush, corn pudding- so I brought in cornbread and molasses so the kids could try it. Corn bread- most liked it. Plain molasses- not so much!

 

Log Cabins: They are OPTIONAL: These are due December 18th. I sent home the information and we have all discussed it. FYI: I talked with the kids about the fact that this is OPTIONAL. We talked about being respectful of your time- students should be planning now, making a list of materials, going over this with you and beginning soon. We talked about how this should not be a last minute thing that gets thrown at you. It is Ok to work on this project with your child. 

Writing: 

Monday students will begin presenting their campaign speeches for their fruit or vegetable. They are making campaign posters as well. I will video these and put them on my fusion page- kids should place them on their websites. (Have you checked out their websites from infotech??)

   I am now requiring the kids to perform a lot more revising and editing on their own. Complete sentences, main idea with details that support only that idea in the paragraph, paragraphing, punctuation... some of the things we talk about frequently.

Spelling: 

This week's skill was apostrophes. We use them to show possession and in contractions. Possession rules can be tricky. I am giving the skills test next week as they needed more practice. We will revisit this frequently.
   I will send lesson 12 and 13 spelling lists home on Monday

Science:
  This week students have been working in groups to make a marble take the longest amount of time to go from one end of the table to the other. They are designing and testing various set-ups. Each group read their driving question and then taped their trials. In infotech, they began making these into an iMovie to place on their sites. Monday we will wrap up by discussing more about the forces involved, what went well, and what didn't.

This is a long unit with A LOT of vocabulary. Science vocabulary can be more difficult for kids because these are not words they regularly use or encounter. Students can study the vocabulary online in Study Stacks. I have shown them this and how to use it. It is on their science Edmodo account. I will continue to add more vocabulary as it comes up.

 Enjoy your weekend everyone!