update 12-19

Our book talks finished today!  Those were a great success and have given us many new books to want to read.

As a final wrap of our quarter, all students reflected on their writing and three writing pieces are on their way home today for you check out.  They all had to write what they are proud of as writers and what they need to continue to work on.  Enjoy these!

We all created biography slideshows in class.  Check out the Google Site for each class to view your child's project.

Mrs. Skeels
Mrs. Will
Dr. Stoyle

New Reading Counts goals have been set for 3rd quarter as well and are in each child's planner.  Happy Holidays and enjoy winter break with your families and friends!

12-14

Our unit with Social Studies has ended on Ancient Civilizations.  The kids made colorful brochures showcasing two of the characteristics of each civilization along with what they learned about them.  Also included is a map and timeline.

This week, we moved into biographies as we continue to read informational text.  Main idea, cause and effect, and close reading the text were all worked on.  To showcase our learning, the kids are working on digital biography projects that are due next week.  I made a template on Google Slides and then each kid has the task of making it their own.  Wow, are they amazing so far!  Ask your child to show it to you on Google Classroom.  

In writing, we are continuing to work on writing to a prompt.  Today, the kids had to write about how each biography person was successful, focusing in on traits and accomplishments.  Each child made a graphic organizer before writing.  Below is a list of the traits we came up with.  Tomorrow, we are going to color code our responses to help analyze what we need to revise.  

 

The Reading Counts program was not working for over a week, but has finally been fixed.   Each child's progress for Reading Counts this quarter will be reviewed with me tomorrow.  Reading Counts goals are due by 12/20.

update 12-6

We have moved into informational text.  Last week, we learned all about animals helping humans while reading and writing in class.  This week, we are doing a collaborative unit with Social Studies and Mrs. Will about ancient civilizations.  We learned all about the ancient Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas. To show our learning, we showcased it in several ways.  Two ways were visuals and one was through an e-book. (To see all e-books, ask your child to show you on Google Classroom.)  See the samples below.  

Ebook Sample from Mrs. Will's Class

Ebook Sample from Mrs. Skeels' Class

Ebook Sample from Dr. Stoyle's Class

In writing, we are working on writing using evidence and adding direct quotations from the text to add prove to our thinking.  We color-coded them to see where we needed to add more information and then wrote out our changes.    See the sample below:

update 11-21

Happy Thanksgiving Break!

The fifth graders took part of the Kindness Project sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education.  See details below.  I am mailing those letters out tomorrow.  See some pictures below.

Also, we disguised turkeys!  This was a blast!  See the pictures below:

 Book Talks will start after Thanksgiving Break- see the schedule for when your child signed up to have a turn.  The kids will need to choose a fictional book that they read in 2nd quarter to share with the class to get us excited about it!  Book talks should be 1-2 minutes long and all kids received a paper about it today.  Use this link to see it yourself.

I reviewed each child's progress with Reading Counts yesterday so be proud!  Everyone has read many books!  A paper was sent with them so ask about it.

update 11-15

Book Fair is this week...the kids enjoyed previewing and being able to purchase books.  Thanks to the PTO for running and organizing this!

In Reading, we continue to work on story structure and comparing two stories in the same genre.  The genres we have studied are science fiction, realistic fiction, folktales, and fairy tales.  Ask your child about the different stories we have read.  Picture books have been used a lot in class and the kids seem to enjoy listening and reading these.  Some books we have read are shown below.

                                

A summative is this Friday to finish up our fiction unit.  It will consist of two stories with questions and an essay for kids to type in class.  This week in class, we have also been talking how our characters have changed in our self-selected books.  Please make sure your child is reading at least 20 minutes a night to help with this good habit.

Last Friday, in reading, we worked on writing quality responses.  The kids had to "grade" the responses and put them in order from best to the one that needed the most work.  Then, they had to rewrite the one that needed work to improve it.  A sample is below.

In writing, we are finishing up working on personal narratives next week.  Zooming in on a small moment was discussed and kids have written three drafts: one about a special person, special place, and a turning point.  This week we worked on revising these pieces and writing good introductions for them.  

For Veteran's Day, the kids wrote letters that Mrs. Will then distributed.  Kids who knew relatives were encouraged to deliver them to those special people in their lives.  A sample letter is below.  These kids are amazing and doing great things!!