update 4-9

We are working hard in class on Arbor Day projects this week.  Each child will be writing a story and making a poster relating to this.  All Arbor Day projects are due by this Friday, April 13.    Please check in with your child about his/her coloring supplies as some students do not have any.

Our last ELA AIR test is tomorrow!  The kids did a great job on Friday reading carefully and writing.  Today, all classes had the opportunity to work with third graders in Ms. Sauto and Mrs. Leone's classes to teach and coach them about reading or writing.   Everyone did a great job and the third graders loved having us there with them.  Enjoy the pictures below!

update 3-19

Today marks the first day of the fourth quarter!  We reviewed fiction last week by drawing plotlines and looking at all parts of it-characters, setting, theme, and plot.  See the sample below.

We also reviewed arguments along with reasons and evidence.  In class, we did a flash debate about whether cell phones should be allowed in schools.  It was challenging for some because they were assigned a side to argue after reading two different perspectives!

We ended our week looking at Reading Counts reports from the third quarter.  They showed how many books each child read and successfully passed quizzes for.  Then, the kids had to choose one of those books to create a book talk for.  Ask your child to show you his or hers.  Clink the link below to see some.

Stoyle Sample
Skeels Sample
Will Sample

This week before Spring Break, we are doing some AIR practice sessions.  The first AIR test for your children will involve them reading, answering questions, followed by writing an essay in 90 minutes time.  The second Language Arts AIR test is reading multiple passages and answering questions in a 90 minute time frame.   So, this week we will partially simulating that and reflecting on our success.  Today, the essay was typed about ways to tell time and tomorrow we will analyze the writing using different colors to make sure everything is included.  Wednesday will be another simulation of this.

The AIR tests for Language Arts in 5th grade are Friday, April 6 and Tuesday, April 10.  Since we will be working on this a lot this week, each class gets to design their Language Arts class on Friday.  That should be fun!!

update 3-9

Planets have been our focus in class this week.  Each child had to choose two planets to compare and contrast.  We focused on the differences and each child wrote a Planet Report discussing the differences.  Ask your child to show you the report!  We have worked very hard on revising these and adding citations to support our ideas.  Today, we are making pop-ups to show the composition differences in the planets.

Reading has been taking place every day in class and should be at home as well!  The kids wrote convincing arguments about having less homework so I have only had them read for homework the last two weeks.  I told them that they should be reading more if there is less homework.  :)

Reading Counts points and goals are due by March 16.  Almost all of the kids have reached their goals, they have really developed into avid readers this year!  One day we practiced giving book talks to encourage others to read our books- see some pictures below.

We also practiced adding specific evidence to responses through use of Padlet-a cool way to electronically make and share what look like post-it notes.  This was to work on supporting our thinking with evidence.



The vocabulary challenge recently was to choose an important word from their choice book and illustrate it by hiding the word in the picture, see some creative responses below!



Next week is the last week of the quarter!

update 2-23

February is coming to a close soon and we are working hard as readers and writers!  In reading this week, we focused on reading our choice books and summarizing, plus responding to a quote from the book.

I read about the idea of creating electronic journals through Google slideshow recently so are trying it!  Yesterday was the first day and all went well.  Kids had a chance to personalize the first slide (their cover).  Sometimes writing in these journals will be prompt based and other times, free choice.  Ask your child to show you theirs!

Our writing battle was this past Tuesday.  After hearing a lot of good writing, two winners from each class came out on top.  We reflected on what we learned from these battles and those included:  hearing strong writing, getting good examples of reasons and evidence, and opening our minds to think differently about something.  The writing topics were about the best of something like books, pets, sports, etc.

We also practiced annotating this week.  Some kids had the challenge of writing on index cards three events from the article (beginning, middle, and end) while others had to create an organizer all on their own.  See those below.

update 2-15

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone for yesterday!  Each class decided to give back and make cards and placemats that will be delivered to some nursing homes to brighten their days!  The kids did a fabulous job yesterday making these.  They also passed out Valentines and enjoyed opening them.  The boxes that were made in Dr. Stoyle's math class were amazing!!!

*Check out our new bulletin board that we made to show the latest book we loved!

In reading and writing, we have  been working on looking for reasons and evidence.  We also have been doing our argument writing where we choose a topic and have to defend it, convincing someone to believe us.  The difference between opinion writing and argument writing is that for arguments, research is needed to support your ideas.  This week, some kids wrote about whether homework is worthwhile, if kids should be watching television, if toys and games should be brought to school, or the importance of exercise.  We learned how to write citations- stating the articles name and writing a specific quote or statistic from the article to support our thinking.

To open our unit, we had our first writing battle!  The writing battle was about what kids thought was the best invention.  They had defend it and go against others in the classroom.  Next writing battle is Tuesday over something they feel is the best.  It should be pretty fun!  See below the winners from the first battle.

This week, we also read about space as we reviewed our nonfiction reading skills focusing on main idea, details, and vocabulary.  The kids put together slide shows showcasing what they learned.  They can be viewed using this link.  Some groups are finished while others are still working on them.

All About Space

 

To review fiction, we practiced using an index card to create a quick story map.  The kids reported back that this strategy was successful in helping them understand the story!