January 2017

          Welcome to 2017!  It was great to hear about the students' adventures during the holiday break.  It was also nice that everyone came back to school with the same enthusiastic attitudes that I saw in 2016.  I am really enjoying this class for many reasons.  They work well together, they support each other, and they genuinely care about one another.  January has been a busy month, and I would like to share a few of the highlights with you.  

Surviving in the New World is hard!

An interview by Mrs. Newton

          After returning from the holiday break, our colonists continued on their journey, by settling in the New World.  Each day, their fate is decided by cards drawn from the Discovery simulation pack.  Some days are pleasant and I hear cheers of joy from the colonies as their "farmers work hard and harvest lots of corn and potatoes" and their hunters traps worked well and they trapped several critters to increase their food supply.  Unfortunately, other days include tragedies, such as "your fishing boat sinks and all on board die," or "Native Americans attack a group of hunters, killing 3."  On Wednesday, January 18th all of the colonies reported out to the class sharing some of their experiences.

  

 New Blundon Colony preparing for their presentation.

Work Places in Math

          Students enjoy working on their math skills through games.  "Work Places" is a time during math when students practice basic skills that we have learned in earlier math sessions.  

Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication!  

Ava was able to solve this problem more quickly in her head than her partner could do it on the calculator! 

Farren and Maria enjoying a game of Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication! 

Owen and Tara Race to 2 on this fraction racetrack
by adding fractions with unlike denominators.

Madeline and Sean in the middle of an intense game of
Beat the Calculator:  Fractions! 

VICTORY!  Celebrating beating the calculator to win a card!
It is great to see Ava, Casey and all of their classmates
having so much fun in math!

Miranda and Taylor enjoy a good game of Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication.
As you can see, a regular deck of cards works too!
This game could be played at home.

There was a lot of animation and some (mostly friendly) competition between
Ezra and Gary while playing Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication!

Word Study

          With the 2nd Annual OQS Spelling Bee just around the corner we practiced by sorting words from the official spelling bee list.  This word sort was a group project, with students sorting the words in a variety of ways such as alphabetically, by number of syllables, number of vowels, short/long vowel sound in the first syllable, etc... they could be sorted in many different ways.  

Martin Luther King, Jr.

          To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we watched the "I Have a Dream" speech online and I also read the speech to the class.  The book that I read from has illustrations by 15 different illustrators.  Each student got a portion of the speech and the photo that went with it.  Their task was to explain what the photo was showing and how it related to that part of his speech.  Stop by and see our bulletin board sometime.  I've shared a few pieces below.

December 2016

Highlights from Last Week

Our holiday concert on December 15th was great.  Most impressive was the band who played good music!  They are quite a talented group. 

In the classroom, we continue to work on fractions, the painted essay, and colonization.  Our colonists have made it across the ocean and to the New World successfully.  Each colony will land, when we get back to school.  Landing involves strategically picking the best land to settle.   

5th graders rap for their classmates - explaining when to use Least Common Multiple (LCM) and Greatest Common Factor (GCF)

"Colonists" writing in their journals

We had our first auction of the year on Tuesday.  Some of you may have received an extra special Christmas gift out of the deal!  It was fun.  Students earn Rhoades' bucks by being responsible about homework and other things around the classroom.  In 2017 I will add a new way to earn money!  

We celebrated the last day before vacation with a visit from the high school band and chorus carolers, followed by our Heifer Project raffle, holiday crafts, pizza, and a movie.  Some pictures highlighting that day follow.

Fun with Crafts - 5R and 5B

November-December 2016

November flew by and we are now into December! With the holiday break

fast approaching I thought it is time to share some more happenings in 5R! 

Sean has been the 5R photographer of the week, for a couple of weeks now!  Below are some photos that he took.   

 Brayden and Taylor reading and responding to the Article of the Day.  We have a class membership to ReadWorks Digital.  Each week there are a series of articles, topic-themed, that the students read and respond to in their digital Book of Knowledge.  The articles are short.  Reading and responding to them takes about 10-15 minutes.  They are also at various reading levels.  Research shows that the more students read on the same topic, the more general knowledge they will gain and remember.  They are also enhancing their vocabulary.

    Just some clowning around!

 Maria, the golden apple, picking our Go Noodle brain break

 We are reading Blood on the River.  This is the story about the first settlers of Jamestown.  This historical fiction book is skillfully written to include vivid and real details of the Jamestown colony and its members.  It fits very nicely with our colonization unit that we are currently working on.  

Students working in the classroom

      Photos courtesy of Sean!

The Painted  Essay  

Small groups worked together to created an organized essay from sentence strips.  They did a great job figuring out if sentences fit in the RED paragraph (introduction), YELLOW paragraph, BLUE paragraph, or the GREEN paragraph (conclusion). There were also a few paragraphs that needed to be trashed!

  Stay tuned... next week you will find out how our colonists are doing on their trip to the New World!

Happenings in 5R October 27th through November 7th

The students in 5R continue to be enthusiastic about learning new things and that makes my job so pleasant and easy!  I'll share with you a few highlights from the past couple of weeks, although I imagine your children may have already shared some of them with you. 

On October 28th we had our second DENS meeting.  DENS stands for Doesn't Everybody Need Somebody.  These groups of 6-7 children span grades K-5 and meet once a month with a staff member.  It is a social skills activity that reinforces what we are learning in our new Second Step program.  

We completed our Lego Battle on the 28th, as well.  The pictures tell the whole story. This engineering and design project is a popular part of our science curriculum.  

The Students filled out a critique frame at the end of the engineering of catapults unit.  I've included some of the comments below.

Critique Frame

• I loved it when…
• It frustrated me when…
• I used to think _____, but now I realize ______ because I think…
• I wonder…
• I realize…
• I was confused when…
• To make it better I would have…
• I was impressed when you…
• The best thing I learned was...

I loved it when we started making our catapults because I wanted to make my design. ~Taylor

It frustrated me when my design kept falling apart. ~Gary
It frustrated me when we had to build it because I didn't have an idea. ~Miranda

I used to think that if you could shoot farther it was better, but now I realize that accuracy is best. ~Ezra
I wonder if there was a new design that nobody used. ~Sean

I wonder how I could keep the cap on while I was flinging the marshmallows. ~Ava
I realize I have to add more height to the base of my catapult so the marshmallow will be able to go far. ~Maria
I was confused when I couldn't figure out how to connect my pieces. ~Brayden
To make it better I would have secured the cap better. ~Farren
I was impressed when Madeline kept trying and trying. ~Tara
The best thing I learned was if it doesn't work it is okay. All you do is learn from your mistakes. ~Madeline
The best thing I learned was sometimes you are not always right. ~Owen
The best thing I learned was how to actually build a catapult and research to get more ideas. ~Casey

Last week was a short week, so there isn't a lot to report! A few highlights from The Class News:
Monday: I enjoyed Haunted House Tag in gym class. ~Farren
Tuesday: We got to vote in Social Studies. ~Madeline
Tuesday: We made self-portraits in Art. ~Brayden
Tuesday: We got new pencils! ~Ava
Wednesday: We got to finish our math poster. ~Sean

Our current math unit is adding and subtracting fractions. The object of this lesson was for students to solve story problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators and rewrite fractions as equivalent fractions with like denominators.

We started this week off with a school-wide celebration, as the alpha-bit jar was once again full! Our celebration was a crisp, refreshing outdoor recess on Monday morning! A great way to start the week!