Plans Week of June 9, 2014

Highlights from Last Week: The Egg Drop Challenge was a ton of fun! Students watched as Mr. Allen threw their egg protection devices off the top of the school. We discussed the design successes and flaws afterward. During math, students took part in the Volume Challenge, a workshop I created where students measure the volume of a variety of rectangular prisms, like a crayon box or an aluminum foil box, using centimeter cubes. It was a great way to make math hands on.

Event: Monday is the Junior Olympics at Hormel Stadium. Parents are encouraged to attend. Students will demonstrate their athletic prowess among 5th graders from all the Medford Public Schools. We'll be returning to school for lunch at 12:30pm.

Reading: We'll be spending a lot of time in our Book Groups this week. Students continue to analyze the stories, discuss changes in characters, make inferences, and make sense of all the story components. We sure have had some lively discussions!

We also finish our project on Animals. Students will present their posters to the class and we'll vote for our favorite. Some groups even have a skit to present to the class.

Writing: We'll be publishing our personal narratives this week. Students focused on writing with lots of detail and figurative language. Students will also work more on their animal poems that they wrote for the Animal project.

Math: We finish up with volume concepts and have a review of the year in math.

Social Studies: This week we begin our study of the US Government. Students will be learning about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the three branches of government through reading and fun videos. We'll then begin our last in-class project on teaching an audience about the US Government in a fun, engaging way. We'll hopefully be able to present that to parents during the last week of school. Stay tuned!

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