Highlights from the Previous Week:

We celebrated the completion of our Informational Writing Unit on Friday. Students presented their work to the class and answered questions about their topic. I will post pictures of these AMAZING project on the Student Work page. You can also find them hung outside of our classroom. They are not to be missed!

Math was exciting this week. Students tackled one of the most challenging math concepts of the year --multiplying mixed numbers. We learned how to multiply these whole number plus fraction combinations using a grid, using partial products, and turning them into improper fractions. As a finale, we discovered that all three methods can be modeled together in an impressive connection of operations and diagrams. Students confessed their minds were joyously "blown away". 

In Reading, we wrapped up our unit on Memoir and students ran their own book groups for a day. The insight and critical thinking students display during our reading discussions is thrilling to witness. 

Students took two PARCC tests in Reading this week. They did their best to channel the three qualities needed for successful standardized test-taking: Focus, Rigor, and Endurance. I was proud. Our literacy specialist discovered that, unfortunately, the texts that test creators selected for students to read and analyze were far above grade level. Although students were faced with overly challenging texts to analyze, they did it with excellent effort and focus. We'll send that feedback to the PARCC creators.

Monday we had CAP (Chid Assault Prevention) and student learned strategies for staying safe, strong, and free. They saw how to handle pushy strangers, deal with peer pressure, and escape uncomfortable situations with relatives or family friends.

Students decorated their yearbook pages on Thursday. They came up with some very clever, creative ways to share about themselves through pictures, quotes, and drawings. 

Ms. Faucon, our student teacher, has been introducing us to some very fun Morning Meeting greetings and activities. We've greeted each other in serious voices, high-pitched voices, as robots, and in yodels. I can't wait to see what she'll come up with next! It's a great way to wake students up and start our day off playfully.

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
Monday:  All School Meeting.

Wednesday:  PARCC Math #1  at 11:45am.
Thursday:  PARCC Math #2  at 9:00am.

Friday:  no school.


Reading: 

• This week we launch our reading unit on Survival and Resilience. Students will learn to identify "survival" as a theme in a text. They will see how characters and real people have overcome obstacles in their lives and consider how these lessons apply to our own lives. We begin this unit with some whole-class read aloud stories.

Writing:

• This week we launch our writing unit on Memoir to complement our recent reading unit. Students will revisit the qualities of memoirs that they learned about through our reading unit and learn how to choose experiences from their own lives to shape as a memoir. Students will also learn how to interpret their experiences from a reflective and meaning-making perspective.  

Math: 

• We wrap up our unit on Fraction Multiplication this week. We'll review the methods for multiplying fractions and mixed numbers, as well as the various models that demonstrate the concept. We'll have an assessment mid-week.
• We also have math PARCC testing on Wednesday and Thursday.

Social Studies:

• Our new American History unit is on a favorite topic of mine, The American Revolution. Students will read, watch videos, create skits, and write journal entries to study this epic event. Student will learn about five major causes of the revolution: The French & Indian War, The Stamp Act, The Boston Massacre, The Boston Tea Party, and The Intolerable Acts.

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.

Highlights from the Previous Week:

The 5th Grade Student vs. Teacher Basketball game fundraiser was a blast! Students were not intimidated by my victory crown nor my "Winner" medal, and played their hardest. Although students were close to winning, Mr. Solof, kindergarten teacher, made a brilliant shot that tied the game. I hear the 5th grade committee raised over $2,000 for the 5th grade end-of-year activities. Wow!

We took our first PARCC test this week. It was on reading and lasted about an hour and a half, including reading directions. Students reported that it wasn't too bad. Many finished within 45 minutes. Some students didn't realize they had to write an extensive essay at the end of it and instead only wrote a short response. The box in which they were told to type was small but with a scroll bar, so the size was deceiving. This is why we are simply "testing the test" this year.

I am so impressed with the effort and creativity students are putting into their informational writing projects. Students are incorporating timelines, text boxes, comics, quizzes, maps, and much more to enhance their research-based historical writing.

We wrapped up our fun math unit called "Parks and Playgrounds," which had students explore fraction multiplication in real life situations. Students have learned to model fraction multiplication in a variety of ways, such as with number lines and arrays. 


Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
Another busy week!

Child Assault Prevention (CAP) takes place for our class on Monday, from 9:00-10:30am.

We have two more English Language PARCC tests this week. The first is Wednesday at 9:00am. The second is Thursday at 11:45am. They are each over an hour long.

Parent Teacher Conferences continue this week.
Link to the Conference Schedule.


Reading: 

• We are reading samples of memoirs in our guided reading book groups. Students will be learning strategies to help them grow at their level as readers.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We wrap up Phase 2 of our informational writing unit, which focuses on historical research writing. Students just need some uninterrupted time to work on their projects. We will celebrate the end of this unit on Friday.
  
• Next, we begin our study of the American Revolution.

Math: 

• We continue fraction multiplication. This week we will explore how to model fractions of whole numbers using number lines and drawings. We will also learn to model mixed number multiplication in different ways. We'll explore some real life mixed number multiplication situations involving area and scaling. If we have time, we'll begin investigating fraction division.

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.

Highlights from the Previous Week:

Students began presenting their Create Your Own Homework Projects. With the presentations, the class has been learning so much about many intriguing topics. 

• Julia taught us about alpine skiing.
  
• Talia and Kaela performed a skit about how the John and Paul met to form The Beatles.
• Olivia Y. taught us how chocolate is made.
• Sam explained how the human body heals its wounds.
  
• Layla introduced us to the beautiful anime movie "My Neighbor Totoro" by Hayao Miyazaki.
  
• Forrest took us through the history of American football.
  
• Marc explained what a Skinner Box was and how pigeons could be trained to play ping pong with each other.
  
• Sofia told us how chocolate chip cookies were created.
• Nathan performed a powerful scene from Macbeth and explained who Shakespeare was.
• Olivia D. performed some pretty spectacular magic tricks.

And we still have more to share!

Students explored a variety of informational writing structures that they could use to present their own research. Students browsed through historical books and magazines to get ideas and inspiration. We looked at everything from clever presentations of timelines to historical comic strips.

Math has been fun this week. Students tackled some complex problems involving fraction multiplication. I challenged them further to use models and number lines to explain their thinking clearly and creatively. We shared our strategies in "math congresses" where students presented their work to the class.


Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
There is a lot going on this week! 

All School Meeting on Monday, March 16th.

Our first 5th grade English Language PARCC test is on Tuesday from 9:00-10:30am. Remember, we are just "testing the test." Students should not feel any pressure to score well on the PARCC test. 

Parent Teacher Conferences continue this week.
Link to the Conference Schedule.

5th Grade Understanding Our Differences is on Thursday from 1:00-2:50pm. We will be learning about Intellectual Disabilities. Parent volunteers are still needed!

5th Grade Student Vs. Teacher Basketball Game is on Friday starting at 3:30pm. Students will need to be dismissed to a parent or guardian, who will then walk with them to Bigelow.


Reading: 

• We are reading samples of memoirs in our guided reading book groups. Students will be learning strategies to help them grow as readers.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We continue with Phase 2 of our informational writing unit, which focuses on historical research writing. This week, we will use text features to enhance our writing. We will also learn how to create cohesion and add  multiple points of view into our writing.
  

Math: 

• This week, we wrap up our fun unit on multiplying and dividing fractions called, "Parks and Playgrounds." Throughout this unit, students worked on multiplying fractions by whole numbers, breaking fractions into friendlier parts, understanding the relationship between multiplication and division, investigating ratios, and using models and drawings to show thinking clearly.
• We dive back into Everyday Math and explore an array model for multiplying fractions.

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.

Highlights from the Previous Week:

• Students did a fantastic job analyzing primary and secondary sources about their research topic. I gave them a packet of pictures and quotes to review. They looked for facts and figures, as well as perspectives and patterns. Then students shared their findings in a number of insightful discussions. Bravo!
• We launched our investigative math unit called, "Parks and Playgrounds." Students solve real world problems involving fraction multiplication and division using a variety of strategies. We share those strategies in a Math Congress. It's amazing to see the creative ways students model their thinking.
• Our MCs for All School Meeting, Nathan and Julia, did a fantastic job leading the assembly. They were loud, clear, and confident --great role models for the entire school. Great job! 

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
Early Dismissal on Thursday, March 12th: Parent teacher conferences
Link to the Conference Schedule.


Reading: 

• We begin guided reading book groups on Memoir this week.

Writing and Social Studies:

• We continue with Phase 2 of our informational writing unit, which focuses on historical research writing. This week, we will draft our historical writing. We will then examine structures of published informational writing for inspiration. We will analyze multiple perspectives to the same event and try to incorporate different perspectives into our own writing.
  

Math: 

• We continue our fun unit on multiplying and dividing fractions called, "Parks and Playgrounds." This unit presents real life situations to students and encourages them to try a variety of strategies to solve complex problems.  Students work on multiplying fractions by whole numbers, breaking fractions into friendlier parts, understanding the relationship between multiplication and division, investigating ratios, and using models and drawings to show thinking clearly.

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.

Highlights from the Previous Week:

• We had our first full week of school in over a month!
• The Winter Concert led by Mr. O'Neil was amazing! Students sounded phenomenal. What talent and hard work!
• The launch of our next informational writing phase was exciting. Students began researching in teams on a new topic related to Colonial America. They thoroughly enjoyed the new format --watching movies!
• Students continued to be reflective, insightful thinkers as we read a variety of memoirs and analyzed their qualities. Students were especially moved by "Betty Doll" by Patricia Polacco.
• We wrapped up unit 7 in math which included a wide variety of topics, from exponents to negative numbers. 
• We began our focused study of "mindset" by watching a short video designed to promote a passion for learning. This is a school-wide movement to change the way we view success and failure. Growth = success!

Here is the general plan for this week:

Special:
PARCC Practice: This week we will practice taking the new standardized test that replaced the MCAS.

Reading: 

• We continue our unit on reading Memoirs. Students will examine why authors write memoirs, what feelings, insights, or experiences are they expressing, and how authors' unique perspectives influence the telling of the memoir.
• We hope to start guided reading book groups on Memoir by the end of the week.

Writing and Social Studies:

• This week we continue with Phase 2 of our informational writing unit, which focuses on historical research writing. We will study how to make our informational writing compelling. We will learn how to examine primary sources for a research topic in small groups. We will also learn to guide our research through questioning. Lastly, we will study ways to structure our draft.
  

Math: 

• We begin a fun unit on multiplying and dividing fractions this week called, "Parks and Playgrounds." This unit presents real life situations to students and encourages them to try a variety of strategies to solve complex problems.  Students work on multiplying fractions by whole numbers, breaking fractions into friendlier parts, understanding the relationship between multiplication and division, investigating ratios, and using models and drawings to show thinking clearly.

Science:

• We finish our exploration of weather, the water cycle, and energy transfer by analyzing ice dams and snow melt.
  

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.