Week of April 11, 2016

The Floating House by August

Highlights from Last Week:
Students enjoyed the presentation from Middle School teachers and staff on Monday. Ms. Egan demonstrated what foreign language classes our like through Spanish and French immersion. Students were immediately engaged in practicing French and Spanish greetings. After that, actual middle schoolers shared about the logistics of 6th grade and how it’s not as scary as 5th graders think.
 
For our Global Citizenship project, students met in cross-class groups to share their plans for supporting their chosen charities. In our class, we learned important techniques for writing a business letter to our chosen organizations. Students learned about formal language and maintaining an appreciative and respectful tone throughout their writing (words like “awesome” and “I’m” and “can’t” had to get axed). Many students are prepared to mail their letters early this week!

Our Invention Convention homework project resulted in some pretty creative student work. Students came up with a wide range of inventions, such as DeAngi's leaf incinerator, Trisha's boot pocket, Whitney's meal creation oven, Maggie's jet pack backpack, Ben's chore management app, Elizabeth's home security app, Jansyn's dog poop picker-upper, Julia's shoe cover, Tommy's baseball tosser, Anthony's trash disposer, Liana's child finder bracelet, Caitlin's phone case, Cordy's light-up bracelet, Emily's moving dog bowl, Kate's head massager, and August's floating house.
 
In Math, we learned how to divide fractions. Students were able to model what it looks like and some even saw the connection to the old school way of reciprocating and multiplying. Before the assessment, I have to help a few students model whole numbers divided by fractions. They are still getting their models mixed up!
 
At the end of the day on Friday, we had some social and emotional issues that bubbled up around a small number of students in the 5th grade ruining things for the whole group. We had an Open Circle discussion where students shared about problems they’ve been having at recess and on the bus. Some of the serious issues I passed on to administrations. For some of the less urgent issues, I plan to teach students some strategies for dealing with troublemakers. The number one strategy we discussed was to ignore the troublemakers as best as possible. Troublemakers are mostly looking for one thing: attention. If you deny them your attention, you show them that they don’t have power over you. I will continue to teach students some ignoring strategies this week.
 
What we didn't get to:

• We did not get to Social Studies at all this week. Homework project sharing and an unexpected Open Circle took precedence.

This Week's Plan
 
Special:

• Wednesday Early Release
• April Vacation Next Week!

 

Math: 
Assessment on Fraction Multiplication and Division. Begin Coordinate Grids.

• Wrap up Fraction Multiplication & Division –We take an assessment and correct it. Then we’ll practice some fraction open response questions.
• Coordinate Planes –We will learn the basics of graphing on a coordinate grid. We’ll play a fun game to work our way around the first quadrant of the coordinate grid.
  
  

Writing:  
Wrap up Business Letter Writing.

• Business Letter Finishing Touches –In addition to using formal language and having perfect English mechanics, students will learn the essential parts of a formal letter and how to properly address it for mail delivery. We’ll also practice our signatures.
  
  

Reading:
Finish Book Groups.

• Wrap up Book Groups –We have our last meetings with our book groups this week. To give closure, students will discuss and write about a theme they found in their books and support it with evidence. If we have time, we’ll work in groups to create a presentation to the class about our books’ themes.

 
Social Studies:
The Start of the Revolutionary War.

• Paul Revere’s Ride –We will analyze the famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• Lexington & Concord –We will reenact this infamous moment in American History and write journal entries from multiple points of view.

 

Homework:
Please visit the Homework Page for more details.

• Homework Project: None.
• Math: There will be a page or two of math practice each night.
• Reading: 25 minutes of daily independent reading is expected. Students should log it in their Planners. 
• Reading Response Blog: Students must respond to me and to another student on blog #15 by Friday.
• Other: Students may have to finish up some classwork for homework, and I may assign extension activities to certain lessons, depending on how they go.

Thanks for Reading!
So that's the plan for the week. Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments, or feedback. 
 

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