Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Flashback 22 - Vocab Read & Reason; Crossword sheets; Math Links

Recent and NEW Math Skills Links:

Properties of Multiplication Basketball GAME
Multiplying Numbers ending in Zeros pirate GAME

Math #2: we are doing this TOMORROW!!! 
Multiplying Money VIDEO 
Multiplying Money Tutorial 
Multiplying Money PRACTICE 


FLASHBACK NUMBER 22:
9.23.15

DUE THURSDAY, SEPT. 24TH

DUE THURSDAY, SEPT. 24TH 

TURN IN FIELD TRIP PERMISSION FORMS AND MONEY!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Flashbacks 20 & 21 and Vocab pages

These are for my friends who were absent, did not get done, or in today's case...did not use their time wisely.  If you are one of those friends who did not use their time wisely this morning, please see to it that you complete your flashback questions this evening to turn in to me tomorrow morning.

ALSO: below these are screenshots of the Divide and Conquer and Making and Writing Words Vocab sheets that are due tomorrow for my few friends who are unable to access their Edmodo groups.

9.21.15

9.22.15

VOCABULARY WORKSHEETS DUE TOMORROW (Wednesday, Sept. 23rd)
**also posted on Edmodo**


Loser Comprehension Assessment Short-Answer Response ANSWERS

Loser Comprehension Assessments have been graded and entered into Sycamore (they will be posted on Friday), but you will be seeing short answer responses with points possibly subtracted for missing parts.  I assumed questions may arise as to what the indicators were for exhibiting an exemplary response to earn full credit on these responses and thus, I am posting them here for your review. Please look over these with your student and discuss where he/ she may gone wrong or what he/ she may be missing.  Many students did well, but some were lacking insightful analysis which has been the topic of focus for maaany weeks now :)




Monday, September 21, 2015

updates on classroom happenings...

Hello all!  Just a few links and updates on classroom happenings...

In LANGUAGE ARTS, we are studying Sequencing order within text.  We identified signal words that help us to identify chronological order:

first, next, then, finally, last, after that, second, third, to end, during, after, soon after, in conclusion, meanwhile, before, simultaneously, or when dates or times are given, etc.

We discussed why these are important and why it would be important to identify the sequence of events within a text.  We practiced by using a timeline and also noted the nonfiction text feature present upon it (the timeline itself, dates, pictures, captions, bold print, headings, etc.)  Students also wrote about their typical afternoons home and used signal words to move from one activity to the next.  They quickly learned that every bit of their lives fall in chronological order.

We also read THIS text and then practiced with THIS super fun mummy making activity!  The kids were SO into it!  How can you help your student at home?  Discuss the sequence of your nightly events and routines.  Have then use signal words when articulating how their afternoons carry out. Point out directions on recipes or in assembling a toy, furniture, or something of the like.  Note how following directions in the specific order listed is imperative for success in completion with the task at hand.

ALSO: Please know that I am grading, grading, grading the students' Loser Comprehension tests and whew, they were DOOZIES!  Overall, I am extremely proud of the synthesis and analytical stance that many students took about our beloved Zinkoff.  There were really some higher order thinking skills involved within this test and our kiddos persevered to completion!  Once I finish grading those, I will move to grading their projects.  The creativity of these 5th graders is out of this world and I am truly impressed by their connections to this summer reading book.

What's up NEXT WEEKin L.A.?!? We begin REALISTIC FICTION, the first of our many genres of study. It's actually perfect because we just completed our reading of Loser which is a work of Realistic Fiction.  I have asked that the students check out another book classified as realistic fiction during library time so they have it throughout our unit.  Bridge to Terabithia is an excellent example, but I am happy to have any that your student finds best fits his/ her reading style/ preferences.

Here are some activities to do with READING this week with your student at home:

VOCABULARY: I did not go over Divide and Conquer today...whoops!  I was SO excited to begin sequencing...yes, seriously!  That I flat out FORGOT.  Yikes.  Thus, we will be reviewing it tomorrow, but here is our divide and conquer sheet for your perusing/ viewing pleasure and then I will also upload it to Edmodo for the kids as we will be going over it tomorrow.


MATH:
We are learning about the Properties of Multiplication so I played THIS song.  We are also learning about the patterns of multiplication (9 x 4 = 36, so 90 x 40 = 3,600 and so on).  Finally, our big to do this unit is multiplying by 3-digit numbers.  I would still like the students to be practicing with the rounding of decimals.  They can do this by visiting THIS baseball game, or THIS soccer game, THIS Decimals place-value football game, and THIS or THIS decimals adding or subtracting game.  We played these as a warm-up in class and I promised the students I would post them here :)


I'll be back with many more updates of classroom happenings soon :)

P.S., Sign-up for conferences!!!!

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Book Report Menu Rubric

We will be completing these IN CLASS Thursday, September 17th, but this is how the students will be scored!  

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

9.8.15 - Day FIFTEEN

Hello all and welcome back from your long weekend!  I hope you celebrated with some nice time off with your families!  I've so enjoyed hearing the stories of your students' Labor Day excursions!  They are quite the story tellers and I could listen to them all day!
It's our dear "Kuhny's" Birthday today!!!  Happy. HAPPY Birthday to you, sweet sir!  Oh how we love you so!
Friday was Lexi's Birthday and I totally forgot to wish her well here on our little blog :(  Boo on me!  Thus, Happy Belated Birthday, sweet Lexi Loo!  We hope you had the best day!  Oh how we love you so!
It was resource day around 5T and 5S so while I could've listened to them all day, I didn't get to.  We DID start the day with a little Language Arts instruction...Did you know that today just happens to be International Literacy Day?  We discussed what it means to be illiterate and that almost 1 billion people worldwide do not have access to the quality education that we do here in the United States. The students found it hard to believe that so many adults in this world could be illiterate and we discussed what that must be like for them and completed a written response.  We then discussed advocated for awareness of this concept.  In Library time of our resource day, students created posters for awareness and advocacy of this worldwide epidemic and we hung them around school to continue raising awareness around SMA.  The students are truly fascinated and in awe of this and truly enjoyed the activity.  For more information, please visit: http://internationalliteracyday.org/ 
Download the Little Free Library HERE!










REMINDERS:
LANGUAGE ARTS: 
LOSER QUESTIONS (pages 101-150 due tomorrow)
Vocabulary Quiz Friday.  New pages uploaded to Edmodo and last week's pages will be sent home tomorrow for studying (no worries, these are nothing to freak out over, okay?!!!?  Promise?!!!?)

MATH: 
ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!
MATH#2 SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT IS MOVED TO FRIDAY, SEPT. 11TH!!!!
BOTH CLASSES: Simple Solutions 14, 15, & 16 due Friday Sept. 11th

Flashbacks - Day 11


Grandparents' Day is Thursday, September 10th.  Please join your grandchild for Mass and then doughnuts afterwards, followed by an activity with us in our classroom!  We so look forward to seeing you!
See you tomorrow, Friends!
-Mrs. Thomas

Friday, September 4, 2015

9.4.15 - Day FOURTEEN

Happy Friday, all!  And, HAPPY THREE DAY WEEKEND TO YOU!  This morning in our prayer, we stopped to reflect on our gratitude for those who work so very hard to provide for us and the reason for our celebrating of Labor Day on Monday.

Behavior Note:
We had a rough start behavior wise across the 5th grade today (we're talking as soon as the bell rang, Mr. Burt was redirecting our kiddos) and it went downhill from there and affected us negatively throughout the course of the rest of our day. Mrs. Schleg was affected in her instruction and I was in mine.  I hardly got to much with my Math class nor with my reading classes because I was constantly having to redirect off-task behaviors and talking and Mrs. Schleg expressed the exact same sentiments.  And we're not just dealing with talking, we had pencils and erasers being thrown, rulers as swords, running, yelling...the works...definitely NOT behavior on par with that of a fifth grader or THAT of THIS group of kids!  They are such an outstanding class as a whole and capable of SO, SOOOO very much more. Thus, both classes had quite the chat from Mrs. Schleg and myself and did some walking at recess for their consequence, but as of Tuesday, upon our return from Labor Day holiday weekend, we are beginning our Strike Chart system.  This system basically means three strikes and you're out (...or "out" in this case means a behavior referral to the office for a call home.  After 3 of these, a detention is earned).  This is how middle school runs things and how we did it last year.  It worked well and we anticipate it running smoothly this year as well.  Please contact us should you have any questions or concerns.  We have high expectations for these awesome children that we've heard such wonderful things about and can't wait to get things under control so that our learning can take us up, up, and away to far away lands!

LANGUAGE ARTS:
VOCABULARY- We reviewed our vocabulary from this week according to our roots, bases, and prefixes.  I took up their sheets that had been assigned via Edmodo.
READING & WRITING: We reviewed all of our rules and parts of Reading and Writer's Workshops we've learned and practiced up to date by revisiting our anchor charts we made on our SMARTBoard notebook documents and in each of these class response journals.  The students then got in groups of 4 and made actual anchor charts to be hung around their classroom to refer back to if needed when in their homeroom and their notebooks or response journals are not out or available.  Students then reflected on this process in their writing notebook of how it could help them as a reader or writer and why it is important to remember all these steps and parts of the workshops.










HOMEWORK: LOSER questions over next pages (101-150) due Wednesday Sept. 9th

MATH
MATH #1 LEARNING TARGET: I CAN add & subtract decimals up to thousandths
Our exit slip yesterday proved that students are still not grasping the concepts of comparing and ordering decimals as well as rounding decimals.  Thus, I gave them a Bellringer on decimals that required much additional practice and attention.  We did not get to do much "fun" stuff and had more of a lecture type class on how to round and compare and order these decimals because that what was needed by the students.
HOMEWORK: none (Labor Day weekend)
MATH #2 LEARNING TARGET: Enrichment
Students had a mixed application review of skills where they worked with a partner on problem solving challenging concepts and problems for review of this unit's content.  It was FUN!
HOMEWORK: Decimals SUMMATIVE Unit Assessment THURSDAY, Sept. 9th 

SCIENCE:
Students went out to the garden and weeded, and then came back to review bug project expectations.
HOMEWORK: none (Labor Day weekend)

SOCIAL STUDIES:
Social Studies time was taken up by the Science garden time and bug project discussion.
HOMEWORK: none (Labor Day weekend)

RELIGION:
Students finished their maps of the Old Testament and began their maps of the New Testament.
HOMEWORK: none (Labor Day weekend)

Flashbacks 9 & 10

Have a truly wonderful and relaxing three day weekend!
See you TUESDAY for RESOURCE DAY!
-Mrs. T

P.S., NEXT Thursday (Sept 10th) is GRANDPARENTS' DAY here at SMA!

Thursday, September 3, 2015

9.3.15 - Day THIRTEEN

Day lucky number 13, folks!
We attended MASS this morning and then began our day with our usual Thursday adjusted schedule where we have BOTH Math classes in the morning prior to lunch.

MATH
MATH #1- LEARNING TARGET: I CAN compare, order, and round decimals.  Prior to Mrs. Burke coming in, I had the students do a little human math where I lined them up with numbers I had written on paper and we started all the way over in the thousandths place and began rounding.  We first rounded the hundredths place  and moved all the way up to the hundred millions place using our rules we've learned and practiced with in class, subbing in zeroes or a place-value digit up as we determined the rounding value as we went along.  The students were hilarious when they had to sit down and be subbed in for a zero as this illustrated to them that after you round a number, everything after it drops to a zero.  It was FUN!
HOMEWORK: complete Common Core worksheet (front and back); Simple Solutions #s 12 &13 due tomorrow



Math #2- LEARNING TARGET: I CAN add and subtract decimals up to thousandths.  We worked on adding and subtracting decimals and lining them up in order to do so.  When lining them up, we noticed that the bottom number often had more digits than the top, so we had to add magic zeroes to the top top in order to began subtracting or adding.  The students caught on EXTREMELY quickly and began their homework in class.  Many finished it altogether.  They will be having their summative assessment over decimals next Thursday or Friday.
HOMEWORK: complete Common Core worksheet; Simple Solutions #s 12 & 13 due tomorrow

SCIENCE
Students took their Social Studies test
HOMEWORK: none

SOCIAL STUDIES
Students took their tests!
HOMEWORK: none

LANGUAGE ARTS:
I am working on assessing the independent reading levels of your students so in order to do so, many students were independently working and writing summaries on those, while other were finished or waiting to be assessed by/ read with me so were working on another reading passage assignment I had given to them, free-writing in their Writer's Notebooks, or writing a reading response in their reading response journals.
HOMEWORK: vocabulary assignments (3 pages uploaded to Edmodo) due tomorrow; new set of LOSER questions made up by opposite class over pages 101-150 due by NEXT WEDNESDAY (Sept. 9th)

RELIGION
Students worked with partners over maps of places in New Testament
HOMEWORK: none

FLASHBACKS 8 & 9


Don't Forget!  Grandparents' Day is NEXT THURSDAY! (Sept. 10th!)

Have a thrilling Thursday evening!
-Mrs. Thomas