Mrs. Thomas's 'OWL'standing 5th Grade: 3.23.11

Do you ever have one of those days where things just don't even get a chance to start off right?? Well, I am having one of those days!! My very last pair of contacts ripped. You may say, "well, why don't you just wear your glasses then?" My response to you is, my only pair of glasses are broken too...well, now slightly broken, slightly repaired because Mr. Thomas sealed the broken side back together for me with mighty putty. Yes, they are a sight to be a seen and I don't think you can understand the humor in them until you can actually see them...so here's a pic...
Under normal circumstances (meaning, if my glasses weren't broken and I actually went to get a new pair), I would wear my glasses multiple times weekly because I greatly enjoy wearing them, soooo....I guess here is my sign to get off my tail and finally go get some new ones (well and some more contacts too, of course!).

Anyway, the show must go on...

READING:

Today we continued working on our skill of summarizing what we read. Groups finished making their sequence chains and were then responsible for using the events of our story to make one summary sentence that could give a brief synopsis of the entire story.

Group C's sequence/ summary chain

Independently, students also worked on a project entitled, "A Walk Through...." where they literally gave a walk through their book. The students traced their own feet and used them as footprints. On each footprint, an event of the story was written to help sequence the events. Finally, the students glued the footprints down on paper to make a path, or "walk" through the events of their book and created a summary sentence to summarize all the events into one thought.

Erin and Maddie tracing their feet

Tabitha is ready to "walk" us through her book

Micah's "walk" through her book!

Her footpath led her (and us) to a better understanding of her book!

As word work, the students worked on using the power of their words and took a stance (an author's opinion) to make a shirt displaying their view on an issue of their choice. Their slogans and shirts were really creative and turned out great!

HOMEWORK: work on spelling packets

MATH:

"Human Fractions"

We continued working on FRACTIONS!!! First, we began by reviewing homework. It is terribly difficult to review homework if the student does not have it with him/her or if that student has rushed to do it in the morning before he/she comes to me. Homework is intended to be practice at home, without the teacher's supervision to work on the skills and concepts we focused upon that day, independently. This gives me a true gauge of understanding and shows me when we can progress further.

After reviewing our homework, we made "human fractions". To do this, I call different amounts of students at a time to stand in the front of the room. The rest of the class observed them and then made fractions based on what they saw. Some we heard were "three-fifths are wearing jeans", "one-eighth has on glasses", "four-eighths or one-half have on an orange or red shirt" (I particularly was impressed by that fraction because it showed the student was thinking ahead and adding like fractions together...what a higher level skill!), or "sixth-sevenths have brown hair". This was a great activity because the students were encouraged to make fractions of their own and were seeing them life-size.

Finally, we put fractions into our hands by cutting paper. First, we cut a piece of paper into fourths, then eighths, then thirds, and then sixths. From there, the students were visually and kinesthetically able to compare fractions and see which were bigger than the others and which fractions could combine to make another fraction, therefore sometimes creating equivalent fractions.

HOMEWORK: none tonight.

PM activities:

We have started a new switching process where students get Social Studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Science with me on Mondays and Wednesdays, while Fridays are days of review. We felt that there is much content that needs to be covered prior to the end of the year so we made the appropriate modifications to our schedules to ensure these subjects being continuously taught.

Today however, we finished working on an On-Demand writing piece which is a persuasive letter to Mr. Canizal to come and teach us some lessons on Spanish. The students are REALLY progressing well with the on-demand writing process and concepts of writing!

Have a wonderful Wednesday, my lovelys!!!

xoxo,

Mrs. Thomas

Here are some recent things that have made me smile (besides this warm weather)...

You may remember hearing about Cathryn, my niece. Well, she is driving now (scary...yes!) but we took a drive down to the beach of the KY river in my hometown of Winchester. Together, we made this heart, but it symbolizes to me how she completes my heart!

NO, I did NOT do this (as you can clearly see, it's old because it's been weathered over), but saw this on a tree down by the river on our little trip and assumed it was a sign made just for me!!!