We will be completing these IN CLASS Thursday, September 17th, but this is how the students will be scored!
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
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 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!
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:
BOTH CLASSES: Simple Solutions 14, 15, & 16 due Friday Sept. 11th
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
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| It's our dear "Kuhny's" Birthday today!!! Happy. HAPPY Birthday to you, sweet sir! Oh how we love you so! |
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| 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! |
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!
-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.
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)
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!
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!
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
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
Have a thrilling Thursday evening!
-Mrs. Thomas
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
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Wonderful Wednesday!!
Would You Rather?
- Would your rather... have a long inney or a fat outy (bellybutton)?
- Would you rather... eat chocolate covered crickets or beetles in a milkshake?
- Would you rather walk on water and get eaten by a shark or fly and get hit by a plane?
- Would you rather cry tartar sauce or sneeze hot sauce?
- Would you rather read a book and get a paper cut every time you turn the page or have it slap you every time you put it down?
- Would you rather only eat green food or only eat foods that start with a C?
- Would you rather write your own book and have terrible reviews or act in a movie and get bad reviews?
- Would you rather live inside a shark our a giraffe?
- Would you rather be a superhero or a villain?
- Would you rather have a really weird name like looptilop or have an upside down nose?
- Would you rather be in a pool of marshmallows or m and m's?
- Would you rather shoot spaghetti out of your fingers or sneeze meatballs?
- Would you rather always get a nose bleed when you walk or always vomit after you talk?
- Would you rather be hot or cold?
- Would you rather read an awesome book or watch an awesome movie?
- Would you rather have a cook or a maid?
- Would you rather be busy or bored?
- Would you rather be an Olympic gymnast or a noble peace prize winner?
- Would you rather be the oldest or the youngest?
- Would you rather work at the desk or outside?
- Would you rather explore the ocean or space?`
- Would you rather have blue hair or feet?
- We asked your class these questions and here are our results. Everyone would rather have a long inney rather than a fat outy. 7 out of 8 people said they would rather sneeze hot sauce rather than cry tartar sauce. Everyone said they would rather be cold rather than hot. 3 out of 5 people said they would rather be busy rather than bored. 3 out of 5 people said they would be a villain other than a superhero. 3 out of 5 people said they want to be the youngest instead of the oldest. It was a tie between who wanted to have a cook or a maid. 3 out of 4 people said they would rather only eat food that starts with a C other than green foods.More people said they would rather explore the ocean rather than space.Most people want a weird name rather than an upside down nose.It was a tie between shooting spaghetti and sneezing meatballs. More people would swim in a marshmallow pool other than pool of m&ms. Everyone would eat chocolate covered crickets instead of beatles in a milkshake.Most people would rather live in a shark.
9.2.15 - Day TWELVE
Hello and Happy Wednesday, all!
LANGUAGE ARTS
Students went over their LOSER questions due today with a partner and then created questions over the next 50 pages (101-150) for the opposite class. This is all a part of our first 30 days of Routines and Rituals within our Reader's Workshop as we learning appropriate questioning strategies and appropriate responses to these questions (elaborating instead of just yes, no, or "I guess", etc.).
Students then had silent reading time while we began our Benchmark Literacy reading levels assessments. These should be completed and communicated to you within the next few weeks (it will take me some time to administer and score 60 of these) :)
HOMEWORK: complete 3 VOCAB sheets uploaded to Edmodo
MATH
Mrs. Burke was in to work with Math #1 on place-value of decimals and rounding including decimals. We ran out of time to administer independent practice before lunch.
HOMEWORK: Simple Solutions pages 12 and 13 due Friday
Math #2 had a pop quiz over decimal place-value and rounding of decimals and I'm happy to report that so far, the score are looking mighty niiice, so YAY!
HOMEWORK: Simple Solutions pages 12 and 13 due Friday
SCIENCE:
Students worked on and went through the Scientific Method and then Mrs. Schleg checked it for a grade.
HOMEWORK: none
SOCIAL STUDIES
Students went over what kind of questions will be on their test tomorrow.
HOMEWORK: test tomorrow --> STUDY!
RELIGION
Students finished Maps from the New Testament in their notebooks.
HOMEWORK: none
Do NOT forget that NEXT Thursday, Sept. 10th is Grandparents' Day! Grandparents are welcome to attend Mass with their grandchildren and then come back to our school for a visit.
Have a wonderful Wednesday!
-Mrs. Thomas
LANGUAGE ARTS
Students went over their LOSER questions due today with a partner and then created questions over the next 50 pages (101-150) for the opposite class. This is all a part of our first 30 days of Routines and Rituals within our Reader's Workshop as we learning appropriate questioning strategies and appropriate responses to these questions (elaborating instead of just yes, no, or "I guess", etc.).
Students then had silent reading time while we began our Benchmark Literacy reading levels assessments. These should be completed and communicated to you within the next few weeks (it will take me some time to administer and score 60 of these) :)
HOMEWORK: complete 3 VOCAB sheets uploaded to Edmodo
MATH
Mrs. Burke was in to work with Math #1 on place-value of decimals and rounding including decimals. We ran out of time to administer independent practice before lunch.
HOMEWORK: Simple Solutions pages 12 and 13 due Friday
Math #2 had a pop quiz over decimal place-value and rounding of decimals and I'm happy to report that so far, the score are looking mighty niiice, so YAY!
HOMEWORK: Simple Solutions pages 12 and 13 due Friday
SCIENCE:
Students worked on and went through the Scientific Method and then Mrs. Schleg checked it for a grade.
HOMEWORK: none
SOCIAL STUDIES
Students went over what kind of questions will be on their test tomorrow.
HOMEWORK: test tomorrow --> STUDY!
RELIGION
Students finished Maps from the New Testament in their notebooks.
HOMEWORK: none
FLASHBACKS 7 and 8
Do NOT forget that NEXT Thursday, Sept. 10th is Grandparents' Day! Grandparents are welcome to attend Mass with their grandchildren and then come back to our school for a visit.
Have a wonderful Wednesday!
-Mrs. Thomas
 |
| Thursday, Sept. 10th, 2015 at SMA is our celebration! |
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
9.1.15 - Day ELEVEN
Resource Day, Friends...BUT a few reminders...
LANGUAGE ARTS:
LOSER questions (click there for questions) made up by 5T or 5S due TOMORROW (5T answers 5S and 5S answers 5T).
VOCABULARY:
HOMEWORK: Complete 3 sheets uploaded to Edmodo by Friday
MATH
MATH #1 WkBk pages 4 & 5 due tomorrow
MATH #2 WkBk page 6 due tomorrow (possible quiz tomorrow...hint, hint!)
BOTH CLASSES: Simple Solutions 9, 10, and 11 due tomorrow; pages 12 & 13 due Friday
SOCIAL STUDIES:
HOMEWORK: page 47 Vocab (define and illustrate) and page 51 1-4
Have a terrific Tuesday!'
-Mrs. Thomas
LANGUAGE ARTS:
LOSER questions (click there for questions) made up by 5T or 5S due TOMORROW (5T answers 5S and 5S answers 5T).
VOCABULARY:
HOMEWORK: Complete 3 sheets uploaded to Edmodo by Friday
MATH
MATH #1 WkBk pages 4 & 5 due tomorrow
MATH #2 WkBk page 6 due tomorrow (possible quiz tomorrow...hint, hint!)
BOTH CLASSES: Simple Solutions 9, 10, and 11 due tomorrow; pages 12 & 13 due Friday
SOCIAL STUDIES:
HOMEWORK: page 47 Vocab (define and illustrate) and page 51 1-4
^Test THURSDAY^
FLASHBACKS 6 & 7 (again, these are NOT mandatory, but strongly encouraged for some discussion and review...and yes, students are MOST DEFINITELY allowed to use any research tool at their disposal!) :)
-Mrs. Thomas
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