Happy 1st full week of school! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and had wonderful things to say about their first 2 days of school last week. I cannot wait to continue getting to know everyone- we have such as AWESOME class of 5th grade leaders!
This year in 5th grade, we are excited to continue working towards a blended learning environment with 2 large blocks of time in our schedule to provide a more authentic and engaging learning experience for our students. We are calling our morning block “STEAM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) and our afternoon block “ELA/Humanities" (Reading, Writing, Social Studies). Our students will still benefit from excellent instruction in reading, writing, math, social studies, and science; however, we are looking to the future as we incorporate technology and project-based learning within our integrated curriculum.
Here's what to expect this week in 5th grade:
STEAM- We are SO excited to begin using our Chromebooks! We are very fortunate to be able to provide a 1:1 experience in which every 5th grade student is paired with a laptop to use at school. We will begin “Chrome Camp” this week in which students will explore their new devices, ask questions from others, and teach others their new discoveries on how to best utilize the technology in our classroom setting. We will also begin learning how our STEAM workshop runs and begin our first math chapter on place value.
***Students will need a computer or device with Internet access for their nightly math homework. They will either log in to their Google account to access their homework through the Google classroom or they can use the Google classroom app. Students will show their work in their STEAM notebooks and be encouraged to bring home their math textbooks for extra help and extra practice if you feel it is necessary.
ELA- We will be discussing how our ELA workshop runs and begin our "Read to Self" training! We will explore what read to self looks like and will begin building our stamina so we can read for long periods of time. The absolute BEST way to become a better reader and enjoy reading is to dive in and READ! We will be discussing how to choose good fit books as well as the importance of REAL reading (THINKING while reading) vs. FAKE reading (reading the words without thinking of the text's meaning). We will also begin our first unit of study on analyzing themes with a focus on writing about our reading/thinking in our ELA notebooks.
This 1st week I encourage that you help your child build his/her reading stamina at home just like we will be building our stamina in school (we will start with 5 and work our way up to 20 minutes for homework). Students are responsible for reading the same book at home that they are reading at school. This will help students to focus on one book at a time and maintain our goal of reading more books this year than ever before!
Homework- Homework will be texted using Remind 101 (if you have not signed up yet, please text @sch533 to 81010!) Students will also be aware of homework each night (if your student has a phone or device that receives texts, they are more than welcome to also sign up for Remind 101!) It is important to help your child find a good time and place to complete reading and homework each night. Thank you for all of your support at HOME! :)
Please CONNECT with our classroom→
Facebook: @MrsSchaefers5thGradeClass
Remind 101: text @sch533 to 81010 to sign up!
Class Blog: schaefer5th.blogspot.com
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