This Week in Room 33! Aug. 31- Sept. 4

This week in 5th grade...

Science: This week we are discussing tools that scientists use and participating in activities where students will classify, compare, contrast, and think like scientists!

Writing: This week we will begin our first writing unit on personal narratives! We have been busy building our stamina in our "home" writer's notebook (the place where students can write about ANYTHING they want!). This is the notebook that is decorated and will be coming home on Tuesday and Thursday nights for their writing homework (free writing for 10 min.) We also have a "school" notebook that is used for lessons within our units of study. 

*Check out THIS SITE for a fun way to come up with topics to write about at home!

Reading: This year, 5th graders will be pushed and encouraged to read more than ever before! We are tracking our reading in our leader binders and challenging ourselves to finish up to 40 books this school year! This is a BIG challenge and we ARE up for it! We've already had 3 students finish a book! Way to go Sam, Emma, and Kamryn! This week we will start to use our reader's notebooks to help us push the level of our reading and thinking.

*Students are responsible for tracking their nightly reading minutes in their planners (monthly view). At the end of the month, these minutes will be collected for a school-wide display. Our school's goal is 1,000,000 minutes this year! Parents- please sign your student's month page in their planners at the end of every month. This will be ripped out and turned in to me. Students will be responsible for asking you to do this (it will be part of their homework!)

Math: We are so excited to start our first unit on place value this week. Students will be working in collaborative math stations, ALEKS (our individualized online program), and small group instruction. Students will be asked to work on ALEKS every Monday and Wednesday night for 10 minutes as part of their homework.

Social Studies: Because we utilize a workshop approach in writing, reading, math, AND science, we have decided to extend this to social studies this year! Students will participate in stations and small group instruction with the teacher each week. This week we will focus on navigating our social studies textbook, defining and understanding geography, political maps, and our states and capitals. 

*Curriculum Night- I hope to see you all this Thursday from 7-7:30 in our classroom! I am looking forward to sharing with you about how our classroom works and what your student will experience this year in 5th grade!

*Be sure to check out the posts below showing glimpses into our classroom last week. Our social media leaders will be posting updates throughout each week! 

*Don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! Social Media is a fantastic and easy way to connect with families and share what is happening in our classroom as well as other resources for you at home!

Genre Slideshow

Check out our genre slideshow we worked on yesterday!

Pictures to Share!

Check out the below album slideshows to see what we've been up to lately!

Mission Statements

This week we did mission statements for ourselves and a class mission statement. We also organized are leader binders. -Aidan

This Week in Room 33! Aug. 24-28

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 a fantastic class of 5th grade leaders!

*Parents- If you have not already done so, please fill out THIS SURVEY. I am LOVING the responses so far and am so thankful that you took the time to complete this for me! 

This week we will continue to build our classroom community and learn how our classroom runs. Students will apply and be "hired" for their new classroom leader job. All students are responsible for being the LEADER in their job area as well as LEADERS in our school! 

As a reminder, at Lindbergh students are allowed to bring in their own devices to school (i.e.- kindles, iPods, tablets, etc.) and use for educational purposes during the school day. We love using technology in our classroom and the more devices, the better! Make sure your student knows how to download apps- the apps we use most in our classroom are listed under the parents tab (or click HERE).

Here's what else to expect this week in 5th grade:

Science- We will begin the set up of our science notebooks and learn important terms and tools that we will be using in science investigations and activities this year!

Writing- We will introduce our writer's workshop this week and begin using our writer's notebooks! We will be doing a lot of writing this year and this week's focus will be on beginning to build our writing stamina.

Reading- We will be discussing how our reading 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 to learn to 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).

Math- We will be learning how our math workshop is run and begin to explore our math stations.  

Social Studies- We will begin Social Studies next week!

Homework- I will be posting homework under the Daily Homework page on this blog (top tab). This 1st week we will build our homework stamina just like we will be building our stamina in school. It is important to help your child find a good time and place to complete homework each night. Thank you for all of your support at HOME! :)

I cannot wait to talk more with you about our classroom on Curriculum Night! Please mark your calendars and plan to attend on Thurs., Sept. 3rd from 7-7:30 in our room.

***Don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! Social Media is a fantastic way to connect with families and share what is happening in our classroom as well as other resources for you at home!

Have a WONDERFUL week!!!

Student and Parent Surveys!

We had an AWESOME 1st day of 5th grade!!! 

*Students- Please click this link to complete your survey due Monday--- STUDENT SURVEY

*Parents- If you have not already done so, please fill out THIS SURVEY. I am LOVING the responses so far and am so thankful that you are taking the time to complete this for me!

Share a Summer Picture and Parent Survey!

Would you like to share a summer picture with your new classmates? Please follow these (easy, I promise!) steps:

1- Email the picture to met62marry@photos.flickr.com. Include your name as the subject and write about your picture in the body of the email along with your picture.
(Parents- If you have a signature on your email, you may want to delete it so it doesn't show up on the Flickr page as part of the picture's caption.)

2- Go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsschaefer/ to view everyone's pictures and captions! The link to our Flickr page is also on the right side of this blog with this icon---   

***Parents- Please fill out this quick survey to help me better understand your child. I truly appreciate all of the information you give so I can better meet your child's needs this school year! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! Click HERE for the survey. (Your responses will only be seen by me.)

***Don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!