This Week in Room 33! Sept. 12-16

This week in 5th grade...

Science- We are wrapping up our unit on scientific investigations with our paper towel investigation and our paper airplane investigation! Our test will be next week!

Writing- This week we are completing our 1st personal narrative and celebrating them on Wednesday. After we celebrate our writing in school, students will bring their piece home to celebrate with you! Students will bring home their leader binder which includes a tab for their writing portfolio. Inside their writing portfolio will be their piece and a checklist to fill out and get signed by you. Please help them celebrate their accomplishments, but also look for & encourage setting new goals for their next piece that we will start on Thursday! These writers know that "when they are done, they've only just begun!" :)

Reading- Wow! We are doing some deep thinking and hard work in reading! We are learning that we need our brains on FULL POWER to really dig deep into our book club books and independent books. Reading can be SO MUCH MORE than just reading at the surface level if we put our mind to it.

Students are working hard on reading pages and pages of their book club books by following their reading assignments they created for class reading time and for reading at home. We are working on having meaningful, supportive, and thoughtful book club discussions- ask your student for different discussion sentence starters they are trying at school and encourage them at home as well!

Math- Place value tests will come home Tuesday (thank you for your patience as I was out sick on Friday)- we are SO proud of our mathematicians! We are starting our 2nd chapter on multiplying whole numbers as we are studying prime factorization, powers & exponents, multiplication patterns and problem solving using a table.

Social Studies- We will continue with our study of the first Americans!

***Don't Forget-

Early Release on Wednesday! Does your child know how he/she is getting home?

Starting New Book Clubs!

Check out the Reading tab for each book club's reading assignments!

Social Studies

Today was very exiting because we started social studies stations! -Social Media Leaders

Amazing Analytical Thinking!

Here are a few spotlight journal entries from today's lesson about analytical thinking... 😄

This Week in Room 33! Sept. 6-9

I hope everyone had a wonderful 3-day weekend! A big thank you to all the parents that read through last week's ABC's of Mrs. Schaefer & Miss Hake's Classroom and for taking the time to check out the Parents tab at the top of the blog. Don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions or thoughts!

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

Science- We are continuing to work hard as scientists in our first unit on scientific investigations. We will be completing a series of 3 investigations to complete this unit. This week we will conduct the evaporation investigation and the paper towel investigation. We are using the scientific method and our science notebooks to record our data and conclusions!

Writing- This week we are continuing our unit on personal narratives. Last week we chose our seed story, flash drafted and even RE-drafted to bring out the heart of our story- what it is really about. We will continue to work on revision this week as we bring forth the story arc, elaborate on the important parts, adding scenes from the past and future, and revising our leads and endings. 

Reading- We are working really hard on our goals to read more than EVER before this year! We have also been learning that it is not only about VOLUME but about the QUALITY of our reading- our metacognition (thinking about our thinking!) We are showing our deep thinking about our books by using our reader's notebook. This week we are learning to think analytically and taking a closer look at our characters and their struggles.We will also begin our first book clubs later this week!

Math- This week we are finishing up our study of place value by reviewing on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our chapter 1 test will be on Thursday! Students are always encouraged to study by doing practice problems in their textbook. Because we do not complete every problem in their book during school, there will always be an abundance of practice available to them. Study guide details will be given via an email. Another fantastic resource is their online textbook (see parents tab for video on how to access this). Each lesson has practice problems students can complete and the computer will check their answers (look for the checkmark icon).

Social Studies- We are beginning our Social Studies workshop this week as we dive into our study of Ancient Americans. We will participate in stations that include reading and discussing the textbook with a teacher, continuing to explore the textbook and Native American cultures, eCapstone library, and completing a regions map in their notebooks.

New and improved library!

Our library helpers have been working very hard to make it look fabulous! They even have a book of the day! The book of the day currently : Smile by Rania Telgemerier. -social media leaders 

Ordering Decimals!!!

We took on a challenge of ordering decimals!!!😄