Aislyn from Cornell Cooperative Extension came by today to offer a program where we can build forts on Caroline Campus one day a week for the next 6 weeks. She will be starting next week and permission slips will be on their way tomorrow. Lunch slips will also be on their way tomorrow if you want your child to buy a sack lunch for our CNC trip in 2 weeks. We read our own books, did review for math, and defeated the evil Trunchbull in Matilda. We also did a pre-assessment for ELA by writing an essay to monitor our growth over the year.
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We started off the day by going outside for a group game since the weather would not permit us to go outside later in the day. We read to ourselves and then worked on punctuation. Our goal is to ALWAYS have ending punctuation and capitals in all of our sentences. In math we worked on factor trees. Matilda is making a genius plan to seek revenge on the Trunchbull. For science we worked on main ideas and details for decomposers and scavengers.
We had a great Monday. We set up our controlled experiments for determining the best conditions for growing certain crops. We are testing salinity for one experiment and volume of water for another. For math we worked on multiples and factors. We had Bill from the Floating Classroom come in and introduce some elements of our CSAP project. Unfortunately he had to leave early and our presentation was cut short.
We had extra recess at the end of the day. We stayed out after our fire drill where we received Popsicles from Mrs. Grover. In math we split and reviewed approximation. We also had library where we learned about what to share and not share on the internet.
We worked some more on our Genius Hour blogs, and they are coming along. In math we reviewed and practiced the last few day's materials and I'm feeling confident about our learning. More capitalization practice to ensure we master this skill. Played a few cooperative games with a giant ball this morning for Morning Meeting. We also received 3 compliments about how well behaved we are in the hallways and in specials.
For math we worked on Estimation and its many applications in life. Reading is still self choice and is going quite well. During our Science time we looked at various food webs and built our own food chains/webs with organism cards that we sorted and grouped. Capitalization is also a skill we are working on so that everyone has this basic skill down pat.
My good friend Lee came by today and taught us about DSRP. It's a thinking strategy where you look at systems and their parts, relationships and distinctions. We had a lot of fun with his activity. We leaned approximation in math and worked in outlines in ELA. We discussed systems theory today. We discovered and came to the conclusion that everything is a system, and also a part of a larger system. We took the Pre_assessment for math which will help us see our growth over the year. Starting tomorrow we will be separating into smaller math groups to have math instruction tailored to our particular needs and pacing. Website creation started today! We created the skeleton of our website and will now start populating them with our new learning. Scholastic Book Club information went home today.
Today we created folders and organized our Google Drive accounts. We also added bookmarks we will use throughout the year. Since we have been so well behaved this week, we got an additional 20 minutes of recess. We worked on a lengthy real world word problem about whether the all you can eat pasta bowl at Olive Garden is a worthwhile deal. For ELA, we read out chapter books, and read a Scholastic News. We debated over the length of the school day. What a fabulous first week of school!.
Another awesome day. We went to the library and picked out chapter books to read at ELA time. We ended up reading in there for 45 minutes. After that we had a very honest an open discussion about how everyone has strengths and weaknesses. We witnessed a lot bravery from many students who admitted to struggles. We discussed growth mindset and how we always need to be improving and never give up in academics or life. For math we made "dollar words". Continued Matilda and our genius hour projects. Lastly, we discussed a few daily procedures of the classroom. We talked A LOT. We discussed chromebooks and internet saftey. WE looked at Edmodo and other web tools like DIY. We figured out how much is spent on our education each day. it;s 100 dollars a day per kid! We had PE and learned about personal space. The students were absolutely fabulous and I am super excited about this year.
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Mr. VanGo
5th Grade teacher at Caroline Elementary. Archives
December 2015
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