Colonial Day with Pirates

On  October 28, 2016 , Captain Rohrbacker’s class made a voyage to colonial America for colonial day.

Many buccaneers played colonial games like Jacks,Marbles,Dominos,and Pick up sticks and you could tell some played like pros !

Next, they made corn husk dolls.  It was awesomazing and you also get to add corn husk dolls to your toy collection(if you have one).  

We also did Johnny cakes which are like pancakes but with more taste and feeling.

Next, we pirates tried writing in ink instead of sea die.  For some it was hard and for others it was easy as pie (oops... seaweed).

Last but not least (last was cleaning) we tried some weaving for cotton instead of silk or polyester and many buccaneer boys and girls liked weaving as a secret hobby (it’s illegal to wear cotton pirate clothes and other wearables).

 

James' Trip to Seattle!

Over Fall Break, I went to Seattle, Washington.  It was so fun.  I went with my mom, dad, little brother, and grandparents.  We were very lucky, it hardly rained at all. The one day it rained hard, we were inside for most of it.

We went to so many amazing places.  We did lots of cool things.  We didn’t even have to stay in a tiny little hotel room.  We rented out a house.  On our first day, we went on an awesome boat ride, where a guide told us all about Seattle.

In the next few days, we went to tons of places.  One of them was the aquarium.  The aquarium had lots of cool fish.  It also had things like otters, seals and much more.  One of the otters spent the whole time right up against the glass.  It was so cute.  A few days later, we went inside the biggest building in the world.  It was a Boeing plane factory and it was so cool.

We also went to the Space Needle.  From the top, you can see everything!  We went once in the day, then came back at night to see Seattle at night.  On the rainy day, we spent lots of time in the Seattle Library. There were so many books.  I was bummed that we couldn’t check out any books.  I love reading.

The Pike Place Market was amazing.  There were so many cool things.  Me, my parents, and my little brother bought some delicious berries.  My grandma bought a moonscape(a type of sandscape).  It’s beautiful.  We saw the gum wall.  I had to take off my retainers so I could chew some gum to put on the wall.  There was also an awesome cheese factory, and we saw the first Starbucks!

I loved my trip to Seattle.  I didn’t want to leave.  I am 100% sure that I will be going back one day. I don’t know when, but I know I will, at least one more time.

Our first 3 weeks!

We have had a great first three weeks of school in 5th grade!

Here are some of the highlights.

We've participated in team STEM challenges.

We made the longest paper chains possible using one piece of paper and one yard of tape. 

We also created popsicle stick and tape bridges designed to support the weight of one or two books! 

We've kicked off our math stations, and they've been going very well! 

Our math stations right now are Math with Teacher, Math by Myself, Math Games, and Math Tiles. 

Our class has had fantastic independent reading stamina right from the first day of school! We spend about 20-30 minutes reading our books every day. Never is flexible seating more important than when we choose the perfect spot to curl up with a good book! 

We've also been learning about reading genres. After defining them and looking at lots of examples (and having book raffles to determine who gets to read the examples first), we talked about our genre preferences and created some genre goals. It's great to have genres we like the most, but we also want to constantly stretch ourselves to try out new genres we may not read as much! 

We also identified the genres of books in our classroom and sorted books in the Scholastic book orders based on genre! 

We've started having Community Circle every week. During Community Circle, we have the opportunity to talk through problem solving and deal with things that are important to us. Ms. Hines, our amazing counselor, kicked that off with us the first week of school, and she also came and read What Do You Do With a Problem? to our class. 

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, we have Star in Motion outside on the blacktop with our whole school! We've already learned quite a few dances! Feel free to come join us for Star in Motion from 8:30-8:45 on these mornings. We love having parents dance with us! 

We've had so much fun so far, and I am so excited to see what the rest of the year brings! 

Our Classroom!

Here are some photos of our classroom! Looking forward to seeing everyone Monday between 3:00 and 6:00 for meet the teacher, and Wednesday for the first day of school! I hope everyone is excited for a great year. I know I am!