Research Presentations and Colonial Day!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful and relaxing spring break! We have lots of exciting things ahead of us - can you believe there are only 9 weeks of 5th grade left?? I can't believe how fast this year has flown by! 

I am so incredibly proud of every student in our class. The week before break, students shared their research reports and then gave presentations about their topic to small groups. Topics ranged from countries to sports to biographies of famous people to animals - it was an amazing day of teaching and learning! I definitely learned a lot from everyone's hard work! 

Reading each other's reports and leaving feedback:

Everyone left great positive feedback! 

Research presentations in action!

Then, the Friday before Spring break, we had Colonial Day! This day was a huge success thanks to awesome parent volunteers donating supplies and running the stations! The kids had a great time, and it was the perfect way to wrap up our 13 Colonies unit. 

We made and ate johnny cakes, a traditional food in the New England Colonies. Reactions ranged from, "This tastes like dog treats!" to, "These are delicious!" But no matter how they tasted, everyone tried them! We ate them with our homemade butter, real maple syrup, and apple sauce. 

We also got to try writing with quill pens and ink. This was a lot harder than many of us had originally anticipated! It was a fun challenge, though! 

We also got to try out some colonial games. We made whirligigs and played jacks, pick up sticks, dominoes, and cat's cradle. 

We also made cornhusk dolls and even sewed some clothes for them. 

All in all, the week before spring break was fantastic! I'm looking forward to all the learning and fun we still have coming up for the rest of the year! 

Fever 1793 Book Review by Maddy

Fever 1793

By:Maddy

Fever, written by Laurie Halse Anderson is a historical fiction book about a  Philadelphia server girl named Mattie Cook. A haunting sickness called “Yellow Fever” terrorizes through the streets, creeping up on people and getting them seriously ill.  

As everyone is fleeing and getting ill, Mattie learns to have courage and to stay strong in everything you do even if it is hard.Will she survive”Yellow Fever”?

I recommend this book for people who like intense and historical fiction books.

Thinking About Reading

Reading is a major focus in our classroom. Each day, we make time to read independently, talk about books in our book clubs, write about books, and join together for our read aloud. As of right now, we've read over 550 books! Also, we've experienced Wonder, The Julian Chapter, Out of My Mind, The Girl Who Could Fly, Chains, and now All the Answers together during our read aloud time.

Last week, to celebrate Read Across America and Dr. Seuss's birthday, we had a readathon. Here are some pictures from that day. Check out some of our favorite books! 

We also took some time to think about our reading and respond to padlets, which are like online bulletin boards. Here are links to the padlets:

I’m the kind of reader who…

I want to be the kind of reader who…

Reading Goals

Where do you like to read?

What do you like about reading?

We would LOVE to hear from YOU about your own reading! Please take a moment to respond to a padlet (or two or three!), or to leave a comment about your own experiences with reading! (Responding to a padlet is very easy - just double click where you would like to add a comment, type in your name at the top, and then type the comment underneath.)

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend, and again, we would love to hear from you!  

January and February Updates

The last few weeks have been full of learning and fun! 

We've been focusing on informational text and researching. Using iPads, we went on a scavenger hunt finding informational text features. 

In math, we wrapped up our chapter on number expressions and patterns. We played Quiz, Quiz, Trade to identify ordinal pairs on a coordinate plane. 

Star Academy had a Pennies for Patients fundraising drive. Our class put together and distributed the boxes to the entire school! 

We've been having lots of fun together, too. Here's a picture from a recent girls lunch. (We have boys lunch and girls lunch every week!) 

For part of an art project, we needed to trace a design. The windows in the cafeteria worked great for this!

This Monday, we went to PFAA and Leading Edge for middle school orientation. We had a great day! Awesome middle school mentors showed the students around. The 5th graders even got to participate in some activities with 6th graders from Leading Edge.  

Yesterday was our Valentine's celebration. We decorated bags, passed out cards and candy, and made cards. We had a great time.

I hope everyone has a fantastic 4 day weekend! See you Tuesday! 

Friday Update 1/16/15

This week, we started enrichment! Four afternoons a week, students are participating in zumba and yoga, crocheting and yarn crafts, Minecraft, ipad photography, or newspaper. It's been a great first week!

Today we worked with our kindergarten buddies in Mrs. Mandujano's class in the computer lab. We see our buddies every Friday. We have so much fun with them!

Today, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, we listened to and read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. We also created found poetry using an iPad app called Word Mover. The poems were created using words from Dr. King's speech! They turned out great. 

Bella and AJ:

 Mia and Alanna: 

Blake and Aliyah: 

Gia and Emily:

Angeline, Marissa, and Rebecca: 

Hannah, Sam, and Diana:

Isaac and Larissa:

Maggie and Maddy:

Bruce and Melina: 

Mimi and Larry:

Paul, Arielle, and Quinn:

Karoliena and Danielle: 

Have a great long weekend! See you all on Wednesday!