HAPPY WEDNESDAY!
Although it was a short week, we still accomplished much! We did wonderfully on our Order of Operations Assessment. Variable Expressions are still challenging a few, but we will continue to review in our weekly menus and small group work. Next week we move on to Geometry and Volume! We had loads of fun working in teams to create the best Thanksgiving Feast for 20 people with a $100 budget. Students had to look at serving size and compare prices to put together the best menu. It was great to see this problem solving in action. We filled our Gem Jar this week when Mrs. Rantz commented that she could have heard a pin drop in our room when students were lost in their books during independent reading. Students chose a cozy movie day and wanted to watch a fantasy/science fiction movie Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. We used this as an opportunity to compare the features of fantasy to those of the realistic books we are reading today. Some great conversations and observations! Looking forward to digging in to the curriculum when we get back from break! Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. Thankful to be in Room 15! Maura IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:
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Good afternoon and Happy Friday!
Another busy week here at Cole School! Can you believe Thanksgiving is next week?!! We started our day today, our Fantastic Friday, giving thanks to our PreK - 3rd grade teachers, writing them notes to tell them why they are Fantastic. In Room 15 we are focusing on spreading kindness throughout the holiday season! This week we started our study of the Moon Phases as we completed our first few pages in our Moon Journals. We will be keeping these journals for a month, so we can make note of all the phases the moon goes through. Along with our study of the Moon phases we will be looking at the Earth, Stars and Planets. Lots of hands on activities to come and along the way students will be doing research and creating a Google Slide show on one of the planets! We were so happy to share our Informative Writing pieces today. Students will be bringing home their "Grow and Glow" drafts as well as their final copies in their Friday folders today! They did a nice job informing their friends about something they felt they were an expert about! Now we are working are way to Narratives! Last week we worked on a trouble story, to show how stories have a beginning, middle and end and this week we have been working on our Heart Maps to come up with a bunch of ideas to write about. Each day we have been working on our stamina and next week we will be choosing one piece to take through the complete writing process! I can't wait to get started! In Math, we have been working more with Order of Operations and finding patterns with Input/Output tables. Students have also been learning about algebraic expressions! This can be challenging, but I have been impressed by their effort and am sure they will do great on their assessment on Tuesday. Study guides were started on Wednesday, and we worked through them today. We will have a good review in class on Monday and will take a test Tuesday. Then we are going to have some Thanksgiving Fun! Students are going to work in teams to build a Thanksgiving Feast. They will be given flyers from different grocery stores and will have to gather the items and figure out pricing to feed 20 people a Thanksgiving Feast. This is a great way to practice our money skills and also to get them thinking about portion size and how to find sale items in order to stay within their budget! After Thanksgiving we will be moving on to Geometry and Volume! In Reading we are doing a great job with our Literature Circles. Lots of great discussions and connections are being made as we are now deeper into our novels. We also finished reading The SIgn of the Beaver and will be doing some follow-up writing about this story next week. Our focus has been looking at character traits and finding evidence in our stories. We are going to start working more with inferences and also taking a look at themes and how there can be any different themes in one book. Our read aloud The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus has introduced us to Aven's friend Connor who has Tourette's Syndrome and we are beginning to hear about a possible mystery they will need to solve. Students have been making some nice connections to other books as well as coming up with some great predictions based on what they know so far! In Social Studies, we finished up reading and taking notes about many Colonial Leaders. We also read more about the Triangular Trade route and the Middle Passage and what life was like for many of the West Africans who came to the colonies. Lots of lively discussion took place! Students will be finishing up their note taking on their regions and after Thanksgiving will be working on a project to show what they have learned. Mrs. Burns came in today to share another one of her favorite books! She shared the first chapter of From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler ! We love when she shares her passion of reading with us! I am sure we will be reading more books she suggests as the year progresses! As always, thanks for your support! I know Mrs. Pearce is reaching out to try to put an afternoon of crafts together. I am hoping we can have 4 crafts for the kids to make, we will choose one to be made specifically for our class to donate to the Nursing Home to brighten their holidays! Have a great weekend! Maura Important Dates to remember Wednesday, November 27 - Early Release - Thanksgiving Thursday, November 28 - HAPPY THANKSGIVING Wednesday, December 4 - Field Trip to Norwell Theater - A Christmas Carol Happy Friday everyone!
Another busy week with so much accomplished in Room 15! After enjoying our long Veterans' Day Weekend, we came back ready to dig into a new topic in Math! We started our work with Order of Operations looking at GEMDAS (Grouping Symbols, Exponents, Multiplication or Division, Addition or Subtraction). We explained why two number sentences that looked the same could have a different sum if parentheses were added or if operations were switched! We played a few games to help us solidy our comfort with these rules - GEMDAS XXX and 24. We will be continuing our work with GEMDAS and will also be looking at INPUT/OUTPUT Boxes, patterns, ordered pairs and corresponding terms for the next two weeks. Looking forward to continued great effort! It was great to see many students at our 5th grade Math night showing their parents how to play 24 and many of the other games we were able to purchase with our Norwell Education Foundation grant! The grant monies do wonderful things for our classrooms!! In writing, we are readying our final drafts for our writing celebration next Friday, November 22nd at 8:15am. We are hoping you are able to come by and have your child read their informative piece to you and also show you some of the work we have begun with our Narrative studies! This week we worked on Trouble Stories. Next week we will really begin digging into where we can get ideas for our narratives, I can't wait to get started! Students started their Realistic Fiction literature circles this week! We have so many great titles going and today I heard some great discussions about the characters and events going on throughout these circles, and they have only read a few chapters! Together, with their partners, students have set a new page goal for next Friday and have new jobs to complete. Be sure to ask them about the book they are reading! Here is a quick look:
In Social Studies, we are continuing our work on the Colonial regions. Finishing up our research by looking at the early leaders and the impact they had. We also dove into the issue of Slavery in the colonies and discussed the triangular trade route and the unbearable conditions and decisions many West Africans had to make as they came to America. We will be continuing this discussion next week and then students will be working to put a presentation on their region together to teach their classmates about what they have learned. Yesterday, we had our Student Government election in our class. I couldn't be more proud of Billy and Heidi for daring greatly and shining brightly as they told the class the reasons they believed they were the best candidate! I only wish our school could have BOTH of them as representatives for our class! Congratulations to Heidi for winning the vote. I was most proud of how they both handled themselves after the votes were counted! We definitely have some future leaders among us! On Monday, we will be kicking off our study of the Earth's systems. Students will be bringing home Moon Journals for them to track the phase of the moon over a 30 day period. Specific instructions will be given and this will be a nightly homework assignment until December 18th! As we learn about the Moon and its phases we will also be learning about the impact on weather and the seasons and learning about the apparent brightness of the stars and planets. This is always a fun unit for students! As always, I appreciate all of the support given at home and that our lines of communication are so open! Please keep me posted if you see your child struggling or if there is something you need to share and I will continue to do the same. Communication is the key to our successful year together! Enjoy the weekend! Maura **DON'T FORGET NORWELL FOOD PANTRY COLLECTION NOVEMBER 12 -22ND - OUR FIFTH GRADE AMBASSADORS ARE MAKING US PROUD!** Important Dates to Remember: Monday, November 18th - MOON JOURNALS HOME! Monday, November 18th - 7pm - Cole School Celebration at the School Committee Meeting Tuesday, November 19th - LAST 24-Club - in the Library Thursday, November 21st - Early Release - Elementary Professional Development Friday, November 22nd - Writing Celebration in Room 15 8:15am Good afternoon and Happy Friday! Another busy week in Room 15! We started our week with a great Community Meeting reminding us to be BRAVE and to also honor all Veterans on Monday!! Charlie, Kaylee and Sadie did a fabulous job representing our class. Mrs. McGarry and Mrs. Gagnon were so grateful for their help! We put the finishing touches on our Informative writing this week. We would love to invite all families to come in so students can celebrate their accomplishment by sharing their article with you! Please mark your calendars for Friday, November 22nd at 8:15am! We look forward to seeing many of you in Room 15 as we shine brightly and share our progress! Next week we are starting our Personal Narrative writing unit. This is always a favorite unit for both me and the students as they are able to share many memories and bring them to life on paper! In Social Studies, we are digging into the reasons for colonization. How did the geography, climate and even the leaders impact the decisions the colonists made about where they settled? Students have chosen a region to research to see if they can find out more about how the colonists were treated - were all people treated the same in their region? Did some colonists have more rights than others? Why? Lots of great discussions! Social Studies geography projects are due next Wednesday, November 13th. In Reading, we were on the edges of our seats as we finished up Because of Mr. Terupt. Students made some great predictions about how Mr. Terupt's accident would change the behavior of specific characters as well as the whole class. This is such a great book to use to discuss character traits. We looked at not just the actions but the feelings and dialogue that gave us insights into how the characters were developing throughout this amazing novel. In The Sign of the Beaver, we are also working to find evidence of character traits as we read about how the relationship between Matt and Attean develops. It is great to see students "respectfully disagree" with opinions of classmates, but using specific evidence from the text to back themselves up! We started our new read aloud today, one of my favorite The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling. I can't wait to see what the class thinks of this read aloud! Next week, we will be starting our literature circles. Students will be given their Realistic Fiction novel that they "tasted" and enjoyed during our book tasting to read with a small group. They will set weekly goals for chapters to be read and then will get together on Fridays to discuss what they are reading. Students will be given a specific role as part of their weekly work. Roles will change each week giving students a chance to lead the discussion, but also to dig into the language and the setting and other story elements. I cannot wait to get started! In Math, we finished our work with Whole Number Division. Students worked hard to use mathematical language when explaining how to check their division work and also worked hard to slow down and use basic facts to help them solve bigger problems. I am so very proud of their work on today's assessment! You will see them in their Friday folders for you to review and sign the post it and return on Tuesday! Awesome job by all!! We will be moving on to the Order of Operations and Patterns in Mathematics next week! Students also continue to work hard with their math menus. Measurement review has definitely challenged them, but they are working hard to make connections between inches, feet, yard and miles and some have even started to look at some metric measurement! I especially loved their work taking on the role of the teacher and explaining, using FlipGrid, how to use partial products to solve a division problem! We are all looking forward to our 5th grade Math Night next Wednesday, November 13th from 6:30-7:30pm and hope to see many of you there! On December 4th, the fifth grade will be attending the Company Theater in Norwell to see "A Christmas Carol". Buses will leave Cole at 11:00am (students will have a snack on the bus). We will see the 11:30am show and be heading back to Cole about 1:15pm to have lunch in our classroom. Students should plan to bring their lunch - we will have a picnic in our classroom when we return. Permission slips are in their Friday folders. We need two parents to chaperone this trip - you must be CORI'd and Fingerprinted. Please let me know by next Wednesday, November 13th if you are available as I know this time of year is crazy for everyone! I try my best throughout the year to give as many parents as possible a chance to chaperone different events. I will let you know by next Friday so you can mark your calendars accordingly. Enjoy the long weekend! Maura Important Dates to Remember
Good afternoon!
I cannot believe it is already November 1st! Where does the time go! Well, in Room 15, we have been working hard and have lots of great news to share! This week we have been working to finish up our informative writing pieces. We took a look at our introductions and conclusions to see if we had found a way to hook our readers in as well as summarize the important big ideas we wanted to convey. I have been pushing students to go beyond the "I am going to tell you about xxx" . and "Now that you know about xxx" that we sometimes see them rely on for introductions and conclusions! They worked hard to come up with alternative starts as well as alternative endings. We are hard at work with final edits. I am looking to host a writing celebration the week of November 18th so students can share their pieces with you. Stay tuned for more details. We are moving into Narrative pieces next and I cannot wait to help them add details and strong vocabulary as they share personal stories! In Math, we are continuing our work with division. We are using the partial quotients strategy for 1 and 2-digit divisors and learning how to check our work with multiplication. We have also looked at how estimation can help us when we ask "does our answer make sense?" I have been proud of their work and continue to remind them that working on their fact fluency will continue to build their confidence in bot multiplication and division. We will be reviewing next week and having an assessment eitherat the end of next week or early the week of November 11th. Students are also doing a great job with their Math Menus. A big thank you to Ms. Pagnani for helping me come up with some different games and ideas to include each week. I have been exposing students to some measurement and rounding review to hopefully "prime the engines" so they will be ready and raring when we get to those topics this year! In Reading, we are on the edges of our seats with Because of Mr. Terupt. This week there was a terrible accident and Mr. Terupt is now in a coma! Be sure to ask your child about this wonderful story. What do they think about the different characters? How has working with the students in the collaborative classroom changed them? What lessons have they learned so far from Mr. Terupt? We have also been reading The Sign of the Beaver to tie in with our Social Studies unit on early colonization. Students are seeing how the relationship between Matt and Attean is changing and are making some great predictions about how Matt will survive without his family! Our "Bookworm Bistro" was also opened again this week for our second book tasting! Students sampled 8 different Realistic fiction titles. Since audio books are a great way to engage students, I read the first chapter into an audio file, so all students could listen to the beginning of each book and then write what they liked/didn't like about it. I then had them tell me their top 3 books from the tasting. We will be starting literature circles based on their choices late next week! Students were so engaged and it was awesome to see them choose some books that maybe they wouldn't have if they hadn't gotten through a chapter! If you have not yet signed up for Overdrive through the Norwell Public Library, please do! If you have a library card you can sign up and then sign out audio books for your child. My rule for audio books is that they MUST read along as they listen, this helps them with new vocabulary and to see punctuation and how it impacts the inflection in the reader's voice etc! In Social Studies we are digging into the 13 original colonies. Students are working with an interactive notebook and researching different sites to gather information on the geography, economy, climate and reasons to choose different colonies. They will also be learning about the leaders and then working to put it all together in a final project. They have been working really hard to find details about the different regions, deciding which region they are going to want to focus on. Next week, they will begin work on a mapping project that will coincide with this research. Students will be mapping the 13 original colonies and use symbols to indicate the resources etc. This project will be assigned on Monday and will be due on Wednesday, November 13th. I will send home more information on Monday. They will be given some time in class to work on this, but the rest will be done at home. I will set up check points to help them budget their time as they work through it! As you can see, so much going on in Room 15. We are getting ready to launch our study of the Earth's Systems which will include a deep dive of the Moon Phases! Students will be learning about the apparent brightness of the stars and how the earth's systems can effect human activity. SAVE THE DATES!!! WEDNESDAY - November 13th - 5th GRADE MATH NIGHT! 6:30 - 7:30pm . Come and play math games with your child! We are so excited for this and so thankful to the Norwell Education Foundation for our grant to buy so many great math games! WEDNESDAY - December 18th - 5th grade Holiday Concert 7-8pm Enjoy the weekend and as always, thanks for all of the support at home! Best, Maura Important Dates to Remember: DON'T FORGET TO MOVE YOUR CLOCKS BACK - DAYLIGHT SAVINGS ON SATURDAY/SUNDAY!
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