Sunday, February 19, 2017

I Love to Read Month!

Reading Opens Doors
In celebration of "I Love to Read" month, the students decorated our classroom door. They created a winter wonderland advent calendar.  When you open one of the snowflake doors you will find a picture of a student in 5B along with a picture of their favorite book.  They had a great time decorating the door!




Spelling Bee Finalists
The OQS Spelling Bee will be held on March 2nd at 5:30 p.m. in the gym.  I am pleased to announce the finalists from 5B:  Kate, Lilly, Evan; and Sadie is our alternate. A big congratulations to all of the students in 5B who participated in our classroom spelling bee. I am proud of all of you!







Saturday, February 11, 2017

Highlights from 5B for the Week of February 6th 2017...

New Technology in our Classroom
We are fortunate to have some new technology in our classroom!  Recently, a 60 inch flat screen tv was installed which we are using with a new Yoga laptop computer that also turns into a tablet. The students interact with the Yoga laptop, and when they write on the tablet it shows up on the tv.  We are learning how to use this new technology and the students have been very helpful as we continue to try new things with it.  It has been a wonderful addition to our classroom!





A New Science Unit about Earth's Systems
This week we started a new science unit about Earth's Systems.  In writing, we are using the book The Four Spheres of Earth to help students learn about the Earth's Systems. They spent this week becoming familiar with this non-fiction text.  Working in groups, they answered questions about the book in a class packet that they will be using later in the unit to write an essay.  We spent a lot of time discussing how this book is different from fiction books they have read.







The 100th Day of School!
On Friday we celebrated the 100th day of school by making a special trail mix.  Students brought in 100 pieces of something to add to our trail mix.  At snack time I mixed everything together and shared it with them.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to this special snack.  They enjoyed nibbling on their creation.



The Water Cycle
As part of our Earth's Systems science unit, we have been doing investigations about the water cycle.  These investigations have been helping students understand evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and accumulation first hand.  The one they got most excited about was when they made it rain inside the school!  They put together an investigation that included water, a glass jar, shaving cream, and food coloring.  The expression on their faces when they saw it raining in their jars was priceless!










Students wanted to let their rain jars sit over the weekend
to see what would happen to them... maybe some evaporation?






Sunday, February 5, 2017

Fact Fluency and Spelling Bee Practice

Fact Fluency Practice
Students are continuing to practice their multiplication and subtraction fluency.  With a partner, they rolled two 20 sided dice and multiplied the 2 numbers together using the area model. Then they subtracted their answer from 1,000.  Whoever gets to zero first is the winner. This game has been helping students with their basic multiplication facts as well as regrouping when subtracting.  Parents, please help your child learn their basic multiplication facts as they are essential for all of our math units. 










Spelling Bee Practice
To help students get ready for our upcoming classroom spelling bee next week, they have been working with the 5th grade spelling bee words this week.  I had them do some word sorts with the spelling bee words earlier in the week, and then in the middle of the week Miss Carlock came into our room and ran a mock spelling bee.  Most of the students will be participating in our classroom spelling bee which is taking place on February 9th. Thank you to Miss Carlock for all of her help!  On Friday, I had the students practice writing some of the spelling bee words with their opposite hand.  If they are left handed, they had to write the words with their right hand; and if they are normally right handed, they had to write the words with their left hand.  It was a great way for them to really concentrate on each letter of the words they were writing.