Sunday, September 17, 2017

5B Classroom News: Week of Sept. 11th

Note to Parents:
After this post, all future blog posts will be written by the students!  During the morning check in time I will give students the choice to be classroom reporters during the week so they can let you know what's been going on in class.  It's a wonderful opportunity for them to write with a purpose, to an audience.  I also look forward to reading what they take away from what we do in class.  

Also, I hope to see you at open house on Thursday, September 21st from 5:30 - 6:30.


Language Arts
We are using a new  language arts curriculum in 5th grade this year that was created by EL Education.  There are 4 modules in the curriculum.  The first module is focused on teaching students how to become close readers and writing to learn.  The theme of this unit is human rights.  During the lesson pictured below, the daily learning target for students was:

"I can determine the gist of the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

The students have been very engaged in this work and have shown lots of progress each day to meet their daily learning target.







Science
We started our unit on Engineering and Design.  Students are learning about each step in the Engineering and Design process through investigations.



Investigation #1: Gumdrop Pedestal




 

 

Investigation #2: Foil Boats

The Problem: The Pennies Club are out for a leisurely afternoon on a boat.  Everything was just peachy until the boat sprang a leak and sank!  The only supply they have is a 1 ft by 1 ft piece of aluminum foil.  You need to rescue as many members of the Pennies Club as you can.





 


Students worked hard as they followed the steps in the Engineering and Design process to solve the problems in these two investigations.  Some groups struggled as they found out it wasn't easy to all agree on one design.  Next week they will continue to learn about the Engineering and Design process and what they can learn from their first prototypes that don't work (it's okay to fail, as long as you learn from your mistakes).

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