5B Classroom News: Week of March 26th

A note from Mrs. Burke:
Students continued to learn about the regions of the U.S. this week.  This is an integrated unit and includes skills in language arts and social studies.  Students are using nonfiction books for this unit and have been learning about different text features found in these books.  Cordelia and Paige even wrote a song to help students remember the different text features.  Click here to see them performing their song.

Keep reading to see what our classroom reporters posted this week:


Integrated Studies:  Regions of the United States of America
Students are working in groups to learn about the regions of the U.S.  

I am studying the Southeast region of the United States. One thing I learned

is that there are 14 states in the Southeast region such as: Alabama, Arkansas,

Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North

Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

~Lucy

My group is studying the West region. I learned that earthquakes are caused

because of the plates in the earth shift. Many people die because of the

earthquakes in some parts of the world.

-Lily

My group and I have been learning about the southeast and I have learned

that in the southeast there are 14 states down there.

-Alexander

I have been studying the Midwest region of the U.S.  Things I have learned

include that all of the top corn producing states are located in the Midwest.

-Bennett

The region of the United States that I am studying is the Southwest region.

Over the course of my studying and filling in a facts note-catcher for my essay,

I have learned that the Southwest has over 300 days of sunlight each year, is

a very dry region, gets hit by tornadoes frequently, has four states (Arizona,

Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico), has many unique animals, some of the

Southwest used to be part of Mexico, only southern Texas borders the ocean

(the Gulf of Mexico), Texas is the second largest state next to Alaska, etc.

Overall, I think the Southwest is a very fascinating region.

-Nolan   

My group and I are learning about the southern region. I have learned that

Florida is one of the most popular states to live in the nation.  I also learned

that the District of Columbia has the smallest population in the southeast.

-Ella

In language arts we are learning about the southwest and its states and

traits that make it unique.

-Chandler

Second Step:  How to Handle Put Downs

In second step we were learning how to deal with put downs and we did

exercises and we ended up doing a good put up and a put down.

-Chandler

I learned to just calm down if something happened.

--Makayla

Students demonstrated how it would feel if someone said negative comments to them; put downs, and positive comments; put ups:

Students practiced how to respond to put downs using strategies they learned in Second Step:

5B Girls Make a Point:

On Wednesday all the girls wore their hair up in the same hairstyle. We did this because we knew that everyone is beautiful no matter what you look like. This started out as Paige wearing five year old hairstyles for a week. Then I suggested that she could wear a certain hairstyle. Soon enough we had all the girls in 5B to wear that hairstyle (including Mrs. Burke). Paige and I  are proud that we were able to coordinate this.

-Cordelia

Most of the girls in 5B believe strongly that people, especially women, shouldn’t be judged by what they look like. Some people judge others on the way they look, and if they like them or not; if they are good looking, they are liked, if they’re not good looking, they’re not. It was important to us that we did that because people now know what we strongly believe in, and that we shouldn’t be judged on how we look. Cordelia and I may have started it, but almost all the girls in our class,including Mrs. Burke, took part and made it so special!!!!!

-- Paige

The girls in the class, including me, wanted to wear their hair alike  for many

reasons. One of these reasons is to show independence. Another reason is

that they were inspired by their friend Paige. And the last reason of many is

that they wanted to show that people shouldn’t be judged for what they look

like or act like.

~Jocelyn

The message many girls in class wanted to share by wearing the same hairstyle

is that people can’t judge you because of the way you look.

~Lucy

The message many of the girls in the class (including me) wanted to share by

wearing the same hairstyle on Wednesday was all because, three, to four girls

in our class were wearing little kid hairstyles. So a message passed around to

every girl in the class to wear little kid hairstyles on Wednesday. This experience

was really fun, and I hope that more things could happen.

-Lyssette

On Wednesday most the girls in the class wore our hair in a side ponytail.  Our

purpose of this is to remind people of how unique we are and to say it does not

matter what you want to wear.  Though the hair style we wore looked easy, it

was very difficult to put up.

---Addyson

The message I thought of was that just because some of us might be wearing five year old hairstyles doesn't mean we should be judged by it.

-Ella