5B Classroom Blog: Week of August 28th

A note from Mrs. Burke:

Welcome back to school!  It's been a great first week.  I've enjoyed getting to know my new group of students; thank you parents for sharing them with me.  We spent most of the week learning about each other through getting to know you and team building activities. Students also learned about how to take care of the laptops and ipads in our classroom and worked together to create a chart for the expected behaviors in our classsroom.  We are creating our own community of learners in 5B.  

Please note the Homework Board link on the top right of this blog, under Useful Links.  This is a helpful link to keep you updated on any homework, or papers, that need to be returned to school.  Just click on the link and it will take you to an electronic version of the planner page you should be signing in your child's planner each day.

Take a look at the students in action during the first week of school:

Cup Stacking Group Challenge
In this activity, students worked in groups of four.  Their task was to work together to stack 6 cups into a pyramid, without touching the cups with their hands.  The only tool they could use was a rubber band that had 4 strings tied to it.  Each person in the group had to hold on to their string and they all had to work together to stack the cups.  It wasn't easy...

... but in the end, they persevered and succeeded!

Save Sam Partner Challenge

In the partner challenge, students had to save a gummy worm named Sam.  He was stuck in a boat, couldn't swim, and his life jacket (a gummy life saver) was under the boat. Students had to figure out how to get the life jacket onto Sam without touching him, or the life jacket, with their hands.  The only tools they could use were 2 paperclips. Again, not an easy challenge, but they learned how to work together using communication and cooperation.

Great teamwork 5B!

Proper Care and Use of Devices

We are very fortunate to have laptops and ipads in our classroom for the students to use. We have a 1:1 student to laptop ratio so each student gets their own laptop to use at school. Students spent part of their week learning about proper care and use of these devices. After learning what they will need to do, they made posters showing what they learned.  We will be hanging these posters up around the classroom as reminders. Creating these posters was also another great teamwork activity!