Another Good Week!

5J has really had an awesome year so far, and once again, we had another good week! We got a lot accomplished and I am happy to say there was some very visible growth. In every subject, the students learned something new, or solidified a skill that we had been working on.

For example, in reading, I am now confident in the students’ ability to read a passage and complete an extended response. This week we really hit extended response hard, and after making the needed corrections to their first drafts, I think they are ready for the next one. Next week we will be reading Evelyn Cisneros: Prima Ballerina, and focusing on a number of things. We will continue practicing our extended responses for the ISAT’s. We will also focus on the skill of summarization and picking out the key parts of a story.

Although extended response is part of reading and writing, we continued working in other facets of writing. We have made some strides in the new grammar curriculum. We are all done with the simple sentence units, and now we are well on our way into the compound sentences part. Not only that, but students have come a long way with their independent pieces. We have a number of authors in our class who are in the final stages of publishing their books with the Cool Cat Press. I’m excited to see what they have in store for us. Next week we will continue as normal, while throwing in some more of the ABC’s D of prompt writing.

Social Studies has been a real blast! If you haven’t noticed yet, I try to steer clear of the textbook as much as possible. History can be very interesting, but sometimes the textbook can make it a little too dull for my liking. As a teacher, there are a lot of resources out there that I can utilize that will still deliver the same information to the students as the textbook. However, the textbook does offer some good guiding questions that the class should still pay attention too. Through our projects, movies, and use of library books, I still expect the students to be able to answer those guiding questions. The students have spent all this week researching their topic, and next week we will begin the presentations on the American Revolution. From what I have seen so far, I have some high expectations for what the students have come up with.

Celebrations:
-100% on Unit 19 Spelling Test
Aimen, Nathan, Victoria, Hannah C., Hannah F., Arushi, Lanie, Matthew R., Cooper, and Nick.
-100% on William Joyce Harcourt Test
Dominic, Avarie, Lanie, Megan, Matthew R., and Julia
-Hannah C. passed Otter Creek division