One Down, Three to Go!!!!

I can’t believe we are already one quarter of the way through the school year! We have gotten so much accomplished already and I am looking forward to even more the rest of the year. In the next few weeks we will be extremely busy. Although we have some breaks coming up, with parent teacher conferences, Veteran’s Day, and Thanksgiving, if we continue at the same pace, we will be well ahead of the learning curve!

The last few weeks have been jam packed in Reading! We have gotten through six Harcourt stories, and we have some good ones coming up. Although we spend a lot of time reading the story for the week, we spend even more time practicing good reader strategies. As of late, “monitoring and clarifying” has been the major focus. The students should be bringing home a bookmark with a variety of fix-up strategies they can use to clarify any reading problems they may have. With a little more practice, these strategies should become second nature. We will continue this for a few more weeks. 5J is also well on its way to meeting our goal of 500 books read and 100,000 minutes! Keep up all the good work at home with the independent reading!

As for Writing, we are finally getting into some of my favorite parts of the curriculum. For the next few weeks, we will be spending a lot of time on “memoir.” Although the students have had some experience with memoir in the past, there are much higher expectations for it at this level. We will be using this unit as an opportunity to develop our overall writing abilities that will carry over to all other modes of writing. ELABORTATION will be the number one focus during this unit. Not only that, but the students will become well versed in the writing process. During writers’ workshop, the students will spend a lot of time revising and editing their work, and the work of their peers. Evaluating others’ work is a great way for students gain a better understanding of what it takes to be a good writer. This will also help them become more familiar with the writing process, which will help them on future writing assignments (even outside of 5th grade). The Cool Cat Press is also up and running, so I am pushing students to get as much of their independent piece done as possible. I would like every student to be a published author by the end of this year!

Social Studies has been a major focus the last few weeks. We have covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. 5J has gotten from the Ice Age, 60,000 years ago, to the beginning of exploration just before Christopher Columbus. As I have mentioned before, we do not spend a lot of time in class reading the textbook. While the textbook is a great resource that needs to be utilized, I prefer students to read that at home. This gives us time to do more engaging learning experiences during class. I was very impressed with the presentations the students created about the early Native Americans. Not only did they learn a lot, but I learned a few things too! I was also very happy with how the class faired on the test. The average was an A-!!!!!!

Now that we have gotten through a unit in Social Studies, we are moving onto Science. We are already well on our way into learning about the digestive system, and I think the students have really enjoyed it so far. Just ask them about “peristalsis.” The next few weeks will be spent finishing up the digestive system, and the students will be creating a variety of products that demonstrate what they have learned. Be sure to ask them what they are doing with their group, I’m sure I’ll be in for a real treat.

It is hard to believe that we are already so far into the year. I guess time flies when you’re having fun! I am so proud of what we have accomplished so far, and I know there are great things to come. Keep up the great work everyone! One down and three to go.

REMEMBER TO LOOK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POSTING TO SEE THE HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEK!!!!!