Dear Fifth Graders and Fifth Grade Families,
We made it through three weeks of school, technically only 11 and a half days. I couldn't be prouder of our class, everyday I come to Marin ready for what is next. Ms. Barcelona's fifth graders are without a doubt the smartest fifth graders in the school. I am such a lucky a teacher to have such incredible students.
For all of my parents and families of these amazing fifth graders.... OPEN HOUSE is WEDNESDAY, October 1st at 5:30. PLEASE COME BY ROOM 205! I would love to meet all of you and show you what we have been up to.
These last few weeks have been mainly team building. I tell my students everyday that we are a TEAM, if one member is down we need to all help pick them back up. My goal is that everyone can work together smoothly and really appreciate each other and our uniqueness. We have played many games as a team and we are continuing to work together on helping each other and using positive language.
For language arts we have read three books, "The Giving Tree," "Oh the Places you will Go," and "Thank you Mr. Falker. We have talked about the places that we are going as fifth graders and created goals for the year. We have also started our Daily Five program, which is the Readers and Writers workshop framework in which students pick two of the five options daily to become independent with literacy. It is crucial that students are reading for 30 minutes per night to meet their reading goals. It is even more crucial that you are promoting reading at home, sit with your child, read with them. Practice expression (sounding like the characters would sound) and pacing, reading without little pauses. Having supportive adults in their lives discussing the importance of reading will only help carry the message through. Lastly our spelling list will be given every Monday or Tuesday with word work for the week. Each day of the week students will need to be working with their spelling words, writing them three times, putting them in sentences, defining them, and a practice test. Your support is so so important to encourage children to spell and read throughout their week. Next week are starting our first classroom chapter book "Wonder."
In fifth grade math we have been reviewing some basic concepts to refresh our memory on estimation, number types, and measurement. In the next few weeks we will be digging deep into place value. We made paper chains and did a really exciting measurement activity. Students were all given the same amount of paper, glue and scissors. They had to create their best paper chain within a time limit. We then discussed how different the chains came out and that each student works differently but we are still all connected together. Then we measured them with different types of measurement and attempted to look at the different types of measurement.
In the upcoming weeks for Social Studies and Science we will be looking at different types of maps and how to read maps. It is important that our fifth graders know that they are part of this big world, not just Bridgeport, but also our county, our state, our country, our continent, our planet, and our solar system. Furthermore it is one of our biggest goals this year that each student leaves room 205 knowing all 44 presidents, all 50 states, and all 50 capitals. Seems like a lot right? Think about it this way, that is only 144 pieces of information to know, and we are in school 180 days! That is less than one name per day. We have plenty of time, and I know that I have the smartest 5th graders there is. In science we are going to be learning about the scientific method and how to conduct experiments during a lab.
Here are some of the pictures from the last few weeks, hope you enjoy them!
