Friday, March 29, 2013

5V News

Parent Conferences:
The schedule is up on the blog here: PARENT CONFERENCE SCHEDULEPlease email me with a time you would like and I'll fill in a slot for you.  You can also let me know if there is a better time for you that's not listed on the schedule.  Thanks! 

We are learning about:
  • Matter
  • Exponents
  • Feature articles
  • Character development
Some activities we did this week:
  • Reviewed exponents and how to use them
  • Wrote numbers in standard notation, exponential notation and number and word notation
  • Continued drafting and sharing our feature articles
  • Began listening to Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli during read aloud
  • Noticed how a character's actions can show us a lot about them
  • Linked a character's action with a personality trait during read aloud and in our own reading
  • Visited with author Marty Kelly and learned about the writing and illustrating process
  • Did a class experiment to see how molecules move in liquids
  • Discovered that adding or subtracting energy creates a change
  • Began to compare physical changes and chemical changes
Have a great weekend!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Parent Conferences

The parent conference schedule is now posted under the "Parent Conferences" tab on the blog.  Please check it out and email me with a time that works for you and I will fill in the schedule as I hear back from you.

Click here to visit the "Parent Conference" tab

Thank you!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

5V News

We are learning about:
  • Adding and subtracting fractions
  • Writing feature articles
  • Questioning
  • Matter
Some activities we did this week:
  • Practiced finding common denominators
  • Estimated sums and differences of fractions
  • Played "Fraction Capture"
  • Found how direct quotations can add to a feature article
  • Continued researching and writing our feature articles
  • Discussed the difference between "thick" vs. "thin" questions
  • Read Freefall and Sector 7 to practice questioning
  • Watched a Bill Nye video on the phases of matter
  • Viewed our latest Mystery Chat video
  • Narrowed down our Mystery Chat to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar or U.A.E.
  • Finished reading The Witches by Roald Dahl
Notes and reminders:
  • Be sure to check out our blog posts at www.kidblog.org/msvalentisclass 
  • Memory book pages for your child are due Friday, April 12th 
  • Parent conferences will be April 10th and 17th- more information to follow next week

Thursday, March 14, 2013

5V News

Basketball game:
The faculty vs 5th grade basketball game was a great time!  Thank you for all of your efforts in planning and running the event.  It was well attended and it was wonderful to see all of the kids having fun.  Of course it didn't matter who won, but I was still thankful to score a couple of points! 

Blogging:
Last week was our first round of blogging using our rubrics as a guide.  In your child's Friday folder you will see the rubric and we are already noticing more quality blog posts as students self-assess their writing.  

Mystery Skype:
We participated in another Mystery Skype this week with a class from Florida.  I'm impressed with students' planning and preparation and cooperation during these calls.  Students are noticing how quickly they are improving with questioning and their knowledge of United States geography.  You can ask your child to show you our shared folder "Mystery Skype" in Google Drive to see all of our collaborative work.  Check out Flickr to see what our classroom looks like during a Mystery Skype call. 

Here's what we are working on:
  • Collecting and interpreting data 
  • Writing feature articles
  • Questioning during reading
  • Building our schema for states of matter
Parent Conferences:
Spring conferences will be April 10th and 17th.  Last year I created a Wiki for conference sign ups and I'm looking for the best web based way you can view and choose available conference times.  I will send something out in the next week or two. 

Have a great weekend!