Friday, January 31, 2014

5V News

Happy Friday!  We had a great week in 5V filled with science experiments, a Mystery Skype and a lot of other fun work.  Please check out our latest blog posts and our Flickr page!

Report cards go home today and we are officially in the second half of fifth grade.  Students have been working extremely hard and should be proud of all of their accomplishments.  As the year continues, I like to steadily increase the expectation for students in 5th grade.  We will focus on student responsibility, organization and stamina for challenging work.

I know that students will rise to the occasion as we look to challenge them more in the second half of the year.  This is the time of year when we can expect a lot of growth from students- when they are comfortable in our community, they know the work expectations and they begin to take an increased ownership of their learning.  We have a wonderful class full of caring, thoughtful and motivated children!  

As always, my goal is that this growth takes place in an environment where students love learning and love coming to school each day.  Thank you for your support in this and feel free to contact me at any time!  

Thursday, January 23, 2014

5V News

5V Photos:
Have you checked out our Flickr site lately?  We are always posting the latest photos of what's happening in our classroom.  Here it is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/msvalentisclass/

Science:
Has your child told you about Science Companion yet?  We are piloting a new science program and we just started this week.  There is a great online component that goes along with our inquiry lessons in class.  Ask your child to log in and show you the work that he or she has done this week.  We had a great time investigating the properties of matter!

IXL:
IXL has been a great resource for us to practice our math concepts and now we are doing a free trial of the language arts component.  Ask your child to show you the topics we have been exploring in both subject areas!

Current curriculum topics:

  • Measurement
  • Reading nonfiction
  • Writing persuasive essays
  • Properties of matter
Have a great weekend!  

Friday, January 17, 2014

5V News

We participated in our second Mystery Skype this week! The class was from Iowa and we guessed their location in only 7 questions!  The best part was after we guessed the location we learned several facts about Iowa and we shared important facts about New Hampshire.  It was interesting to see that they were also a class with 1:1 Chromebooks.  This class is now on our blogroll and we have already started commenting on their blog posts.  Ask your child about his or her job during this Skype session!

Curriculum topics:

  • Measurement
  • Persuasive essay
  • European explorers
  • Reading nonfiction 
Some activities we did this week:
  • Practiced measuring using US customary units
  • Converted between customary units 
  • Found supporting details for main ideas in our nonfiction texts
  • Problem solved unknown words in nonfiction
  • Explored the five most common structures of nonfiction text 
  • Continued drafting our persuasive essays 
  • Met in small groups to help each other revise our persuasive writing
  • Finished our explorer information sheets using Google Docs and templates 
  • Worked on the first pages in our altered books
Notes and reminders:
  • The second quarter closes today, report cards go home Friday, January 31st 
  • Spelling bee: Monday, January 27th 
Have a great weekend!

Friday, January 10, 2014

5V News

Happy New Year!  We had a busy week in 5V getting back into the swing of things!  Be sure to check out this week's blog posts- they are definitely our best yet! 5V Kidblog site

Our curriculum topics:

  • The metric system
  • European explorers
  • Reading nonfiction
  • Persuasive essay
Some activities we did this week:
  • Practiced measuring using the metric system and the customary unit system
  • Converted between units in the metric system 
  • Continued writing our persuasive essays
  • Watched for shifts in verb tense our writing
  • Looked at students' blog posts and graded them with our new blogging rubric
  • Participated in the Geography Bee with Mr. Fosher 
  • Began reading nonfiction in reading
  • Followed the steps of previewing a section, predicting the content and activating our prior knowledge in each nonfiction section 
  • Determined main ideas after reading a section of nonfiction 
  • Chose our books for altered books and began the project! 
  • Continued learning during our Genius Hour 
Notes and reminders:
  • Second quarter ends Friday, January 17th 
  • No school- Monday, January 20th 
Have a great weekend!