Tuesday May 30th

Summer is here. Well, we're allowed to wear white, that's something.

Anyway, we continue to work on our Christopher Columbus arguments. This unit also serves as a practice inquiry into social studies, a practice we intend to pursue in the future. We have definitely gotten quite excited about it. Is he a hero? Is he a villain? Is here some of each? Does it depend who you are?

Today we work on making a powerful introduction (while we continue our research and power quote finding.)

Ms, Lamb has updated her upcoming assignments, so you can check that link. Here is what is says now:

Finished Christopher Columbus Arguments Friday June 2

Presentations End of Year Project June 13-16

End of year assessments:

Star Reading

Star Math

On Demand Argument (sit and write it in class in one to two periods)

Social Studies Explorer Bio Card (takes about two days of class time)

Tonight's homework:

LA Spelling is finished for this year. Ms. Lamb may do a quick assessment, but will save the DSA (100 words) for the beginning of 6th and new group placement.

Christopher Columbus essay - work for 10-15 minutes at home each night if you have access to a computer for writing. If not, read something new from the packet.

READ - for at least 20 minutes per day - more is better - this will continue as a summer reading expectation

(More may get added tomorrow - I'm posting this Monday night)

Thursday 5-25-17

Sorry, I forgot to post yesterday, too many after school meetings and too weak of memory.

Homework tonight:

Math: Skill sheet is due tomorrow

LA: Finish ALL of words study packet

READ for 20 minutes - many people are not doing this. It is very very important to your future as a reader.

In LA we worked on raising the level of our arguments about Christopher Columbus. Is he a hero or a villain (or some of each)? You can't just say one piece of evidence. Find it in several places or more details about it. Make your argument even stronger.

Columbus Text Set Ms. Lamb even printed out several articles and walked us through them. All (and some more videos) are in the text set.

We continue to research and elaborate tomorrow.

Remember, we have Monday off for Memorial Day.

Tuesday 5-23-17

Tonight's homework:
LA - Day 3 of word study or second sort - note first sort and sentences should have been done
Read for at least 20 minutes, more if you didn't read last night

Math - skill sheet due Friday
Finish pages from class today

Today we took notes from our text book on Christopher Columbus's 4 voyages and what Europe was like right before he set sail (printing press, sailing school, compass developed). Then we watched a video called Animated Hero Classics: Christopher Columbus which predictably gave a very positive view of our topic.  We collected more notes in preparation for tomorrow's flash draft of our position paper, which we will write in class.

All project plans in the form of Worksheet #1 should be posted on google classroom.

More water was tested in science class.

Monday 5-22-17

Tonight's homework
LA 8 sentences and finish first sort of word study
Finish project worksheet #1 and upload to google classroom

Read for 20 minutes

Math
Skill sheet due Friday
Page 13

We got started arguing about Christopher Columbus today. We watched three short videos from this TEXT SET. So far the reviews are mixed and leaning toward the bad side. Tomorrow we will look at a website with a very positive look at his work and start a biography video.

We also got a handle on our final projects by filling our the first worksheet Year End Study Plan

Thursday 5-18-17

Hi all,
Today we did a lot of work on our chocolate milk argument letters. Ms. Lamb would like a draft complete with three reason paragraphs by tomorrow. The reason paragraphs should look like this:

My first reason is serving chocolate milk ruins kids for the taste of plain milk. For example,  one cafeteria sells 7 times the number of chocolate as white milk. In addition,once kids have tried chocolate milk, they refuse to drink plain milk because it is not sweet and full of chocolate. Also, cafeterias around the country are reporting wasting of many cartons of plain milk when they return to a plain milk only cafeteria. This is because kids are used to the sweetened milk and the plain milk now “tastes bad” to them. In addition, kids and adults need to learn to eat real food. It tastes good without added sugar.

Use this doc to think about how paragraphs go

We will try to wrap up the letters tomorrow and argue about something else next week - Christopher Columbus. We are quickly running out of year, but we still have much to do.

I'm not sure what went on in math, but in science kids watched a video.

Homework: All word study due tomorrow (can work in project period of you need to)
Chocolate milk letter due tomorrow, you have LA and project period if you want, but that means you won't be able to work on your project.
No math
Read for 20 minutes

Tuesday 5-16-17

Tonight's homework:

LA Word study - sentences and first sort should be complete

Read for 20 minutes

Math

Sadly, we had to put the kibosh on the spinners and the putty. We are currently looking for helpful substitutes that won't turn into distracting toys.

We continue writing our chocolate milk letters...should we have it in the cafeteria or not? We research and add evidence and explain the importance of the reasoning and look for some good quotes to include. A draft of five paragraphs is due on Thursday. We will have work time in class on Wednesday.

Monday 5-15-17

Tonight's homework:

You need to have three paragraphs of reason and evidence to defend your chocolate milk stance. Here are some extra sites to look at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JN2asMfi-XNpJy6GdLJ0Auvbrd0-teQ5LkZQMIPhLJA/edit?usp=sharing

Your letter should start with your stance and reasons (three). The next three paragraphs are about each of the reasons with evidence to support (use research and quote experts).

Finish last week's word study.

These two items will be checked tomorrow before recess and you will be held hostage until they are complete. We will start a new word study in seminar.

Don't forget to read for 20 minutes.

No math tonight.

Thursday 5-11-17 And the winners....

The Legend Science Fair 2017 winners are:
Honorable mention - Tyler and Kevin Does Gum Help You Focus?
Tie for second place
Do Different Sodas Make a Rocket Go Further? Lu, Aidan, Nathan, Evan C and AJ
Does Slime Actually Help you Focus? Molly, Lila and Katie
and the winner
Does the Color of Your Drink Affect Your Choice? Jack, Kate, Natalie, Alek

Everyone was terrific, really.

Tonight's homework:

LA choose one more article or video to read or watch and take notes (you can read more if you want)
Tomorrow we will write a rudimentary position paper flash draft

Read for at least 20 minutes (articles can apply)

Math - decimal packet - math test tomorrow on decimals

Wednesday May 9

Science fair presentations were fabulous. Tomorrow we have 20 minutes to upgrade our trifolds before the judging. The CARES cash prize money is all ready.

Since it was a late start day, that's pretty much all we did. We compared notes a bit on our second article:
Chocolate Milk: More Harmful Than Healthful. We had a talk about why we actually write the notes down, even if we have underlined them in the text.
1) we are paraphrasing and summarizing when we write
2) we know the information more by writing it
3) we begin to categorize it into pro or con

Some kids like sticky notes, some like writing notes in the journal. Either way, the notes are to end up in our journals.

Here are some more articles and videos
Text set

Homework:
Math: Decimal study pack due Friday (test on Friday also)
LA: Finish the notes from 2nd article if you did not have them done (you know who you are)
Day 3 of word study
Read for 20 minutes

Tuesday May 9th

Today we presented our science fair projects to a peer group for feedback, tomorrow we present for our team. Thursday, Epic comes over to give us their judgement. We began a class study into the question of our school cafeteria serving chocolate milk. We returned to words study in seminar today. We thought about the question and how considering both sides of an argument can strengthen your claim. We read Nutrition in Disguise today in class and took notes. We decided this article was clearly on the pro side of the argument. Tonight's homework will look at the con side.

Homework for tonight:
LA Read the article Chocolate Milk: More Harmful Than Helpful. Take 6-10 notes on sticky notes, in the margins or in your journal. We will compare notes tomorrow in seminar.

Read for 20 minutes (this may be the previous article or your own novel)

Finish your sentences from seminar today (word study)

Math: Finish class work page C 54? (I forgot the page number)

Monday May 8th

The Return of the Homework

Here it is
LA - find one article or video related to your science fair research
Read for 20 minutes book of your choice or an article you found on your topic

Math Page 54 - finish

Science fair is progressing. Tomorrow - last touches and practice - Wednesday present to the class

Friday May 5th

Because the week has been so weird, and I have been so distracted, I keep forgetting to blog.

Anyway, students have been FABULOUS with the testing. It is long and grueling and they brought all of the growth mindsets and perseverance. Mr. Meadows and I are both very impressed.

Also, our science fair progress is blossoming. There are projects and trifolds all over the classroom. Today students MUST do the following

1. Your procedure must be typed, printed and shared with Ms. Lamb/Mr. Meadows and in your folder.
2. Your organizer sheet page one must be complete, printed and in your folder and shared with all in the group and Mr. Meadows/Ms. Lamb.
3. THEN, and ONLY THEN, you may work on any part of your project.

We will have time today to work on science fair and maybe even kick back with a game break. Kids who missed days this week (Tuesday through Friday) will start make ups on Monday.

Our science fair due dates are : Wednesday - present to our class one person at a time and collect feedback sheets from all. Then do any fixes for the hall presentation on Wednesday afternoon and have hall presentations on Thursday morning. Epic will be judging ours (no names will appear on the board, we will all be assigned numbers) and we will judge Epic.

The first place winners will receive $25 each in CARES cash. Second place gets $10 each and third place gets $5 each.

Wednesday May 3

First day of SBACs. It was pretty grueling and we held it up. Many of us worked for more than two hours on the 36 math questions. Mr. Sullivan, Ms. Erickson and Ms. Lamb lobbied Mr. Hamilton to postpone the afternoon test until Friday and he agreed. We will take the second math section Friday morning at 8.

That left the afternoon free for science fair. Here was our plan.

1. All together watch Prepare for a science fair
2. Answer questions as a group
3. Move to our small groups
4. Fill out worksheet please share with entire group and Ms. Lamb AND print out a copy for Ms. Lamb
5. After worksheet is complete either work on discussion and planning or have individuals begin to find research. Use this notetaking doc, Share with all. If it’s too hard to work on the same doc, make a copy, then copy and paste later onto one.

Ms. Lamb’s guide with links

We also did some playing outside in the rain.
Tomorrow we take on ELA SBACs part one.

Tuesday - May 2, 2017

Sorry I missed my first day back of blogging.

Mr. Meadows is out with a bad back yesterday and today, but we are doing fine with Mrs. Westie subbing.

Yesterday we practiced getting onto our LA sbac tests - and good thing as none of the computers were charging because there was a power problem. We solved it and everyone is working away on their first math test as I write this.  We have two sections of math today, so kids will be pretty tired when they get home today.

There will be no homework this week in deference to energy conservation for the tests. We encourage kids to bring snacks, water bottles and anything that reasonable to help them to persevere, use their growth mindsets and do their best to show their knowledge in math and LA.

In our off hours, we are working on our SCIENCE FAIR projects. EPIC, our neighbor fifth grade team, is joining us. Ms. Erickson has whipped up some great tools which I am sharing with students.  She requested that we work on teams of 3 or 4, so we have adjusted that.

Groups will need a trifold to present their findings. We have them for sale in the school store for $4 or kids can use recycled ones that I have from past projects.

To sum up
SBAC tests
Science Fair
extra recess
walks if it's nice out
maybe a movie if it' raining out