We had a nice day at the Oxbow Nature Study Area. The focus was on habitat and students investigated the area through four of their five senses. (Eating things was forbidden.)
Field Trip to Oxbow
Investigation: Patterns of Motion
We have spent several hours this week looking at patterns in motion. Students are learning that motion exhibits regular patterns and future motions can be predicted. They are learning about wheel-and-axel systems and how the sizes of the wheels can lead to curved paths of motion.
Investigation 1
Investigation 2
Fishbowl: A Classroom Discussion
Today the kids completed a fishbowl. We have been reading “The Wind and the Willows” and discussing several themes including the value of friendship and loyalty. This led to thinking about the character that best exemplified these qualities.
Students brainstormed evidence to support one character or another before beginning our first Fishbowl. In a Fishbowl, students sit in a circle with several students in the middle. Participants share ideas around a topic and if someone in the middle needs help or has run out of ideas, they will replace themselves with someone from the outside.
1st Week of 3rd Grade
The students completed their first week of 3rd grade and I also completed my first week of 3rd grade. It’s been great!
We established important routines and procedures, engaged in a few icebreakers, and reserved a great deal of time to get started with our content. We read from the Wind and the Willows, built number bonds and arrays, studied magnetism, did some word study, and learned our first annotation symbols.
It’s been an amazing start.
Donations for our Classroom Economy
Donations for the classroom economy have been arriving since June. These will be auctioned off throughout the school year to students who take seriously the goals of our classroom: be nice and work hard.
Progress!
The kids spent their first three years at Gomm using this as a music room. I’m doing my best to make it the best possible learning space for 3rd grade outcomes. Although still a work in progress, I am confident it will be ready for kids beginning August 6th.
An End and a New Beginning
I cleaned out my classroom and moved everything into my new 3rd grade room.
I’ve loved my two years in 5th and I am looking forward to new challenges and opportunities in the coming academic year.
Sprinting at the End
We finished the year with a burst. We completed our study of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream, a full unit on sound, multiple opportunities to identify claims, evidence and reasoning in informational text and the elements of plot in narrative (exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action.) We “stepped-up” to sixth grade with mini investigations of negative integers, area of parallelograms and right triangles, and finding rate. We also moved through several inquiry activities including Youcubed.org in which we learned about conjectures. In other words, we ended the year the way we started it, by working hard.
Our Visit to the Capital
We had a great trip to the Capital. We are all enormously thankful for the hard work of the volunteers and their attention to making sure the visit was engaging and thorough.
Great American Day, 2018
I am not entirely sure how far back the Great American Day tradition goes but it was fun to continue what Mrs. Dunn, who retired last year, firmly established. Students picked a Great American and spent the last eight weeks researching the person. This was turned into a full report and then synthesized into a one-minute speech the students shared with the Roy Gomm community.
Room 360 