Pictures from our trip to Billinghurst, as the students get ready for middle school. The field trip included ice breakers, visits to multiple classrooms, a review of outdoor and indoor expectations, and work with their future principal, Mr. Mattick.
We maximized our instructional time as we headed into Spring Break 2023. We got another visit from Mrs. Gillette, role played key events from the American Revolution, finished our latest Doodles project and completed our first assignments on Writable. We also acknowledged Pi Day and Reading Week, which was punctuated by reading with a flashlight.
Decorating a cereal box is as old a tradition as there is in elementary school. Thanks families for sharing the boxes and for being so generous with Valentines treats.
So impressed with the students who took full advantage of the instructional time leading into Fall Break. From our News Director:
This is the seventh week of school and we have accomplished so much. Our reading skills have been boosted and many other skills have been sharpened.
Since this is almost the end of our second month, we are working on many interesting things. For math, we are working on multiplication with multidigit numbers using the standard algorithm. To practice ELA, we have been reading about Tom Sawyer and his adventures. For writing, we have been reading debates and picking a side and writing about it using I-CERC: introduction, claim, evidence, reasoning, and conclusion. We have also been learning high school level grammar. This is what happens on a normal day in Mr. Grossman’s class every day!
On Thursday September 29th, we were filmed in the classroom. Some of us got interviewed about our Five-Minute Plan. Our Five-Minute Plan is a list of 5 things that we do in the morning when we get to class. We had our first art class and learned about Cubism through Jacob Laurence’s art piece. We made pictures of rooms with a vanishing point.
This is what we have been doing for the last two weeks of school in Mr. Grossman’s class, as we get ready for the fall break.
In just a week, the students begin their Fall Break. Amazing that is has arrived so quickly. In the last few weeks, we have demonstrated the ability to write multi-paragraph essays, multiply and divide decimals, understand the implications of the Earth rotating on an axis, built an understanding of indigenous groups in North and South America, and had way too many indoor recesses.
Amazing what we accomplished the first week. Students showed such maturity and by day three, they had flexible learning in place, in which there is no assigned seating. We got through several math lessons, completed our first Juicy Sentence, and even did a Pro Se Court. Moreover, we created the conditions for a really strong community.
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.
Thank you families for helping with our white elephant holiday book exchange. The kids were able to sort through a number of terrific titles and best of all, everyone has something to read during the vacation.
A big part of having a successful 5th grade year is being able to add, subtract, divide and multiply mixed numbers and fractions. To the credit of the students, we are quickly marching through this content and the students are doing extremely well with the first part, adding and subtracting mixed numbers. This success, will allow us to then move to the operations, division and multiplication. Moreover, with the right foundation, students will enter the middle school years ready for rates, ratios and proportional reasoning.
The first two weeks with fractions was largely conceptual with students creating models on how to add and subtract fractions. Now, students are using more traditional algorithms—the way their parents learned—with a great deal of success.
Thank you to all the families who were able to join us for Kids Court. The day involved meeting Judge Scott Pearson, putting on a mock trial, and learning more about the Washoe County jails and judicial process.
Certainly, the highlight was the trial and ultimately B.B. Wolf was awarded the $3100 in damages he was seeking.
Room 360 