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.
Holiday Book Exchange
Tag: 5th grade
Our Focus on Fractions
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.
B.B.Wolf Wins: Our Visit to Judge Pearson’s Courtroom
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.
Learning how clocks measure the Sun’s movement
Today we learned how to build a sun dial and measure the Sun’s apparent movement. The study began with learning about why people needed to measure time and how Egyptians, measuring the number of finger segments in two hands settled on 24 hours in a day. If you don’t know how the Egyptians did this, it would be a great question for your kid.
A Visit from NevadaTeach
Today we got a visit from University of Nevada Reno students and the NevadaTeach program. It was a chance to work with engineering standards and learn to use the Richter scale by modeling earthquakes.
The NevadaTeach program is a great way of getting science and math students into Washoe’s classrooms.
A Game of Catch via Socratic Seminar
Today we did a Socratic Seminar with Richard Wibur’s A Game of Catch. This is a particularly difficult text that requires some time to fully understand and comprehend. Although the story is pretty straight forward, the subtext or hidden message, takes some effort to get to.
To the credit of the students, they got there. They saw the symbolism of the apple tree and what it meant that Scho ends the story by saying, “I want you to do whatever you’re going to do for the whole rest of your life!”
Shadow Tracking
Today the students went outside to learn how their shadow changes throughout the day. In the morning students traced their shadow and four hours later they returned to the identical spot to make another tracing. Students then explained how their shadow changed based on the orientation of the sun.
Donated Items for our Classroom Auction
We have been receiving donations all summer from companies interested in helping with our classroom economy and our auctions. Lots of great stuff has been shared and we are fortunate to be getting these things. Look through what has been donated and consider saving for those things that interest you most.
Parent Welcome Package, 2017-2018 Version
Welcome families! Use the links below to retrieve documents from the 2017-2018 Parent Welcome Package. Each item was mailed to you but if you lose track of something or need additional copies, this page can help. Moreover, feel free to share this link with other caregivers who might be curious or need need to what was included. Thank you!
Welcome Letter and Overview of Classroom 2017-2018 version
5th Grade Supply List for 2017-2018
Blog Permission Form
Volunteer Form
Highlights from our Visit to the Nevada Capitol
Our last field trip for the year was to the Nevada Capitol. We started with a tour of the capitol and quickly moved through 150 years of history including a look at the first Supreme Court, the first legislative chamber and a visit to the museum. This was followed by a tour of the Legislature and a chance to see first-hand the passage of several bills. Moreover, Assemblywoman Jill Tolles was able to visit with the students and share some of her experiences.
Room 360 