Celebrating Creativity!

This month we're celebrating "creativity" at school, and students in Room 8 have certainly applied their most creative thinking to their learning this week.

In science, students worked in small groups to build "motion models' as a performance task for Lesson 1.  Students needed to create two models that would demonstrate a pattern of motion - either a back and forth, zigzag, straight, or round and round motion. 

After watching our Monday Mystery Doug video on the human skeletal system, we made our own "x-rays" to show the bones in our hands.  Students were so excited about making these, and now they hang in our windows for all to see!  Great job everyone!

What's new in Room 8?

Our focus in reading right now is on story elements:  character, setting, and plot.  Students are learning to use a character's words, actions, thoughts, and feelings to determine character traits.  When your child is reading at home, ask them to tell you about the main character in their book and  have them support their ideas with evidence.  Engage them in discussion about whether or not they like the character and why.  These types of discussions about reading truly help to boost comprehension.

In these photos, students are reading a short story with a partner and coding the text clues to determine information about the main character.  You will find this short story and the activity sheet in this week's Friday Folder.

Next week we will be learning about story setting.  The setting in our classroom read aloud, The Wild Robot, is crucial to the story and how the events unfold.  Students will get an understanding of how story setting often impacts story character and plot.  Again, talk to your child about this when they are doing their nightly reading.

As I mentioned in last week's entry, students are now up and running with Google Classroom.  This week, students practiced making a Google Doc.  Students are just learning how to navigate the tool bar, so being able to set up a document is a big job!

This afternoon, I assigned students the task of creating their very own Google Doc through our Google Classroom.  Everyone was successful in choosing a font, centering a title, bolding and underlining text, listing sentences and numbering them, and then submitting the document back to me successfully.  My hope is that once everyone is comfortable with this process, we can begin doing some homework assignments through Google Classroom.

In writing, students have been working on their second personal narratives as well as a spooky story for Halloween.  Many students have finished the final drafts, and you will find copies in this week's folder.  If you don't see it, your child is still finishing and it will come home next week. 

You will notice that the narratives have a great deal of detail and some nice dialogue as well.  These are skills that we have been working on in class - how to "stretch" a moment by providing lots of detail, using dialogue in just the right places to create interest, replacing boring verbs or adjectives with more sophisticated choices.  Many students were feeling pretty accomplished this week, and I'm pretty proud of their efforts!

Happy weekend everyone, and as always, thank you for all you do at home to support your child's learning!

A Visit from our Student Council Members

We were so lucky to have two of our sixth grade student council members come to class and share a very special book with us this afternoon.  These wonderful boys shared the book, What Do You Do With an Idea by Kobi Yamada.  The book celebrates creativity, which is one of our Life is Good superpowers.

The best part was the inspirational talk that these boys gave the class after the reading.  Words of wisdom about the importance of being true to yourself and perseverance.  Well done Cam and Zack!

What's Happening in Room 8?

It's hard to believe we are already into the month of October, but we are busy, busy, busy in the classroom, and things are rolling right along!

We have just finished one of my favorite books, Fish in a Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  This book is such a wonderful way to discuss issues around learning differences, the meaning of friendship, bullying, and how important it is to persevere, even when things are the most challenging.  I have been reading this book aloud daily for the last several weeks, and the kids have been so incredibly thoughtful about the characters and their unique experiences.

The Global Read Aloud 2017 has just begun and I will be reading, The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown.  The Global Read Aloud is a wonderful way to celebrate reading and literature with our peers but also with students and classrooms in other parts of the world.  I'm looking forward to finding some creative ways to share our thoughts about this new book.

If you'd like to learn more about Global Read Aloud, check out the links below.

https://theglobalreadaloud.com/2017/04/07/and-the-winners-are-global-read-aloud-choices-2017-gra17/

https://pernillesripp.com/global-collaboration/the-global-read-aloud/

All students are officially set up with their Google accounts and now have access to many exciting apps in the Google Suite.  This past week, students went into our Google Classroom to watch a Scholastic News video on 3-D printers, and then read aloud a related article called, "Paw Prints."  Students then commented on both through our Google Classroom and shared their thinking with the group.

We have finished our first personal narrative in writing this week as well.  Be looking for a copy of your child's story to come home in next Friday's Folder.  

This week we will be starting Chapter 3 in math, "Addition Up to 10,000."  It will be important for all students to be brushing up on their addition facts up to 20.  They should be comfortable ten combinations, doubles, and near doubles.  Please have your child continue to practice as part of their nightly homework.  In this next chapter, students will be adding larger numbers and working with regrouping.

We have begun our Inspire Science Program, and students seem excited about Unit 1, Motion and Forces.  We have already completed our first inquiry activity, and this week we will be working with wind-up toys to measure an object's speed.  Students will work in small groups to measure the distance that their wind-up toy travels in 30 seconds and 60 seconds.  They will then use a meterstick to measure the distance and graph their results.  I'll be posting some fun videos through the week, so stay tuned!