November has flown by! With just two days until Thanksgiving break, I'm not sure where the time has gone. We keep trucking along, working hard on our math and reading goals. Our fifth graders are finishing up PLTW this week and it will be the 3rd graders turn after the break. Our third graders had a lot of fun this week in 3rd grade science experimenting with balloons and static electricity. The fourth graders went on a field trip to the downtown library to perform their songs written with Joe Reilly as part of the Songsters program. Enjoy the photos of the week!
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What a week! It seemed awfully early in the year for a snow day! Thanks to all for being patient with transportation on Monday.
I just have a few pictures to share from this week. We counted day number 50! It's always exciting when we get to compose a ten from our ones and move it to the other column. Our 5th graders finished up their American Gothic parodies. Our 3rd graders participated in a science exploration experience involving forces of motion. Our 4th graders had their final Songsters practice for their performance this upcoming Friday. Our swimming trip was cancelled, but we all dealt with the change admirably! We had a great week! Everyone was excited about the first snowfall, and it looks like there is more on the way tomorrow. This week the 5th graders are getting ready to test out their robots in PLTW and our students were helpful in setting up the grids (pictured below). During math meeting this month we are working on dividing objects into equal groups and writing the correct number sentence. We finished up our science unit on landforms and earth materials and will be starting a social studies unit on family soon.
To make up for the few photos we had last week... brace yourself for a photo overload. We had so much going on this week! The second main event of the Wines school year is Halloween. The weather was less than stellar, but kids and staff still had a fun time. The kids all participated in at least one field trip this week- our 4th graders went on two trips! Mr. Mosher's 4th grade class goes on an annual trip with their Young 5 buddies to the downtown Farmers Market and Community High School. They heard two different jazz bands and participated in a P.E. class. On Friday the 5th grade went to Howell Nature Center for team building games. Also on Friday, the rest of us went to Greenhills School for the annual carnival sponsored by the Tom Wall Foundation. All of the kids were paired with buddies from Greenhills and enjoyed the activities throughout the school. There were carnival games, basketball, parachute activities, petting zoo, face painting, magic show, cake walk, photo booth, balloon animals, pizza... It's an well organized event and lots of fun for kids and staff. All of our students were participating and responding to their peer partners and demonstrating independence from relying on teachers. It is always great to see some of our former Wines students and see how much they have grown and matured over the years. We have also managed to mix in some learning with the fun last week. The 5th graders are working on parodies of American Gothic in art class. They learned about the original painting and then had to draw it, changing some of the details. K. chose to draw the farmers as astronauts, and M. chose to draw the famous painting with pirates. They are also both working hard in learning the violin alongside their peers. I was also happy to see "high fives" from their 5th grade friends on the wall of their classroom.
Until next week! We had another great week in Room 114. We finished up our non-fiction unit on bats. We used our graphic organizer in order to create sentences about bats. We are still making some bats to add to the bulletin board outside of our classroom, and then we will move back to a fiction story. The kids are looking forward to reading another chapter book about Fergus and Zeke.
In our math meeting we have been working on identifying visual representations of fractions as well as dividing shapes into equal parts. The kids are all doing great dividing circles and squares into halves and fourths. We had fun dancing to some Halloween songs during our dance class and the kids are getting excited about the holiday coming up this Thursday. Several annual events at Wines help me mark the passage of time as the year goes by and the first main event is always the Run-a-thon! The Run-a-thon is not only a great fundraiser for Wines but also a great example of classroom communities working together. The logistics of the morning always present an extra challenge for our classroom as we have kids running in multiple classrooms at multiple grade levels. We were part of Parson's Potatoes, Day's Dragons, Mosher's Emoshees, and Spiroff Spaghetti! Special thanks to Margaret and Libby for helping Wesam, Mary, Kelly, and I with the kids both indoors and outdoors so everyone could participate with their general education classrooms. I am always happy to see parents out supporting their kids at this annual event. I have lots of pictures to share from this event. Run-a-thon aside, we were also busy with Spirit Week, music, art, dance, PE. and continuing to work on academic goals and objectives. Students participated in PLTW, 5th grade walk to Bird Hills, buddy classroom activities, social studies and science in general education classrooms, recess, Speech, and OT. It's really remarkable the number of different activities that students are involved in throughout the day.
Week number six of the 19-20 school year was a busy one! Our third graders had their turn to go on a walking field trip to Bird Hills. Wednesday and Thursday were both great days to get outside. We had fourth grade peers come in Thursday and Friday after lunch to play games. We started our non-fiction unit about bats- check out what we have learned so far in our chart pictured below. You can also see the chart we made about our first fiction book, Fergus and Zeke. In our art class, we made some cool fish pictures. Our fifth grade artists are working on parodies of Grant Wood's famous painting, American Gothic. Our two fifth graders chose pirates and astronauts to put into the famous painting. I can't wait to share photos of the finished products. In P.E. on Friday we took a walk and blew bubbles on top of the hill. Check out some of these moments and more in this week's pictures.
October started with some 80 degree days, but I am hopeful for the return of more fall like weather. This week 4th grade had their environmental education field trip to the rock pit and also started the Songsters program. Each 4th grade class is collaborating with Joe Reilly to write a song and will perform these songs at the downtown branch of the library. This week we also started inviting some fourth graders into our classroom after lunch to play games and participate in other social activities.
This week we finished up our first beginning chapter book, Fergus and Zeke, concentrating on the story elements of characters, setting, problem, and solution. Tomorrow we will write summaries and type them, so look for those on Seesaw. We will also start a short non-fiction unit, learning about bats as well as learning a poem about bats and measuring the length of bats. Both of our third grade classes have walking field trips to Bird Hills this week. In math, we introduced fractions along with the vocabulary words "numerator" and "denominator." Pronunciation of these vocabulary words gets better and better every day! Our October science unit is about earth materials and landforms. I've included a photo of our anchor chart so you can see the vocabulary terms we are working on. I will send home their social studies workbooks from September. These can be completed as review over the course of the year at home, if you are so inclined. Tomorrow brings the end of September! October brings two fun events to Wines: the Runathon and Halloween! More information to follow about both of these events as the month progresses.
We had a busy week! All of our third graders had the chance to participate in a scientific exploration activity learning about different bird beaks and what different beaks are useful for. Hands on science activities are fun and provide opportunities for learning alongside peers. Our fourth graders took a hike at Bird Hills with their kindergarten buddy class- it was a beautiful morning to be outside with friends. We also continued reading Fergus and Zeke as a class. We are talking daily about story elements such as characters, setting, problem, and solution. As you read with your kids draw attention to these features! In our math meeting this month we will start learning about fractions. We will be learning about fractions 1/2, 1/4, and 3/4, recognizing these in picture representations, and learning how to put these in order on a number line. We will switch to a science unit learning about landforms and earth materials. I hope you enjoy some photos from the last week at school. The first three weeks have flown by! I can't believe we are already in the last week of September.
We have completed three units of our Behavior Basics program and have learned about our 5 classroom rules, making smooth transitions, and waiting patiently. We will keep reviewing these concepts and reinforcing these behaviors when we see the students doing well. On Friday we started our literacy group. We address many of the ELA Essential Elements through this literacy group including sequencing of stories, elements of fiction (characters, setting, problem/solution), prediction, making connections to text, WH questions, and summarizing stories. The first book we are reading together is called Fergus and Zeke. It is a beginning chapter book and I break the story into smaller chunks to help aid in comprehension. During our math meeting, we have been focusing on solving simple word problems using pictures, adding two or three numbers using a number line, and creating, extending, and describing patterns. We will finish up our first social studies unit this week (needs/wants) and switch to a science unit during October. Enjoy this week's pictures! |
AuthorWe are the grades 3-5 CI class at Wines Elementary in Ann Arbor MI! Archives
March 2020
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