Special Guest Blogger

From the beginning of the year, it has been our goal to have the students more involved in the blog's production. Using the sticks of opportunity (or doom, depending on how you look at it), we will now be choosing one student a week as our "guest blogger". On Friday afternoon they will create a blog post, complete with picture, to share with families. This week, the lucky winner was Riley. While nervous at first, I think she did a great job. Please scroll down to see her work.

Special Guest Blogger: Riley

Hi, I am Riley. Here are some things we have been working on class.
We always start the day with math. In math we are taking about water use. When you wash your hands 4 times a day you are using 8 gallons of water! After math, it's writing. we are writing opinion papers. Mostly everyone is done with their rough draft.

In science we are working on sound. Mrs. Dow showed us how sound travels with a slinky. When you hold it back at different lengths, it vibrates at different rates. In reading we are working on spelling fun sheets and language review. Mrs. Kinsman has been working with kids in groups at reading time. We also went to the computer lab and to look at wolf timelines. Here is a picture...
 

 

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Tableau

Today is our last visit with Jan Abramovitz, our Artist in Residence for the year. He provided a wonderful experience for our children, teaching them various strategies to help focus and clear the mind through the use of movement.

One of the many activities that the students had the chance to explore was Tableau. Not only is this a hard word to spell, but it is a fun way to demonstrate understanding of a topic without taking a test or finishing a worksheet. Mr. Abramovitz had the students work in groups to create a scene in which a family on the Oregon Trail has just spotted the Columbia River. Each group member had a specific role, which was to be shown through facial expressions and body placement. In addition, the students needed to have at least three levels, or heights, represented in their frozen state. Here at the results! We have some wonderful actors in our group.

Mrs. Haskell Becomes Part of the Whole Array

Let me introduce myself.... All of 5th grade knows who I am but some of you parents may not.  I am a learning specialist and this year I am co-teaching with both 5th grade classrooms.  I split my time between both the classrooms and get to see students in smaller groups and work on specific skills that they need extra help with.  

Last month Ms. Kinsman noted that their class was a recipient of a technology grant.  I also wrote a grant for our 5th graders and am happy to report we now have 10 iPad minis to use for both math and language arts.  They arrived today!   All of us are excited about the doors this opens up for us.  To start with,  we will be utilizing an app that allows the students to build their reading fluency as well as comprehension. And in math we are excited about exploring the depths of fractions at Khan Academy.  

We all have lots to learn about these amazing tools and my addition to the blog site tonight is a first for me.  The first blog of many!  I hope to get more info posted in the next few months showing all of you how the students are growing in math, reading, writing, and their use of technology.   

Below is my first attempt at adding pictures to the blog.  These photos are of some our smaller group work.

Alyssa just finished giving her interpretation of "Tillie", one of the characters in the book we had been analyzing.

                                Spencer, Roberto, and Eric work together as a team to create a character analysis.