A friend, A Library VIsit, and Notes HOME :-)

I was so surprised to see Javaughn this morning! I was even more surprised when he said.. I came to see my two favorite teachers EVER... mind you he did not say his two favorite 5th grade teachers, but his two favorite teachers EVER!!! That makes what we do all worth it! To know that you can impact kids for years to come! And when they come back and our fond of what we did as a class- MAN THAT IS WHY WE LOVE THIS JOB!!!! We had library orientation today- so we get to check out books!

Can you tell how happy we are!

Look at that smile... it conveys all our emotions about how we feel about books in Room 138

We are a class that loves BOOKS!!!

Wiam picked a book Mrs. Rowan has never ever heard of... hmmm there must be TONS of books to select from our school library!

Erisa selected a book I have read, and a book I have not read... which one have I read?

Becky will be practicing her origami skills! Can't wait to see what she will make.

* Today our school newsletter came home. Make sure you read through- 5th graders have lots of exciting opportunities coming up.

* Book Fair Read and Feed slips came home today. You must PREORDER your dinner if you would like to eat before previewing the Book Fair. This year we are doing pizza ($2.00 a slice) salad ($3.00) and drinks ($1.00). As always the PTA will transform the cafeteria into an Italian Cafe, and great fun will be had by all!

* Today we put our Reading Folders together. You have some papers to sign and look over with your student. If you have not already bought your supplies, make sure they come in as soon as possible. Paper is going to start piling up now that we are working hard, and organization will be almost impossible to keep.

* Mark your calenders NOW - Open House NEXT TUESDAY AT 6:30.

Have a great evening! See you in the am!

Fast Friday !

What a day we had Friday! We were so busy that we actually ran out of time. We were working right up the the dismissal call. Have no idea how that happened. We were all smiles for the laptops.

It was a quiet but busy day.

Group work is working great.

There is something very empowering about a laptop and 5th graders! It makes them work NON-STOP- no snacks, no bathrooms, no walking around. It amazes us with each group! We certainly live in a technology driven society.

The students have the opportunity to work on an application called Gizmo's - This application let's them experiment with different variables to produce an end result. This Gizmo was called Growing Plants.

This is the top of our Terr-Aqua column. We have 2 goldfish and 2 water plants. Last year we used sand, but this year the guy at the pet store said these "goldfish" rocks would be a better bottom for our tank.

Friday's is laptop day in room 138. Each student was able to work on several applications throughout the day! This table was working on a growing plants Gizmo.

Our word wall is on our windows! We are limited with wall space so we have found this section works great! We have been busy adding words that we need to know.

We also planted our bean seeds for some plant observation. We carefully wrote down the materials used, and we will actually keep an observation log of the growth. We are actually looking for phototropism.

Tionna was a great Scientist Friday as we built the top layer of our Terr-Aqua Column.

HOO-RAY for the Wolfpack! #3 belongs to us- Jasper had a great game. They had their first game of the season Friday night against Raines. While they didn't win, it was still a great game! It rained until 7 minutes left in the 4th! We were soaking wet, but we sure did had a great time! W.....O.....L....FSON!!!! That has been there standard cheer for at least the last 20 years that I know about!

This is going to be another great week! Monday we will split and send the girls to Music and the boys to Art, and then Wednesday we will have PE with both Coaches.

Also, don't forget the $5.00 for PTA :-)

Have a good evening- see you in the am!

Fish, EQ's, and Laptops

These two containers will be transformed before your very eyes tomorrow! We are going to build a terra-aqua column. It will stay with us all year. We will look for changes that occur within this ecosystem. It is a lot of fun- and guess what? Friday we will finally have a class pet (or two!) This year in Math and Science we are focusing on student driven instruction. The though behind this, is that if you make students accountable for what they are learning, they are more apt to gain the knowledge at a deeper level. Remember the days when you were in school and you just "did the work" because your teacher said so? Well, now, we are telling students what we want them to know, and we have built in essential questions that will help them focus clearly on the lessons.

For each unit, we will have a poster that describes these concepts. Students will add to this as we move through our units! I am excited to see them take ownership of their learning.

Tomorrow is LAPTOP day! We were very fortunate last year to receive a MAC laptop station! Our laptop day this year is Friday. On Friday's in the classroom we will work on Gizmo's, Spelling City, Eduplace, Pearsonsuccess, and other learning websites. We will also work to create power points, conduct research, and put together presentations.

This has been a fun and fast week! I am sure Friday will go by just as quick. Remember a few housekeeping items:

* Make sure your child has a healthy snack everyday. We do not eat lunch until 1:00, and we take a snack break at 10:00. This week I did have some cheese balls and pretzels, but we used the last of them today. It is a long time between breakfast and lunch!

*We have quite a few PTA memberships- We still need quite a few more! I know we can do this!

* Your child should bring home their school issued Reading book EVERY Friday. We test on Mondays.

*Resources start next week! Hoo-ray for Art, Music, and PE!

We were able to get a Health lesson in today! We will be working in our Health book this year and will divide the time between Health and Social Studies.

Don't forget Open House is September 7th.

Have a great night, - See you in the am :0

Rituals and Routines

One reason (there are many) I love teaching 5th Grade is that 5th Graders are very familiar with R&R! It makes our job so much easier and we are able to jump right into working our minds! We did put some work up on our hallway bulletin board. If you are on campus, be sure and stop by and check it out. The assumptions of what "scientists" look like are pretty far fetched! We promise you that we will not be blowing anything up this year EXCEPT balloons.

These are our student drawings. We did not hang our parent drawings yet!

When students enter the room in the morning they work on Calendar Math and Daily Math. This helps our brains get started for the day.

Have you ever played Hang Mouse!! It is so much fun!!!

Welcome to http://spellingcity.com/ ! We have loaded your first words in! Have fun- your first Word Study and Vocabulary Test will be Monday! Below is how our Word Study and Vocabulary lists will come home.

We are really having fun with Social Studies this year! Our first unit is all about landforms and resources. Today we started creating our conservation towns.

Today we practiced using the glossary to find vocabulary words. This will usually be done at home, but we wanted to make sure we were all adept at using the glossary. And guess what.. they were!!!

Another successful day of learning in Room 138! You guys Rock-N-Roll!

See you in the PM!!

Well... Hello From Room 138 :-)

Wow! Day 2 went just as fast as Day 1 and we still had a blast! We are really working hard together already and even conducted some science experiments today! For homework tonight, your student should be looking around the house for measuring tools.

Now, let us introduce ourselves..
Antonio, Britney, Joshua, Darius

Allen and Damien

Christian (aka Manny), Becky, Taylor, Nicolas

Jeimie, Gabe, and Destiny (missing in action, Zachary D)

Gilberto, Priscilla, Jalyn, Deborah

Sarah, Tunde, Erisa, Nathalie

Zachary C. and Davarrius

Kasiya, Alex Y., Joseph, Alex B.

Laroy, Wiam, E'Yanna, Jacob

Laura, Madison, Dajana, Tianna

Here we are collaboratively working on Math problems! Today we learned that division is the inverse of multiplication. We were trying to get our brains to see - 240 / 6 is really 6x ? = 24 so 6x ? = 240- We had a lot of fun with word problems today. Yesterday we took our Topic 1 readiness test- and it looks like we are ready.

After Math, we take our snack and head outside. The last 2 days the weather has been beautiful. We have really enjoyed the breeze. Did you hear a cold front was moving in? We are excited to see weather in the 80's this weekend. It will be the first time since July!

Having a snack.

More snack eaters :-)

Getting ready for organized sports!

When we came in, we dove into Science. For the next three days we will be working with measuring tools. Students will rotate through stations.

We are turning into Scientists!

So, this was just part of our day! And, everyday will be just as busy! We hope your student is getting back into a routine for school. We have had a few "sleepers" so please help your child establish a reasonable bedtime this year.

We are still looking for PTA memberships! We would like to be at 100% as soon as possible. There can only be one winner per grade level.

Thanks for returning back to school packets. We had 29/36 returned! That was excellent for the first day! THANK YOU for that!

Enjoy your evening :-) and see you in the am-