October 29- November 2

Monday– Students picked out their spelling words, and we did an introductory lesson on inference.  Inference combines schema with clues from the book to make a new idea (or assumption).  Click here to read more about inference!

Homework: Students need to fill out the inference graphic organizer if they haven’t done so already.

Making Inferences Graphic Organizer

Tuesday– We will continue to talk about inference.  Students will have a choice of working with a group or individually to make inferences.

Click here for a link to the clip we watched on inference.

Homework: Students need to address a different question to fill out inference graphic organizer if they haven’t done so already.

Wednesday– We started a lesson on satire.  We learned how satire is used in literature, and we also learned that it is not mere criticism and is not targeted at classmates or undeserving objects.

Homework: Students brought home two articles that they are comparing and contrasting with a Venn Diagram.  They need to make sure they have specific examples contrasting and comparing the articles.  This is due tomorrow along with spelling homework.

10-31 Satire

Venn Diagram Template

Thursday– We took a look at a short story called “The Bet.”  We read it as a class and will discuss how it uses satire for tomorrow’s lesson.

Homework: Weekly letter is due tomorrow, and we have a spelling test

Friday– The students met in discuss groups to talk about what problem/flaw the author is trying to expose in the short story “The Bet.”

October 29- November 2

Monday– Students need to read through chapter 10 in The Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Tomorrow they will be responding to a writing prompt, so they need to do the reading to do well on tomorrow’s assignment.
We are taking a Heritage exam today.  Some of the students decided to do the wind tunnel project.  The projects look amazing!  They are so amazing that I wanted to include some pictures!

Tuesday– We had an introductory lesson on WWI.  The students pretended they just got drafted, and we made hardtack like the American soldiers would have eaten during the war.  Click here for a link to the recipe and other WWI favorites.

For homework: Some students need to finish language arts homework (worksheet 14, grammar exercise 7-10, and write 1-2 paragraphs on what was (un)believable about chapters 7-10).  Students may also need to finish coloring a map of WWI alliances.

Thursday– Many of the students didn’t finish their science homework.  They need to complete page 237 in their science textbook.  Some students have missing work.  Be sure to check planners to see what is missing!

Friday– We spent a lot of time working on our science study guide because we have an exam on Tuesday, Nov. 9th!  Make sure to study over the long weekend!  Some students need to finish their study guide at home.  Please make sure that you are caught up with all of your work.  The 1st quarter is ending on Friday, Nov. 9th.  The students need all their work in to participate in the end of the quarter reward (we will be going curling on Friday, Nov. 9).

October 22-24

Monday– Students are to read through chapter 6 of  The Island of the Blue Dolphins.   5th graders need to have 4 text to self connections based only on chapter 6.  6th graders need to make 4 predictions of what they think is going to happen in the story.  They need to base their answers off of information they’ve read in chapters 1-5.  For example, they might predict that Kimki won’t make it to the other island, because they read in chapter 5 that Kimki is an older man and that he only had a few days worth of food.

Students were also given information about the final exam/project we’re doing on our unit of transportation.  See PowerPoint for more information (students will also be getting a handout tomorrow).

The Wright Brothers (PowerPoint)

Tuesday– Students are to read the rest of the Karana article for homework.  Many of us were unaware that the character Karana in The Island of the Blue Dolphins was based off an actual person.  We also took wind tunnel pictures (fashioned from this link).  It was a fun project that we are going to have up for conferences to show off some of the things we’ve been learning about the wind tunnels, the Wright Brothers, and the four forces of flight.

Wednesday

We took a grammar and reading assessment today.  Students will need to complete their study guides and either study for the final exam on our transportation unit or complete a final project for Mon, Oct 29th.

See Handout (Final Project- Transportation)

Click me for a link on a classroom wind tunnel– very informational!  It does not need to be this large, but this teacher gives a lot of information about the process of constructing a cardboard wind tunnel.  This link was a must read for me as I built my own.

 

Other News:

Link to the reading and grammar assessments.  You can review your scores online.

http://www.mytestbook.com/login_please.aspx

Girls: Your login is your first and last name with no spaces (no caps).  Your password is your first name (no caps)

Boys: Your login is your first name (cap for 1st letter).  Your password is your first name (no caps)

Oct 22-24

Connections and Curious Fact Questions

Making Inferences Graphic Organizer

Monday– Today we are talking about schema.  Schema is what we already know.  Since our largest schema is about ourselves, we made 4 text to self (T-S) connections between the book we’re reading and our lives.  Students will need to have 4 T-S connections in their reader’s notebook to hand in on Wednesday.

Tuesday– We are going to continue to activate our schema by making text to text (T-T) and text to world (T-W) connections.  Students will need 2 T-T and 2 T-W connections in their reader’s notebook to hand in on Wednesday.

Wednesday– We are going to complete a couple reading assessments to see how we’ve grown since the beginning of the year.

http://easycbm.com/leahhicks

October 16-18

Monday- We are going over 8 dialogue strategies.  We will be discussing the first 4 strategies.

Tuesday– We will discuss the last 4 dialogue strategies.

Wednesday– We will practice using the dialogue strategies, and we will look for examples in our books.

October 16-18

Monday– Heritage Links

Forces of Flight 

Pilot the Glider

Try out these websites to review the four forces of flight.

Homework: Some students had a science crossword for homework.  

Tuesday: We have a special demonstration today in Heritage.  We will be designing paper airplanes and testing them in a wind tunnel to see the effects of drag and wing size.

Homework: Students are to write 5 nice things about each of their classmates.

 

October 8-12

Monday- We’re on Writer’s Workshop this week.  We worked on writing about small moments in order to focus our writing.  We read the story “Eleven” to illustrate this strategy.

Eleven- Sandra Cisneros

Homework: Students need to write at least 3/4 a page. They should focus on a small moment and develop that moment with a lot of rich detail.

Tuesday– We are going to work on a 2nd draft today.  Students will choose a 1st draft to rewrite, while paying close attention to “writing small.”

Wednesday– We are going to work on story mapping and organizing our thoughts before we even start writing.  Students will choose a graphic organizer to use and will start planning a new narrative.

Homework: Students need to complete their story map if they haven’t done so in class.

Thursday– We are going to develop dialogue from the narrative we’ve planned in our story map.

Homework: Spelling homework is due today.

Friday– We will continue to talk about dialogue and character clashes.

Homework: Weekly letter is due today and we will be taking a spelling test.

October 8-12

Monday-We are finishing up our unit on nonfiction text this week.  Students may have brought home language arts homework (exercise 8 on the adjectives packet).

Tuesday– Students are filling out their study guides today for a science exam on Thursday.  The exam will be over chapter 14.  Most students are bringing home their study guides to finish filling out and to start studying!

The Wright Brothers

 

Thursday- Click me for Language Arts

Oct. 1-5

Monday– We are focusing on reader’s workshop this week.  That means students need to bring a book they’re reading to class each day.  Our mini-lesson for today was on decoding unknown words.  We understand that learning new vocabulary is an important part of becoming a good reader.

Homework: Some students need to finish using the decoding strategy for 3-4 new vocab words that they encounter in their reading.  This will be due tomorrow.

Tuesday- We will have a quiz on capitalization.  Students did wonderfully in a short review on capitalization, so I’m confident we’ll do well on the quiz!  We will be having a mini-lesson on visualization today, and we will sketch what we’re visualizing from the poem “Oranges” by Gary Soto.

Wednesday– We will be working on part 2 of our visualization mini-lessons.

Thursday– We will be discussing “fix-it” strategies.

Friday- We will continue to discuss “fix-it” strategies.

Homework: Weekly letter is due today.

*Students will need to continue decoding strategies throughout the week.  Some students have not finished homework from writer’s workshop.  I need to see 2 leads and 2 endings from each student.  We will not be doing spelling this week because we are still waiting on spelling books to come in for 8th grade.

October 1-5

Monday– We spent some time with the BSU football team during recess today!  What a great way to start the week!  Many students finished all their work in class.  For those who didn’t quite finish, we need to read Acts 2 and page 73 of the Bible textbook for Bible homework and finish the pronoun-antecedent worksheet and main idea chart for language arts homework.  Students will use their science textbooks (page 332) to fill out the main idea chart on the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system.

Tuesday– We brought our early 20th century car blueprints together to decide on the final model for our company.  We had a lively debate, and finally settled on some key features for our car.  Students can draw a blueprint of the company car for extra credit.  Extra credit will be due this Friday.

Wednesday– We’ve been discussing sleep and the brain.  We are watching this video in class today: From Zzz’s to A’s

Thursday-.  Today we had the school involved in voting on which car design they’d purchase from our company.  The automobile that received the most votes had an enclosed cab, six seats, and a gas engine underneath the floorboard.  With that information, our car company can get working right away to build the automobile the consumer wants.

Friday– We listened to a presentation on bus safety this morning.  In the afternoon, we had an introduction to the endocrine system.  Homework over the weekend includes science workbook pages 225-228, and students should fill out their sleep log over the weekend.  That is very important as I am expressly interested in seeing how sleep patterns change from the weekday to the weekend!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!