Reading Literature 5.1

Our reading focus for first quarter is around the Reading Standard 1: Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from a text. We have been using many of our Patricia Polacco texts to help guide us in that work. Here is the process we are using to meet that standard:

This week we have modeled and practiced quoting accurately and using the sentence frame at the bottom of our anchor chart to help us respond to the text. One example of questions we have asked and answered is below:

Today we worked in groups to infer about Mr. Falker. Students completed the following activity:

Here are some photos from our group work:

We look forward to sharing our work with you at Student Success Night next Tuesday, October 3rd! 

Reminder:

Shorette's students come in two groups, last names A-O 6:00-6:25 and last names P-Z 6:30-6:55. Sugar's students come in two groups, last names A-L 6:00-6:25 and N-Z 6:30-6:55. 

When to keep your child home....

Vision Screening

All 3rd and 5th graders will have a routine vision screen on Thurs, Oct 5.   We are fortunate enough to have student nurses from Madison College who will help Nurse Lovell with the screens.

If your child is absent or doesn’t pass a screening, they will be rechecked within a few weeks.  If your child doesn’t pass their second screen, then the school nurse or nurse assistant will let you know by sending home a letter in their backpack or by calling you.  If you don’t hear from the school nurse, that means your child passed their vision screen. 

If you have any questions, you can call Nurse Lovell at:

Franklin Elementary, Tues & Thurs, 204-2301

Randall Elementary, Mon & Fri, 204-3305 

MAP testing

MAP Testing for Sugar and Shorette students will be Wednesday this week and next. It's first thing in the morning so please feed your raccoon a good breakfast.

Many Forms Coming Home

This week we have been sending many forms home! Please check your child's backpack mail and return forms as soon as possible. The Scratch Club, FPS and Science Cohort forms are all optional, your child does not need to complete and return these forms unless they wish to participate in these groups. Here are the due dates for each form!

• Headphones - please return as soon as possible.
• Pictures - can be returned at any time, but does not need to come back to school until picture day on Tuesday, 12th.
• FPS due Wednesday, September 27th.
• Science Cohort  due Thursday, September 28th.
• Scratch Club due Wednesday, September 27th. 

Finding Factors

We also used tiles to help us find all of the possible arrays, recording the dimensions of the arrays as factors.

As an additional challenge we worked on finding the Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple of two numbers.

Games to practice finding factors:
Factor Bones
Factor Feeder
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - Factors

Factor Tree Practice Pages

Math Vocabulary

We started our work this week thinking about some math vocabulary! We focused on the words: dimensions, array, factor, multiple, digit, value, composite number, prime number and square number. We started by being assigned one of these words, the definition of one of these words, or an example of these words then we had to mingle to find the other people who had the missing parts of the same word. Once in our groups, we created a poster to show that word. We also added "use it in a sentence" to our poster.

Later we used our posters to complete a fill in the blank word, definition and example activity.

Social Studies Text Access

Our social studies text book allows student access to see many resources on their website.  The TCI website allows students, or parents, to see the text (in English and Spanish), have the text read to you, play review games, answer question, do flashcards, etc.

Here is the link for students to have online access to TCI Social Studies Alive!
TCI Student Access
To sign in you will see this page.

Your Teacher username is the name of your teacher, either Sugar or Shorette. 

Student username is your first name with your last name initial attached like, TomP, or JenniferL.

The password is 111111, six ones. 

Chance!

This week we learned a math game called Chance! (It is similar to Farkle if you have ever played that!)
Chance is:
1. A way for us to play together and interact in a structured way.
2. A game that allows us to practice our adding and subtracting in the thousands skills and supports our review work of place value.
3. A way to build our sense of probability and reasoning.

We also learned a reasoning game called Beat the Teacher, and a speed game called Hot 100. These games will be options for students to do when they have finished their work in class.

Starting tomorrow we will begin a review of place value and math vocabulary!

US State Practice

Here are some games kids can play to help practice their US state knowledge. We will be working on this all year.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/USA_Geography/USA_GL_click_1024.html

http://online.seterra.net/en/vgp/3003

http://www.abcya.com/USA_geography_puzzle_map.htm


http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-map-snap-united-states

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html

http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/unitedstates.html

https://www.sporcle.com/games/g/states  This one is harder, you need to spell the state.

Our First Week

This week has been spent getting to know our classroom, getting to know each other, engaging in projects to help us have ownership of our classroom space, and working to get back into the routine of school! Here's what we've been working on!

Who is...? And getting to know each other - We did a "choose the best answer" activity to learn more about our teachers. Then we shared five things about ourselves with a friend in the classroom. That friend then chose two of our facts to share out and introduce us to the class. 

I'm searching for a classmate who... The Sugar and Shorette kids gathered on the playground to play this game. We stood in a large circle, then were read a prompt such as...

• I'm searching for a classmate who flew in an airplane this summer!
• I'm searching for a classmate who has a sibling at Franklin!
• I'm searching for a classmate who speaks a second language!
• I'm searching for a classmate who loves ice cream!

If that prompt applied to us we had to run and find a new place within our circle. 

Circles - We filled in our favorites, then asked our friends where they fit into our "circles".

Classroom Expectations - We read the Book "What if Everybody Did That?" to get us thinking about the collective effect of our actions. Then we worked as table groups to think about what we need what we need to do and what we need others to do in our classroom to help us be successful. We organized and categorized our ideas and came up with a set of classroom expectations. 

We also read some great books from some AMAZING authors. We started our read aloud Wonder, and read two Patricia Polacco Books, Some Birthday and When Lightning Comes in a Jar, for use in reading and writing.

 

Figure Me Out - students thought about numbers they could use to describe themselves. Then they created equations to equal those numbers. 

Check out some cool things kids created this week:

Strings!

This week Mr. Rickman will be coming to visit classes and talk about the students' opportunity to participate in Strings. After he visits classes, (Shorette on Wednesday, Sugar on Friday) this interest form will come home.  Please note that Bass is also an option, just list that separately. Please discuss Strings participation with your child and return this form by Monday, September 11th. 

A couple of things to keep in mind when considering Strings participation:

• If your child may want to do Orchestra at the middle school level, they need to have participated in Strings in 5th grade.
• Your child will not miss academic instruction during the Strings time.
• Students are encouraged to practice at home during the week, but the practice time is minimal and manageable!