Expedition

Click on the link to watch a video and learn about the three Guiding questions we have been researching. A beautiful, creative job! 

Collaboration

This week to culminate our three guiding questions we created iMovies to share our thinking. Here is a link to one. We started by generating a student centered rubric. Click on the link to watch the video and learn about the three Guiding questions we have been researching. Lots of collaboration happening in Room 209. 

Ceres and I spent 2.5 hours on Saturday volunteering at the Oregon Food Bank. We are taking action for Jazzy. We are Crew, Not Passengers! 

Winter Party

Hello Parents!

Welcome to Ms. Doolittle’s 5^th grade Winter Party!  We have many fun winter activities planned for our classroom party this coming Friday!  We welcome all parents to come celebrate and volunteer if you’re able to… 

Here’s the party specifics:

Date:  12.18.15

Party Set up:      12:45

Party Start:         1:05

Party Clean up:   2:10

Winter Stations:

v  Candy Cane Limbo

v  Rudolph Reindeer Ring toss

v  Snowballs

v  Bell Ornaments

v  Christmas Treats & Hot cocoa

Happy Holidays! From your party Coordinators – Alejandra & Jenny

Spelling

Dear Families,

I am using the Words Their Way spelling program to teach spelling. After giving students a diagnostic spelling test (of which they did not study for), I determined each child’s spelling level. After looking at what students know about spelling and noticing what their next step is, I have put them into spelling groups. I will be teaching them right at their developmental spelling level!

You should expect to see spelling sorts come home most Monday evenings. Please help your child practice their sort, and their spelling of each word. Testing will be the last day of the week. They will get credit in both sorting and spelling their words correctly.

Monday: Remind your child to sort the words into categories like the ones we did in school. Your child should read each word aloud during this activity. Ask your child to explain to you why the words are sorted in a particular way-what does the sort reveal about spelling in general? Ask your child to sort them a second time as fast as possible. You may want to time them.

Tuesday: Do a “no-peeking” sort with your child. Use the categories from this week’s sort. Then mix the sort cards and call out a word without showing it to your child. Have your child point or say the category the word should go in. Lay it down and let your child move it if he or she is wrong. Repeat if your child makes more than one error.

Wednesday: Go on a word hunt with your child. Read aloud from newspaper, magazines, or books. Have your child point out words that are examples of the word pattern of the week.

Thursday: Do a writing sort to prepare for the Friday test. As you call out words in random order your child should write them in categories. Call out any words your child misspells a second or third time.

Thank you for your support. Together we can help you child make valuable progress.

Sincerely,
Ms. Doolittle

Week of December 4

Expedition: Students this week worked through their simulation. We are building colonies, trading, and expanding our land base. Students are working collaboratively and so engaged. In math, we are dividing decimals. In reading workshop, we are learning how to paraphrase and annotate text. All students read an article. With the help of a rubric students guided their learning by finding a main idea, supporting details, and a summary. All students were asked to quote accurately from the text and give a minute long discussion on the gist of their text. We started a "Passion" time, which we will have each Friday. Other names for this include "Genius Hour" or "20% time". The students and I read, "What Do You Do With An Idea?" and talked about essential questions. We looked at Blooms Taxonomy as a guide to what I expect of them. More synthesizing and analyzing. For more information look at, What is Genius Hour? We ended the week with a Malala party discussing peace.