Please note students received a good load of paperwork for parents tonight.  Please take a look at the sheets and fill them out if you would.  Also included was information about our first APTT session, which is next Thursday the 1st of September.  I would love to see all parents there, especially those whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting face to face.

 

How is it already Wednesday?!

This morning was a whirlwind of area models, multiplication, and a bit of talk about decimals.  Thankfully many students remembered that when we talk about numbers to the right of the decimal point, we are really just talking about fractions.

Tonight students should continue their work with area models.  The bottom two problems here are a *bit* tricky.  Think about how you solve problems using the distributive property of multiplication over addition.  If you know some values, I’m pretty sure you can figure out the unknowns!

DPOMOA Aug 24

 

In language Arts we talked about character traits for just a little bit, and then got into some discussion about reader’s response.  Essentially our reader’s response writing should be our current thinking about whatever we are reading.  What are you wondering?  Are you curious about what happens next?  Are you perplexed by the actions of a character?  Did something happen in the book that upset you? That worried you?

Students will be recording these thoughts in their reader’s response journals.  We also copied down some good starters for our reader’s response:

ReadersResponsePrompts

 

Tonight students should pick one of the prompts, and write a response to what they are reading.  They may either respond to The Mysterious Benedict Society, which we are reading together, or they may respond to the book they are currently reading on their own.

 

Students then read their Tina/Timmy stories to each other.  They did a WONDERFUL job with these, and had a good time sharing them.  Most students were able to guess what character trait their partner was aiming for, which shows they did a good job writing a character that displays that trait.

 

 

In science we got a lot more done with our seeds.  Each group finished up planting their seeds, and then we made some observations about the seeds and our actions so far.  We recorded these in our science journals.  Some of our seeds even looked to be germinating already.  I was quite surprised by that, and the students were delighted.

Finally at the end of the day we went into the computer lab where students logged into IXL.  IXL is a program that has been purchased by our school to assist children with math, language arts, and science.  Students log in, and they can work through sets of problems and topics that are relevant to 5th grade.  They can also go back to other grades and even ahead for enrichment.  It will be slowly worked into our daily rotations.  Students are welcome to use IXL at home if they would like.  Our login page can be found under the ‘General Links’ tab above.

 

 

so, tl;dr

Work with some area models

DPOMOA Aug 24

Write a response to what you are currently reading, or to The Mysterious Benedict Society.  Use one of the prompts we wrote down in our Reader’s Response Journal.

ReadersResponsePrompts

 

and please read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

My apologies this must be quick, as I have an appointment to keep.

 

Today we did more work with area models and the distributive property of multiplication over addition.  We have 4 problems to do tonight, and as always, we have examples:

(The problems are at the bottom of the page)

Aug23AreaModelDPOMOA

 

In language Arts we kept discussing character traits, and how we can find and use evidence from the text in order to define character traits.  I’m still very impressed with the character traits that our students are coming up with.  We have some very expansive vocabularies in the room.

We then spent the afternoon planting our first seeds.  Students planted Okra, Lettuce, Carrots, Squash (Zucchini), cucumbers, Turnips, and tomatoes.  We are trying out two different types of soil, to see if one works better than another.  We will be tending these seeds for the next week or so until they germinate, and then transplanting them outside in little gardens.  Then we will be taking care of them, measuring our progress, harvesting our crops, and then eating them.

As it usually does, this took a good amount of time, and we didn’t have time to get to any of the students’ other assignments.  Lucky them!

 

tl;dr

Do these 4 problems just as the examples:

Aug23AreaModelDPOMOA

Tonight is a catch up night.  Students should make sure they have everything done, especially last night’s Tina/Timmy story.

 

Read!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Happy Monday!

 

We did a LOT of review this morning.  We went over our quizzes from the last two weeks, and took a look at some issues we are having.  Please make sure you ask your student how they have been doing on their quizzes.  I will be sending progress reports home next week.

 

After all of our review, we took some math notes and started talking about how we can take difficult multiplication problems, and break them down into easier to do problems.  Maybe something like 9 x 8 is a little difficult for us to do in our head if we haven’t memorized our multiplication facts.  So we do our best to break it down into simpler sub-problems:

9 x 8 = (5+4) x (4+4)

We then talked about how to distribute multiplication across addition, and area models that help us to visualize this.

9 x 8 = (5+4) x (4+4)

= (4×4) + (4×5) + (4×4) + (4×5)

= 16 + 20 + 16 + 20

= 20 + 20 + 10 + 10 + 6 + 6   (we can use different forms of our numbers to make addition simpler here as well)

= 72

We took some notes on this of course, and tonight students have 4 problems to do just as they were done in the notes.  The problems are at the bottom of the notes:

Aug22AreaModelsNotes

 

In Language Arts we started talking about character traits.  We made the distinction that character trait does not mean feelings.  Almost everyone can be happy, sad, or angry.  Unless that is how a character acts exclusively, we normally don’t use those as character traits.  Students came up with a large list of character traits on their own, and I was very impressed with the level of vocabulary I heard.

Here are the notes with some of our words we came up with.  These notes aren’t finished yet, but some students asked that I put them up here to help them with tonight’s assignment:

Aug22CharacterTraits

Tonight students should pick a character trait.  They will write a story about our character Tina or Timmy that exhibits that character trait in an extreme manner.  Tina/Timmy should be going to buy a video game.  They shouldn’t come right out and say that Tina/Timmy is <insert character trait>, but they should try to make it obvious from their actions in the story.  I have included the prompt and my example that I shared with the students.  This should be like a little riddle where the reader should be trying to think of the character trait.  Can you guess mine?

Aug22TimmyTinaStory

 

And before we knew it, we were out of time 🙁

 

So, tl;dr

4 multiplication problems done JUST as our examples (on graph paper)

Aug22AreaModelsNotes

Write me a story about ______ Tina/Timmy buying a video game

Aug22TimmyTinaStory

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Tomorrow is Early release – school dismisses at 12:30.

 

 

This morning we talked a good deal more about base 10, and about different ways to represent a number.  Many students had some issues with this problem from the last few days homework:

750 = (__ x 10)

This question is asking how many 10s it would take to make 750.  Many students mistakenly answered 5, as they were simply looking at the tens place in the number 750.  However there is an equal sign in there.  That means that the entirety of the left side of the equation must be equal to the entirety of the right side.  That will only happen if we are making the entire number 750 out of tens.

We can also think about it this way:

750 -> we can think of this as 750 ONES

If we look at the tens place, we can also look at it, and think….

750

75 TENS

so, the missing value in our equation turns out to be:

750 = 75 x 10

 

I would highly recommend looking at these problems from the last few days.  Tomorrow’s quiz looks VERY much like this…

 

Tonight in math students should finish their word problems from yesterday.  Again I want to see each problem worked out in steps.

ProblemSolving_Notes

AddSubWordProblems

 

In Language Arts we started up some reader’s response journals today.  Students will be responding to prompts in here, and also writing about what they choose to read on their own.  Today we did read an article about Easter Island and the Moai, and students got some questions and a prompt.  This is *not* homework, but they may work ahead on it if they like.

I’ll post more about these reader’s response journals later, but they will become a weekly assignment as students are asked to respond to what they have read.  The entire point is to get students thinking about what they have read so they can become better readers AND better writers.

 

In science we continue to talk about ecosystems.  Tonight students have some short readings on ecosystems and some questions to answer:

EcosystemsAug18

 

so, tl;dr

Answer the rest of your word problems using our five steps

AddSubWordProblems

Finish your science readings and answer some questions:

EcosystemsAug18

 

wow, that’s not much at all, is it?  Great.

 

And read!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

MClass assessments are almost done! Hooray!

 

This morning we talked a good bit about how we will solve word problems in this class.  Essentially math is about how to solve real world problems.  As such, almost all of the math the students will see from now through college will oftentimes come at them in the form of word problems.  We need some strategies to tackle these.

When we are presented with word problems we will focus on these steps:

1.  What is the question asking?
2. What do I know?
3. Draw a picture or model to illustrate what is happening
4. Explain how to solve and then solve
5. Check the answer.  Is it reasonable?

We took some notes and did an example as well:

ProblemSolving_Notes

 

Tonight students have a few word problems to do.  They should be done EXACTLY like we did in our example and following our steps.  They only need to do problems 1-5 on this sheet.

AddSubWordProblems

 

In Language arts I have been VERY impressed with how well students are doing with settings.  I see real thought and effort going into their work.  I also see students putting good effort into explaining their reasoning, which is key.

Tonight students should read some more passages and infer the setting of each passage:

SettingAug17

 

Today we also started watching a neat little video about the Easter Island Moai, and the things scientists are doing to figure out how a group of people without stone tools or even the wheel managed to carve and move these gigantic statues.  It’s amazing what people are capable of.

We looked at our comma work from yesterday, and students corrected their mistakes.  They will be turning that sheet in tomorrow, and it will be checked for correctness. This should be a gimme grade if students were paying attention and checked their work in class. We also got a new comma worksheet that happens to talk about Easter Island!

EICommasAug17

We also did some more writing today and students should have at minimum a start to a story.  If they haven’t finished their story yet, they should do that tonight.  Tomorrow I expect to see a good rough draft in their writing journal.

 

In science students did some reading about biomes and plants.  Does your student know what a producer is?  They should!

Tonight students should finish these readings and answer the questions.

ScienceReadingAug17

 

At the end of the day the 5th grade teachers had a meeting to go over APTT data and talk about the skills we will be focusing on in conjunction with parents this quarter.  First APTT is September 1st by the way, and I hope to see everyone there.

 

so, tl;dr

First 5 problems on this sheet.  Follow the steps we came up with for solving word problems, and the example in your math journal.

AddSubWordProblems

Finish your rough draft of your story

Put commas where they belong

EICommasAug17

infer some settings

SettingAug17

Answer some questions about plants and the tundra biome

ScienceReadingAug17

 

And as always, read read read

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

 

Hooray I’m back!

This morning we talked a lot about why it is important to be able to break numbers down and use them to make math easier.

For example let’s look at this problem:

4 x 6

Maybe we’re not quite sure about the answer to 4 x 6…so let’s break it down into:

(2 + 2) x 6

Now we can do (2 x 6) + (2 x 6), which is a much easier problem.  This is exactly why we are learning about breaking down numbers into different forms.

 

After this we did a series of rotations just like yesterday.  While this was happening I was getting our MClass assessments done.  Hopefully we can get these all taken care of in the next few days.  Tonight students have some activities to finish just like yesterday.  If they used their time wisely, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had VERY little of this left to do:

Base10Sheet3

 

I was very impressed with how well most students did with the settings activity yesterday.  Being able to answer questions about the setting when the author doesn’t come right out and say it shows good infering skills.

Settings_Aug16

We had an interesting conversation about commas and the oxford comma, and how for whatever reason, in the U.S., we always put our punctuation inside our quotation marks.

Comma_Practice

 

Finally we read some more of the Mysterious Benedict Society today.  Things are already starting to get really weird and mysterious for Reynie Muldoon.  In the book today Reynie was given an opportunity to cheat on a test that he very badly wanted to pass.  The test was nearly impossible for him, but he still tried his best without cheating.  Ask your student if they see any lesson in that!

 

Not much today, so I don’t think we need a tl;dr.  Don’t forget to read and get your reading log signed!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

My apologies for the late update, and more apologies cause this is going to be short as I am literally sitting in a meeting as I type this…

I had to take a trip to the doctor today and get my stitches looked at.  Good news!  I’ve been cleared to go back to work!!

So today the students had a ton of rotation to do with the substitute, Mrs. Alford.  Their homework tonight is to finish the work they started in school.  If they used their time wisely in class, they should have VERY little of this left to do:

Punctuation_Aug15

 

WordLaddersAug15

 

Settings_Aug15

 

Base10Sheet2

 

 

So tonight, just finish those up, and read!

 

Sorry for the short update and having to miss some school today!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

Hello Families and Students,

This morning we talked a good deal about our homework from last night, as well as expanded form and different forms of a number.  We discussed how numbers can be put into different forms in order to make performing certain operations or doing certain things easier.

We had the opportunity to extend this conversation when we went to lunch.  Today was Miguel’s birthday (Happy birthday Miguel!) and he brought in some fruit punch and some cupcakes for all of us to share.  He brought in 3 boxes of 10 fruit pouches.  THREE TENS!!! I was so excited.  However in their current form (3 boxes of 10) we couldn’t share the fruit punches.  Mrs. Steidl, Mrs. Day, and I told the students we only had 3 tens, so we could only share it between the three of us.  As we walked off, the students began screaming “ungroup them!!!” “ungroup them!!!”  I was so proud.

Tonight students have some work to do with expanded and other forms.  We took some notes on this, and everyone seemed to be doing wonderfully.

Expanded_Form_Notes

Base10Sheet1

 

A quick note on homework:  Students are rarely given more than 30 minutes of homework to do each night.  If students focus and follow directions (this means looking at their examples and their notes to aid them) they should be through with their work quite quickly.  Students not finishing homework or not following directions will lose time for other things (celebrations, fun activities, etc) and will instead finish the homework they have missed.   This has been my policy for quite some time, and I do not think it unreasonable.  We have had the majority of students doing a great job with their work, but some students who have been trying to simply get the homework looking as if it were finished as quickly as possible and turned in.  These students have lost their own time by having to do and redo their work until it is correct.   Today a student became extremely upset when they had to redo their homework.  I am upfront with students about this policy.  If you have any questions or concerns about it please e-mail me at jpotter3@wcpss.net.

 

Our Language Arts discussion today centered on settings.  We read the opening of a few books and looked at how authors introduce us to their setting.  They often focus on the senses:

What does it look like?

What does it sound like?

What does it smell like?

What does it feel like?

And sometimes even: What does it taste like?

As we are writing our own stories (and we’ll write plenty of them) we will often begin by focusing on our setting.  We want to ensure our readers can create a picture in their heads of what is going on in our writing.

Tonight students have a short story to write for me.  They should focus on a small event or moment in their lives that they remember well.  They should first think about where and when this happened, and fill out a graphic organizer to help them organize their thoughts around how they will describe their setting.

Setting Organizer

Once this organizer is finished, they should write their story for me.  We talked about including details that make it possible for the reader to picture the action in their head.

Their story should be written in their writing journals, which they were asked to take home today.

 

Next we did a fun little maze activity.  Ask your student about how their team did.  Students had to use trial and error to move through a grid on the floor that was actually a maze.  If they made a wrong step, Mr. Potter gave them a buzz to let them know it was incorrect.  Then the next person got to try again, learning from the mistake of the person in front of them.

The whole point of the exercise was that we are almost never going to get something right the first time unless we’re just lucky.  That’s ok.  We try new things, and we learn from our mistakes.  Making mistakes is ok.  If Mr. Potter points out a mistake, he doesn’t hate you, and he’s not angry with you.  He’s simply trying to point you in the right direction.  Our groupmates can also help us with this, and we should all be learning from each other.  That’s a lot of allusion for one activity!

 

 

Finally, we spent some time talking about plants, the parts of a plant, how seeds form, and how seeds germinate.

We watched this neat little video:

bean germination

 

And then took some notes on plant parts.  We played a little game where students had to match up the plant parts with their definitions/functions.  It was pretty hilarious because students kept getting a correct match, and then moving the match to an incorrect match.  However we finally got them all correct!

Plant_Parts

 

 

so, tl;dr

base 10 sheet – different forms

Base10Sheet1

Write a story about an event/moment in your life you remember well.  Start off by filling out a graphic organizer to ensure you open up with a good description of the setting:

Setting Organizer

 

And read (reading log too)!

 

Not too much, eh?

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

 

BIG P.S.: Tomorrow is Friday.  In Mr. Potter’s classroom that means quiz day.  We take a small battery of quizzes covering everything we touched on during the week, and sometimes even things we did weeks ago.  Tomorrow’s quizzes will be on Story elements, reading comprehension, base 10, forms of numbers, and plant parts.  Just a heads up!

If students were to look in their journals and then look at the quizzes tomorrow, they might be VERY surprised to see some striking similarities…..

We never have enough time…..

This morning we talked about different forms of a number.  We discussed word form, expanded form, and standard form.

We also discussed simply changing the form of a number to make it easier to work with.

For example  I could have a ten dollar bill.  Another FORM of that is I could have 10 one dollar bills.  I still have the SAME VALUE of money, but they are in different forms.  One might be better for me for certain situations.  If I wanted to just carry it around, a 10 dollar bill might be easier.  However if I wanted to go to a vending machine, all of a sudden a different form of my money would be better.

FormOfANumber_Notes

Tonight students should take 5 numbers and think about different forms of the number.  They should write out the word form, the expanded form, and a picture representation.

Next, they should break the number down into TWO different forms.  They should come up with a story for each form that explains why THAT form is better than the basic, standard form.  There is an example included, and their math journal notes should also help them.

FormOfANumberHWK_Aug10

 

I must say I am MUCH happier about our performance in specials today.  I got a great report from Mrs. Wall, our media specialist.  If we get a good report tomorrow in Technology and again Friday in Art, I have promised the students popsicles on the playground Friday.  Let’s keep up the good work!

 

In Language Arts we started talking about story elements.  Good stories usually have 5 different elements:

Setting

Characters

Plot

Conflict

Theme

We watched a flocabulary video about this that I like and can’t help singing along with.  I may have wierded some of your kids out today with my exuberance for this video.  Sorry about that!

Story Elements Video

StoryElements_Notes

We also read some of The Mysterious Benedict Society today.  This is one of my all-time favorite books, and the students seem to be enjoying it so far.  After we read some, we wrote a quick summary together.

Tonight students should fill out a graphic organizer about The Mysterious Benedict Society.  They don’t need to fill the whole thing out, just a few parts: character, plot, conflict, and setting.

MBS_Story_Elements

 

And before you knew it, we were out of time for the day!

Students took home a little note making you aware of this website hopefully, and talking about any assignments they have missed so far this week.  Please sign at the bottom letting me know that you received it.

They also received a PBIS contract concerning how they use technology during our technology special.  Please also sign that tonight.

 

 

so, tl;dr

give me different forms of a number as well as tell me some stories as to why we would want different forms:

FormOfANumberHWK_Aug10

 

Fill out some information about The Mysterious Benedict Society

MBS_Story_Elements

 

Get your Technology form and your homework form signed!

 

And as always, read and get that reading log signed!

 

Have a good one,

-Mr. Potter

Busy busy busy!

This morning I was very pleased with the amount and the quality of the homework I received.  We had 25 of 28 students turn in all of their homework.  I knew this class was great.  I’d very much like to see those last 3 individuals turn in their work tomorrow.   it was not just the homework being turned in that impressed me, but the obvious effort and thought that the majority of students put into their responses.  Homework is practice, but practice is only worthwhile if it is done purposefully.

First we went over our base 10 talk from yesterday.  We talked about how base 10 is all about making groups of 10.  We also took some notes together:

Base10Notes1

We also went over some simple subtraction problems today.  We talked about the standard algorithm for subtraction, as well as the idea that there are multiple ways to solve any given problem.

 

In Language Arts we did half of a word ladder sheet together.  if you’ve never seen a word ladder, they are vocabulary/logic exercises that ask students to modify words step by step to form new words with different meanings.  Tonight students should finish this word ladder.

WordLadderAug9

We also talked about writing letters, and I shared an embarrassingly simple letter I wrote the students.  I have asked them to respond and to write a letter to me introducing themselves.

 

During recess today we had an unfortunate incident where some students teased another student by saying they liked someone else.  I made it very clear that in 5th grade we don’t discuss anyone dating anyone.  Nobody likes anyone in that way.  Nobody is asking anyone out.  Nobody will talk about such ridiculous things again.  We are too young for that drama, and too old for teasing.

 

Finally we ended our day by Saving Fred!  This is quite a fun activity where students must make a plan to save Fred the gummy worm from the stormy seas by providing him with a life preserver.  Just ask your student about it!

Tonight students should finish the Save Fred worksheet.

Save Fred

 

 

so, tl;dr

Finish the word ladder

WordLadderAug9

Write Mr. Potter a letter!

Finish your Save Fred worksheet

Save Fred

 

And as always, read for 15 minutes and get your reading log signed

 

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter