Another day, another 6 paws.

Our students are really knocking it out of the park this first week.  We have done so well with our lines and our hallway behavior that we have gotten five extra minutes of recess each day so far this week, and are already up to 20 paws on our lion.  It’s unreal.

 

We spent our morning again reviewing how our classroom should look and act, and then talked a great deal about character traits.  We split our character traits up into categories (negative, positive, and neutral) and had some really great discussions about how we might view some traits as good in some situations and bad in others.  The students really got into debating this among themselves and with me.

Next we took some time to write a short story about an event in our life that we thought was very special, or interesting.  We then talked about how we can expand on this story to add details, and answer questions that our readers might have.  We split into pairs, and did TAG:

Tell something you liked

Ask a question

Give a suggestion

Students wrote down what their TAG partner said, and their homework tonight is to re-write their story using the suggestions and questions from their partner.

 

In math, we talked again about base 10, and did a lot of work describing numbers in many different ways.  We took a good amount of notes on this, which can be found here:

BaseTenPDF

Students also have a worksheet on this to complete tonight:

Base10Sheet1

Finally while I did some last MClass and other assessments, the students had what I like to call D.E.A.R. time:  Drop Everything and Read time.

 

So tldr;

Re-write short story from writing today using the suggestions and questions their partner gave them (TAG)

Base 10 worksheet

Base10Sheet1

As always, read for 35 minutes and get a signature

 

Have a good one!

 

-Mr. Potter

We have quite the actors in our class!

 

This morning we reviewed how groups should act.  The students came up with these basic rules for groups:

We are kind to our groupmates
We are humble, we listen and respect other people’s opinions
We act as a group – we are not a dictatorship
We come to decisions TOGETHER
We should be discussing, not arguing
We ask for help, and we help others

Then each group put on a skit for each rule, with a correct and incorrect way to act.

They….were…..hilarious.  Ask your student about his/her group’s skit.  It was great.

 

Next, we talked again about character traits, and how we can discover things about characters by how they act, what they say, and how they feel.  Authors don’t often just tell us straight out about a character, but they develop their characters through the interactions in their stories.  We then did some reading, and identified character traits with actions as evidence.

In language arts students have to write a letter to me telling me about themselves, and ask me any questions they might have.

They also have a small newspaper-like hand out, where they are going to share all about themselves with the class.  This is also due tomorrow.

In math, we talked some more about base 10, and exponential notation, and writing numbers in different ways.  We didn’t quite get as far as I would have liked in this, so there is no homework in this tonight.

We then did a very fun activity called the toothpaste challenge.  We used this to talk about how we should be careful with our words.  Be sure you ask your student about this, and maybe even do it with them tonight.

 

so, tldr;

Read for 35 minutes, and get your agenda signed stating you did so

Letter to Mr. Potter

All About Me Newspaper

 

Have a good one!

 

-Mr. Potter

Today was a very smooth second day of school.

Everyone remembered to bring in their sneakers for P.E., which was great.  Tomorrow we have DIscovery Ed, so please remember to bring a composition book to use in Mrs. Long’s class if you have not already brought one in.

We spent our morning reviewing expectations and procedures, and then we started reading “The Mysterious Benedict Society” together, and talking about character traits.  We also discussed how we can write simple sentence long summaries of what we read that include who, what, when, where, and why.  Students will need to write these summaries about the books they read in order to assist them with taking AR tests later.

Next we started a fun word ladder, and that will be the students’ homework for tonight.

In math, we took an assessment test that will give me a much better idea of where the students are on quite a few concepts,

Finally, I wrote a letter to the students and had them read it, telling them a little bit about myself.  They have homework that is due Thursday that is to write a letter back to me about themselves, and ask me any questions that they might have.  I will read these over the weekend and have a response for them on Monday.

 

So tldr;

Things are progressing smoothly!

word ladder due tomorrow

Letter to Mr. Potter due Thursday!

 

Have a good one,

 

-Mr. Potter

 

Ah, the first day of fifth grade!

We began our school year talking about expectations and how we can be the perfect classroom.  Our students came up with some very good lists of what the perfect class looks like in the classroom, in the hallways, at specials, and at lunch.  They  know what is expected of them in these places, and they did a wonderful job meeting those expectations today.

We then spent some time organizing our desks, our supplies, and our binders.  Students have a homework binder that they are expected to bring home each night, which will contain their agenda, and their homework.  For tonight, they have a mountain of paperwork to bug you to sign and to bring back tomorrow.

I know that the pile of paperwork can be a hassle, but it would greatly help me out if you can get that finished and turned in.

They also have their nightly reading to do.  Students picked out books from our classroom library, and they should spend a minimum of 30 minutes tonight reading (Normally it should be 35 minutes, but they each got to do 5 minutes of it in class).  Please sign your students agenda or book log verifying that they did read for their 30 minutes.

 

In math we did some quick review of the base 10 system, and what base 10 actually means.  We will be taking some more notes on this tomorrow, and much of our math work this week will be focused on ensuring we have a solid grasp of the foundations of our number system.

We then did some activities where we got to know each other, and a group activity called Save Fred.  Be sure you ask your student if they indeed had a chance to save Fred, or if their team didn’t quite get there.  It looked like the majority of our class had a good time, and I’m sure they would like to share their experience with you.

 

So, tldr;

Read for 30 minutes and get book log or agenda signed verifying this fact

Paperwork mountain  (If you had already filled out a form last Thursday, don’t worry about filling it out again.  However there are some new forms to fill out)

 

Looking forward to tomorrow!

 

-Mr. Potter