Room 20 Classroom Notes November 18-22

Good Week!
Our last week before conferences is busy! We will witness Mr. Vestal and Ms. Speer's classes' Travel Expos. We all have been working hard to finish up our presentations. We will also be working hard to finish out planet presentations and begin presenting on Wednesday. We finish our week with a community bike ride with our Bike Transit Authority leader Sheilagh. After our break, we will get back into our imaginative writing pieces. We will also continue with our geometry unit in math, particularly finding the area of triangles and parallelograms. We have been learning about the difference between congruent figures and similar figures. In reading, we will finish "Island of the Blue Dolphin." PLEASE REMEMBER to work on your book report/newspaper for your fiction books! Everyone is hard at work reading their book report book. Please ask your child about the plot. We have been working on explaining plot by speaking of what happened in the beginning, middle, and end, and what was the problem and solution, especially when considering the CLIMAX. Also, a good plot synopsis has information about the characters and setting. We created a plot line to show how stories typically travel, starting low by introducing the problem and climbing to the climax, at which resolving the problem. I am very excited to see you all for conferences. Thank you for supporting your child and our classroom! Upcoming walking field trip: Reed's Cooley Art Gallery: Soviet Graphic Arts and Photography 1905-1990. This looks really good. Please contact me if you would like to chaperone. If so, please fill out a background check form in office.

Making Sorbet and Talking States of Matter

Bike Safety

Atmosphere Reading Passage

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/lancet/fifth_grade/atmosphere5th.pdf 

Please read this article about atmosphere and then do the quiz. Place your answers into the digital quiz. Follow this link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Dpq4MTxHrxK2G3iB1_Nm11HDmGkbaYy869HHmE3LH_Q/viewform

Bike Safety with Sheilagh (Shee-la)

Room 20 Classroom Notes November 12-15

Good week to you! Bike safety will last until the 22nd of November. The weather looks cold, so please make sure your child dresses appropriately, especially gloves! Thank you for returning your permission slips. If you would like to volunteer and you did not indicate on your permission slip, please let me know. We especially need volunteers for our community bike ride the last day of bike safety (Nov. 22nd). As our first quarter closes, I want you all to know what projects are still out there and how they are prioritized: 1. Create a state presentation, including all display regalia. Students may also bring from home pictures or props for presentation. It looks like our EXPO will not be happening until the final week before conferences. We will have the travel expo Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday with all fifth grades. Each class will take a day. 2. Science presentations. We will start presenting our presentations the Wednesday of the last week before conferences. Students are working on their own presentation, but will present with group members on the planet they have been doing research on. We are also doing a project on tech class based on this project. 3. Fiction book report due December 3rd. This is in a newspaper format described last week. If you have any questions, please ask your child first. Further questions, please contact me. We have already had some incredible discussions based on what these will look like, whether digital or hard copy.

Graphic Organizer for Homework

All About __________________________

My state’s name is _________________________________________.

My state’s climate is: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In my state you find the following plants:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

These types of animals live in my state:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The people of my state are known as:_______________________________________________________________________________

Our favorite foods include:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As a community we value (art, dance, athletics, kindness, nature, etc.): ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Our most important celebration of the year is: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Our modes of transportation include: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Room 20 Classroom Notes November 4-7

Our two plays were a great success, thanks to the dedication of the students, Michael, Laura, and all of the families who helped with this process. Thank you to everyone for making Wednesday night such a wonderful experience. Thank you also to Sarah Bidwell and Sara Fields for helping out during our Johnson Creek watershed study. This week we will be finishing division and multiplication and starting geometry and measurement. In writing, we finish up our personal narratives and begin an imaginative piece. Imaginative writing pieces may not be finished before conference time. For conferences, parents will be able to see students personal narratives, math work samples, and reading scores along with science and social studies projects. We begin bike safety for 5th graders on Tuesday, November 12th for the remaining two weeks before conferences. This is a time where students learn the various road rules of being a cyclist and how to navigate on the road. This is especially important in such a bike-friendly city as Portland Oregon. The last week before conferences we will present our state projects to the entire 5th grade class. Just as an FYI, I am dictating my weekly notes via our new Nexus 7's. Students have been learning how to use these tablets. They are very portable. They also have a camera, which allows for much multimedia flexibility. I hope you have a wonderful week!