Take a Peek

We successfully completed our first five day school week. We had a wonderful week full of awesome learning experiences.

Take a peek at what our week looked like:

We have had many conversations and read several stories about the importance of being you. During Writer's Workshop, we wrote I am poems. The I am poems were a great way for students to express their interests, hopes, wishes, and dreams. I was blown away at the beautiful language that was used in the poems. The students created a published copy of their poems. The poems now hang alongside self-portraits in our classroom.

During Writer's Workshop we discussed different types of writing. 

Students are encouraged to choose their own writing topic and type of writing during Writer's Workshop. I am excited to get to know my students as writers. While students are writing independently, I take the time to conference with students one-on-one in order to get to know them better as writers. Together, we have been coming up with writing goals to help strengthen our writing.

We created our word wall letters out of our bodies and hung them in the front of the classroom. We will be adding our weekly spelling words to the word wall. It is a great reference point for students to use while writing.

The fifth graders in our classroom have been introduced to the 30 Book Challenge. Their challenge is to read at least 30 books throughout the school year in a variety of genres. They will be keeping track of the books they have read by filling out a grid in their reading folder.

We created our class birthday graph and analyzed the data.

We are very excited to announce that we will be writing a classroom newspaper this year. We decided on a name, The Pickle Press. Our inspiration came from "Hairy Pickle" who is passed around during Morning Meeting while we share and engage in conversation.

We created our first edition by writing articles in small groups.

In the coming weeks, we will be looking closely at different newspapers, magazines, articles and investigating what makes articles interesting to read. We will take what we learn from other publications and integrate it into our classroom newspaper. We have already created a list of ideas for future Pickle Press publications. I am excited to see how The Pickle Press evolves throughout the school year. 

We spent some time in the computer lab creating individual digital 5th grade portfolios on Keynote. We  will use these portfolios to showcase our work throughout the school year.

I also shared a fun website, Draw a Stickman, with everyone. We loved watching our stickmen (and women) come to life!

And who can forget, we spent some time chatting with Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station.

Looking forward to another great week!