It was great seeing many of you at curriculum night. We have had a great August. Now we are ready to roll into September to explore and learn all we can about our Unit of Inquiry-"How We Organize Things". We are learning that processes, steps, and plans are an important part of developing something worthwhile. Below find what we have covered and what's to come.
Last Week... In Math, we continued to study how multiplying and dividing a given number by the "Powers of 10" can effect the place value and overall value of that number. In Writing, we are working our way through the writing process for the first time this year. We have also learned to give each other feedback using the RISE Model for Meaningful Feedback. In Social Studies, we worked toward finishing our exploration of the Bill of Rights. In Science, we explored classification even the further by classifying aliens! In Reading, we are reading Tuck Everlasting. We are having a blast reading this book! This Week... We are excited to finish and present our final copy at the end of this week in Writing. We can't wait to explore the process of amending the Constitution in Social Studies. Tuck Everlasting will spark some great discussion in Reading. The skill and concept of animal classification will be ours by the end of the week in Science. We are excited to show all of what we have learned on Friday's Mid-Modular Assessment in Math. News and Notes...
We have accomplished a lot so far. Let's go further and learn more! Mr. Johnson
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Happy Monday! I am super excited to have our first TED Ed Club exploration tomorrow during Genius Hour. We will be exploring what exactly is an "idea worth sharing". It's going to be epic! Students have already been discussing the ideas they want to develop for their talk.
Last week, we went further into multiplying and dividing by powers of 10 in math. In Reading, we had a great discussion on culture and food after reading the book "Everybody Cooks Rice". We discussed the benefits of relating a text to our own lives. In Writing, we finished our "Scranimals" and read about them to the class. In Science today, we kicked off our unit on classification by participating in a rock exploration. In Social Studies, we will rap up our study on the Bill of Rights by finding out just how our Constitution is amended. We have started reading "Tuck Everlasting" as a class and will finish the book in the next week or so. In math, we will dive deep into decimals. Class Announcements
I hope this post finds you well.
*Remember to visit the links that I've embedded for more information and context about some of the subject matter in this post* Exciting News I want to start with some exciting news. As you may know we have a block of time called "Genius Hour" 2 hours per week. This is a time where teachers get to take students beyond the curriculum into their interests in creative ways. Our first "Genius Hour" experience this year will be as an official TED-Ed Club. TED-Ed Clubs promote presentation literacy through a 7-9 week program which will culminate in students giving their very own TED Talk. More information to come! No Red Folders? You may have noticed that Red Communication folders did not come home today. To my knowledge there was no content. It wasn't until after school that I discovered the Lego/Robotics Club Information. I will staple this information the agendas tomorrow. Math Pre-Assessment The early days of the school year are filled with pre-assessments. This helps teachers get an idea of how students are currently performing in a given subject. We have taken a math pre-assessment that contained 5th grade math skills. When the students took this assessment, I had not gone over these skills with them. With this in mind, do not be alarmed if your student did not perform well on this assessment. Remember, these are 5th grade skills. They will complete a similar assessment at the end of this unit. Expect this to come home tomorrow. Please initial and return. What We've Accomplished...What's to Come Last week in math we started exploring how the powers of ten affect numbers. Students should have an idea of how multiplying a number by the powers of ten can change that number. We will continue to explore that topic this week. In writing, we have focused on becoming a community of writers. We will now explore the various ways to generate ideas. In Social Studies we will continue to explore the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. We are also looking forward to working on our iPads this week! I will post blurbs from the Specials classes tomorrow. Cheers Mr. Johnson What a great 1st week of school we had last week. We dove head first into our Unit of Inquiry on "Process and Procedures". This is the overall theme that will guide our learning this first 6 weeks. I think this is fitting given that last week was spent learning the processes and procedures for Mr. Johnson's 5th grade class. We also spent time learning about the 10 IB Learner Attributes. (Have your student name and explain these attributes some time this week). This week has already started off with a bang. Ask your 5th graders to explain our science experiment and their results. We have a power packed week planned. Find attached a file containing the learning targets for this week for all subject areas. Homework It is important that students show you their agenda every night. The agenda will contain the specific homework assigned for a given evening. By the end of the week, I will have created a homework tab right here on the blog as a point of reference. Tonight's homework was a math review to ease them back into the routine of doing math. It was not a difficult assignment. Consider this an appetizer :). We will have spelling words starting next week. I will create a blog post specifically about our spelling program and how it will look for our classroom. Upcoming Assessments We will taking MAP Assessments starting this week. The specific dates and times are below. Are you unclear about what the MAP Assessment is and what it does for our students? Click here for more details.
A Message from the Media Center Our 5th graders will begin book check out this week. AlsoDecatur Book Festival We are excited to announce our 4th & 5th grade author visits scheduled for Friday, September 2nd! 4th Grade will see Nathan Hale, author of the Hazardous Tales series. These graphic novels are a funny, engaging way for kids to learn about events in American History. We are focusing on One Dead Spy (Nathan Hale & Revolutionary War), Donner Dinner Party(westward expansion), and Alamo All-Stars (Battle of the Alamo). TheHazardous Tales books have long been favorites in the F.AVE media center, so we are thrilled to have Nathan Hale visit our 4th graders! 5th grade will see Jewell Parker Rhodes, Coretta Scott King Honor winner and author of a new novel, Towers Falling. Ms. Rhodes is known for taking tough subjects and helping upper elementary kids understand them through novels. Her last book, Ninth Ward, was about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her current book, Towers Falling, is about a 5th grade girl. Deja, who knew nothing of the events of September 11, 2001. Deja is homeless and living in a shelter, going to a new school as she learns about what home, family, and community mean to her. Both authors will present in assembly format to each grade level. After the assembly, students who brought books by that author will come to media center to meet the author and get their book autographed. If you would like to purchase books through F.AVE, 20% does go to the media center, however, students are not required to pre-order their books through us. All F.AVE orders are due to the media center by Friday, August 19th. You can download order forms below, and your child has one in their Monday Communication Folder. Thank you to DEF and Little Shop of Stories for bringing these wonderful authors to F.AVE every year! A Message from Señora Speed-Spanish Teacher My name is Melanie Speed, and I am thrilled to be your student’s Spanish teacher. I have been teaching Spanish for the last 8 years at CSD schools. Our team will teach Language B through a storytelling curriculum called "Cuéntame" by Carol Gaab. Students will listen to, tell, write, and read each others stories in the language! Wow! At FAVE the kids will be assessed and receive academic grades in Spanish, unlike their K-3 schools. Our summative assessments will occur from 9/6/16-9/9/16 for Term 1. To prepare for these assessments we expect your student to spend 10 minutes twice a week on quizlet.com, our homework website, practicing their vocabulary. We will teach the kids how to access quizlet.com in class. ¡Muchas Gracias y ..... Bienvenidos a FAVE! Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. Stay tuned to the blog this week. I will be sharing more important posts this week. Was this helpful? Feel free to give feedback or ask questions in the comments. Cheers! Mr. Johnson
We are having an exciting 1st week in Mr. Johnson's class. This is a quick post about some homework that I assigned to be completed tonight. Below are some points of clarification:
More posts to come!
We had a great 1st day here in class! I can tell that we have a class that loves to learn. Around Wednesday or Thursday the preliminary activities will begin to dissipate so that we can jump into the activity. However, we will continually build community. Below are some tidbits for you to consider:
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Eddie Johnson
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