Reading Response December 10th

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler


Walk Two Moons

Student Reflection Link

Reflection Link

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Good Morning,

Conferences are quickly approaching! If you have not already signed up, please be sure to sign up for a time on either Thursday, November 7th or Tuesday, November 12th. If a before school time works better for you, please contact me directly.

Please click here to access the online scheduling website.

Thank you for sharing your child with me each day,
Megan

Lung Lab reflection!

10/8/13

Good Morning,

Fall break is in the air! I hope that you have exciting family plans over the vacation. I know some of you will be jet setting to far away places and I was hoping for a few favors. First, if you know that your student will be gone on Thursday, please let me know so I can make sure they get their beautiful artwork from Ms. Dazzio. Second, wherever you explore, if you can continue our geography conversations in an authentic setting, that would be incredible. Our Five Themes of Geography are Location, where a place is on earth, Place, the physical and human characteristics of a place, Human/Environment Interaction, the way people and the environment affect each other, Movement, the way people, goods, and ideas travel from place to place, and Regions, the ares in the world that have common physical, human, or cultural characteristics. As you explore if your child thought about those five big ideas that will really make geography come to life!

Thank you in advance for your ongoing conversations about the ideas of thinking deeply, making meaning, and understanding. In order to explicitly demonstrate the process adults and students go through to learn something deeply rather than memorizing it and forgetting it, students have generated 75 questions about the process. From the 75 questions, students used critical thinking skills to sort the questions into common themes and inferred what each question was really asking. From there students generated 8 questions that we tested out yesterday on our Building Resource Teacher Mrs. Barta. With her guidance students decided to merge a few questions together and to explain what questions were really asking. We now have 6 questions that students will be interviewing Mrs. Brown, Mrs. O'Day, other 5th graders, and each of you with! There is no RIGHT answer, but students are really wondering about the idea if I understand something today will I understand it in 2 years and how do I know that I really understand something. This metacognition is at the heart of learning, because this reiterates the idea that if I don't understand something in math, soccer, science, cooking, etc I need to ask questions, I need to gather more information until I can independently perform the task.

So thank you in advance for your information and please know this process and these questions are 100% kids thoughts, so if the questions aren't perfect, ask your child, what they think the question is really asking, and how they might answer the same question if it was given to them. The math connection will be how we gather results from surveys that can't be communicated with a bar graph. So any questions or suggestions you have about that would be greatly appreciated by the students!

This week, students are publishing their small moment personal narrative writing piece. We started typing these in class yesterday within their school Google Drive account so that they could easily work on it at home and at school without the need of a flash drive. Students will have another hour and a half to publish in school today. The parts that aren't finished in class today will be taken home for homework. Tomorrow students will use the rubric and self assess their writing and do a written reflection that assesses and explains their progress on their three self selected writing goals.

In reading, we will finish up our first round of fiction book clubs. Students collaborated to identify what their daily reading and daily jobs should look like. It is exciting to see students hold each other responsible for their reading and see that coming prepared allows for deep and meaningful conversations.

In science, we are focusing on how each of the body systems are interdependent. Students will learn the parts of the respiratory system and the parts of the circulatory system. The bigger learning for all systems is what the purpose of the system is and how the system interacts or is interdependent with the other systems.

Field trip permission slip forms will be completed online. Once you have submitted this, please let me know either with an email or a note.

Thank you for sharing your child with me each day! They are such incredible thinkers!
Megan

9/25/13

Next week we will begin our second Investigations unit on three dimensional shapes. Please take a moment to read the Family Letter that shares key information about our unit. A paper copy will be in Thursday folders next week.

Unit 2 Family Letter

September 22nd

Good Morning,

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend with your family. The weather has been perfect for both indoor and outdoor activities.

Last week students arrived at a stopping point in our explorers unit. Students wrote articles about the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. This study took us from the Vikings to the late 1500's. After the winter break, we will pick back up with the settlement of Jamestown and continue with the 13 British Colonies, and tensions that spark the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War.

This coming week we will use the many different theories of missing colonists at Roanoke to introduce the idea of researching the interdependence of different systems. Each theory consists of groups interacting in both positive and negative ways. We will use this idea of systems to launch our Life Science Unit. The two fifth grade standards are; all organisms have structures and systems with separate functions and human body systems have basic structures, functions, and needs.
This unit will begin by identifying the characteristics and life processes that all living things need. Then we will compare and contrast structures and systems
in different organisms. In this unit we will be going on a field trip to dissect a lamb's lung at the Museum of Nature and Science. Our day will be Monday, October 28th. More information will be coming about the specifics in early October.

In math we are using our conceptual understanding of multiplication to help us build division strategies. Students have been using multiple towers to create a visual representation of why using multiples of 10 helps them find the quotient efficiently. For example, if I was solving 232 divided by 21, I could use 21 x 10 to get to 210, and know that I have one more full group of 21. This investigation will be about a week and the purpose is to develop strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Later in the year we will have another division unit that will focus on other division strategies like partial quotients and the connection to traditional algorithms.

In reading this week, students will turn in a reading response letter with their reading log on Friday. We have practiced the format of letters in the classroom with books that we have read together. Letters should be a minimum of two paragraphs. The first paragraph should be a summary of the reading and the second paragraph should be their thinking in response to the text. It might be analyzing how a character has grown throughout the book, it might be a specific reading strategy used that helped them make meaning. The letters must include specific details from the text. Details could be used to determine a theme of a story, or identify a character's points of view, or drawing inferences. Letters will be stapled to their signed reading logs each week.

In writing this week, we continue to generate ideas within the genre of personal narrative. Because it is a short week this week, students will complete Grammar Week 6, but will not do the spelling words connected this week. Next week we will do a grammar review of weeks 1-6 and study week 6 words at that time.

Thank you for sharing your child with me,
Megan

Mark Your Calendar

·      Tuesday, September 24 @ 4:30-5:30 4^th & 5^th Math Parent Sessions

Friday, September 27^th – No School for Students/ Teacher Professional Day

Our classroom curriculum update will come out early next week.

I wanted to remind parents about our upcoming math curriculum night that has been mentioned on Mrs. Brown's weekly blog. Each grade level in the school has had a night to provide more communication between teachers, students, and parents. All 5th grade teachers and leadership will be available Tuesday, September 24th from 4:30-5:30 to model and discuss specific math strategies on multiplication and division in whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. In addition to exposing you to strategies, we will talk through a fraction game that can be adapted to meet the math needs of your child. At goal setting conferences you checked out a math reference book from me. During our math night, we would like to overview the resources inside, including games, vocabulary exposure, and examples. Materials for games will be uploaded on classroom websites by math night.

We hope to see you at curriculum night, but I am happy to send home resources that we pass out that may be helpful in understanding and supporting your child in their math homework. The format of the night is drop in, but if you know ahead of time that you will not be able to attend, please let me know.

Thanks,

Megan

Digger Dash Information

Good Morning,

The Digger Dash is quickly approaching, it will be Friday, September 20th. The schedule for the Digger Dash is listed below.

Digger Dash Schedule

9:20-9:35 Stretching (Preschool & K)

9:35-9:50 Race Time (Preschool & K)

9:40-9:55 Stretching (1)

9:55-10:25 Race Time (1)

10:15-10:30  Stretching (2 & 3)

10:30-11:15 Race Time (2 & 3)

11:05-11:20 Stretching (4)

11:20-12:05 Race Time (4)

11:05-11:20 Stretching (5)

11:20-12:05 Race Time (5)

Team Fleet has picked the name Flying Smileys. For race day, students came up with lots of different ideas that would make our team stand out and be unique. They voted and decided that we would have crazy hair and smiles painted on our face. Our smiles can be as a simple as a face paint pencil smile or as elaborate as students want. From the shoulders down students can dress for comfort and add their own creative spin to capture our team the Flying Smileys. Some students suggested wearing backpacks as jet packs, wearing wings, or long socks these weren't chosen as class wide flair, but can be worn by students if they want.

Please plan on coming to cheer us on and bringing an extra water bottle for your smiley! As we fly we will need to stay hydrated!

Thank you for sharing your child with me,
Megan

10 Questions Template Word Document

September 9th

Good Morning,

I can't believe we have been back in school for nearly a month. It is such a joy to teach this wonderful group of fifth graders. I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of the things we are working on in the classroom.

In reading, we are continuing with our study on activating schema and making connections. In fifth grade you will see a big push for kids to work on making connections between different texts. In class we have modeled this in a series of picture books. Students have done an incredible job identifying which connections and parts of their background knowledge help them make meaning and parts that can be distracting.

In writing, students have been digging ditches in their mind and searching for rivers filled with stones of meaning. In writing, sometimes the hardest thing to do is determine a topic to write about. Our figurative stones have provided us topics for us to explore the writing process in the genre of personal narratives. Last week, students should have received their name writing piece back in their Thursday folder. You may have also noticed a short constructed response on the back of each weekly spelling test. This year we will write for a variety of purposes and will look both at the ideas and content in our writing and our use of spelling and grammar rules.

In math, students have been using their understanding of multiplication facts to identify factors and multiples of given numbers. As students determined factors they began to see patterns that could be used to classify numbers as prime, square, and composite. We will continue to look at multiplication and develop multiple strategies to solve double digit by double digit multiplication problems. At home please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts. 

In social studies, students began the year by looking at landforms found in different parts of the United States. Using their observations, students began to identify why certain states are grouped together in specific regions. Our geography unit centered around the Five Themes of Geography, which are location, place, human/environment interaction, movement, & region. We will continue to use these themes of geography as we study the early explorers. Students will think critically about how interactions and movement motivated and impacted explorers.

Thank you for sharing your child with me each day,
Megan

Lunch Menu

Book Club orders are due Thursday, August 29th

You may order books online using the link below:

Online Book Order

You may also send back the paper order form with your child.

Welcome to Team Fleet

Dear 5^th graders and families,

Hello to each of you! My name is Megan Fleet, and I am so excited to be teaching a class of fifth grade learners at Gold Rush Elementary. My previous classroom experiences include teaching fifth grade, fourth grade, and a fourth/fifth combination class in Douglas County. I have also taught sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in Jefferson County. My number one priority as a teacher is to create a classroom that is filled with respect, learning, and laughter. 

            I feel so lucky to be teaching in a school district that I attended as a child. I love being able to give back to a community that has given me so much. Following my Douglas County education, I graduated from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washingtion with degrees in Psychology and Elementary Education. During my junior year in college I studied in Florence, Italy and traveled through Europe including the countries of Croatia, Bosnia, Turkey, and Greece. These experiences have encouraged me to teach all students to be global citizens. After exploring many parts of the world, I decided to move back to Colorado to be closer to my family. Upon my return I continued my education and received a Master’s in Reading and Writing Instruction from the University of Colorado at Denver, with an additional K-12 Reading Teacher endorsement. 

Moving back to Colorado allowed me to meet my husband. Last summer I got married and this summer we moved into a new home. We have two nephews that we love dearly. Our oldest nephew began kindergarten last fall. It has been so enlightening to see school through the eyes of a 5 year old and his parents. 

I look forward to collaborating with you to ensure each student accomplishes his or her individual goals. I believe when we work together we can celebrate students as they grasp concepts that they thought seemed impossible. I believe parents, students, and teachers are the perfect learning team. As the teacher, I will send home student work with feedback to encourage conversations about your student’s learning. I will provide parents a snapshot of our school days through email updates. In these emails a short summary about essential questions and standards we are investigating will be provided along with ideas about how student learning can be extended at home. 

The school day will be filled with targeted lessons that are engaging. There will be times when we work as a whole group, times we work in small groups, with partners, and independently. Our class will come up with agreements about what learning should look like and sound like in the various learning groupings. One thing is certain; students will be active in their learning. 

Right now there may be questions and predictions about fifth grade. These are critical thinking skills and they will guide our learning together. All thinkers have questions and pursue answers. All critical thinkers make and change their predictions as they discover new information.

I cannot wait to discover more about each student as a learner and as a thinker!

Your excited 5^th grade teacher,
Mrs. Megan Fleet