Day 55 of Week 13
We began the day testing my inner zen by me attempting to play a DVD. Windows 8 does not come with DVD capabilities therefore we are using some freeware software that apparently can not play DVD’s with submenus. There is so much “energy” and “potential chaos” that exists when technology refuses to work for 5+ minutes. As you can imagine the 30 students just sit there quietly in a meditative state contemplating how they can best utilize this time to accomplish homework or self test each other on states & capitals. All the while the teacher struggles trying to get something that in the year 2013 should be easily doable.
We moved on…..
The 5th graders have been asked to perform during our school’s Board Presentation on December 10, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. Therefore all of 5th grade practiced the new school song that was created by Ms. Jones-Heintz. So we practiced for 30+ minutes.
FYI -- Ms. Jones-Heintz would like to confirm and practice a few times with 40 DES 5th graders that can commit to 100% attending and performing on 12/10/13. Therefore the first 40 students to RSVP will be selected. I personally hand delivered all RSVP forms to the students in class today and encouraged them to bring them home. If your son/daughter can for sure attend that night, please return the form to the office ASAP.
The students learned some basic Google Drive skills today. We talked about using the “shared with me” and the “my drive.” I showed them how I have created a 2013 2014 drive for the students. That drive will be their primary source for sharing and placing homework into as the year goes along.
We also learned about the “share” function in each document. They now know how to share only with me, allow their peers to edit or comment or view only.
We then went over the expectations for Friday’s compare/contrast essay.
Our superstar student Alexis then gave a thorough presentation to everyone regarding Spelling City Students have a great resource to play games and type their spelling words into the website. It is a great resource for students who need a little TLC in order to bring up their spelling grades.
For our Tuesday technology time the students practiced typing for 20 minutes. Ask your son/daughter what their current words per minute is. We then did 25 minutes of Scootpad.com We have been working so diligently on this that we are now the 38th ranked class in the USA for Language Arts. Finally the kids were given 12 minutes to go on whatever site that they wanted however it had to be appropriate for school. Many of the kids choose to compete on-line (up to 14 players?) in a typing contest.
We did also go over last night’s math homework and then we did two examples for tonight’s homework. I made a special point to reemphasize and cover how they only have to divide up until the thousandths place. This is especially important since many of tonight’s division could go on forever.
If you son or daughter are still struggling on division, I have had two success stories of students who followed the complete “unit” on Khanacademy on division. It has a mix of video lessons and exercises. It should take a solid hour to go through the unit.
Don’t miss this one on the bottom left hand side: Level Four Division
Thursday’s Friendship Soup and Thanksgiving share out…
I like to build a large friendship soup on the week before Thanksgiving and the class will do a large circle. We will enjoy our warm community made soup and share out regarding all the ways that we are thankful this year. It is a great opportunity to enjoy the company of our classroom while also symbolically enjoying the food we all made together. We will enjoy the soup after recess time and then have a long circle time sharing with each other things are we are grateful for.
What does this entail?
1. Each child should bring a sandwich size bag of their favorite vegetable. The vegetable should already be washed and pre-cut. If bringing potato, maybe put some water in the bag so they don’t turn too brown. Please not larger than the sandwich size ziploc because 31 students will bring in a veggie therefore we will have enough vegetables.
2. If your child likes vegetable soup or if you would like to try it,, have your son/daughter bring in a clean tupperware container. Typically the students will “try” the vegetable soup but rarely do they go for 2nds or whatever. I generally have a significant amount of soup left over and I would love to share it out with other families.
3. Any vegetable will be fine, even frozen is fine, since it will cook all day. Ideally it will be your child’s favorite vegetable but I also understand the pragmatics of the situation and maybe you bring whatever the heck is in the freezer or refrigerator on Thursday morning. Tomatoes are fine, corn is great, if your child enjoys “onions” they do add a nice flavor to the soup, mushrooms are fine, and so are green leafy vegetables. With all of the broth, water, and a commingling of 30 vegetables, kids are able to be served soup without whatever vegetable they don’t like.
4. Children have asked and I have said it is ok to bring jalapeno’s or other peppers. However those will not be put into the big pot rather they would be on the side.
5. Students have offered to bring Tabasco Sauce or Sriracha Sauce and once again that would be fine as well. It will just be served on the side.
6. Remember we do have a peanut allergy in our class therefore keep that in mind.
Other details of note: I cook one super big pot of soup, generally I use chicken broth in that one because I do find that more palatable. However I do bring a smaller crock pot and make a vegetarian soup for our vegetarian friends.
Unless your child is an avid vegetable soup eater, your son/daughter should still bring their lunch with them on Thursday. Many of the kids will have some of the soup as a courtesy but it is far too healthy for them :) Once again if your child or your family enjoy soup, have them bring an extra tupperware to school and I will send them home w/ soup. Or you can stop by after school with your tupperware and I will give you some.
Kind regards,
Mr. Hubbard
Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability
- John Wooden
Homework for the week:
Math
4-6 page 93 9-16 all due Wednesday
write original problem
make division problem into a fraction -- You may be able to reduce/simplify the fraction through power of 1
Then solve the problem however you desire (guess & check, stack’em, or old’school division); problem must be solved with decimal # no writing “remainder”
*stop at the thousandths place!!! Don’t go on forever.
*you may estimate if it helps you and you have the skill set to do it quickly
Chapter review page 148 1-15 all show your work due Thursday
Chapter review page 168-169 1-16 all show your work due Friday
Test on chapters 4, 6, and 7 Friday
Problem of the week due on Friday
History and Language Arts:
Read the article: First Thanksgiving Set Important Example read by Tuesday
*take notes on it or highlight it. Will be used in our compare and contrast article.
Compare and Contrast essay due Friday
Your Thanksgiving and the First Thanksgiving
*You must cite at least 5 times from articles or videos of the First Thanksgiving
*Must be typed (will be given time in class) and placed into our class’ compare/contrast Thanksgiving folder
Language Arts due Wednesday:
Xylem and Phloem Get Things Moving handout
Free-Write due Thursday
What are you thankful for?
Hand written or shared only w/ me
Free-write due Friday
You are a turkey still alive the Friday after Thanksgiving, what is your survival story?
Thursday -- Friendship Soup
See detailed write up on the 11/19/13 web posting.
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