Wacky Tourist Day

Today was Wacky Tourist Day and we also had our regions presentations! The kids did great and their enthusiasm was fantastic & it was really neat to see their creativity at work with their posters, handouts, trifold a, and Power Points! I was really impressed with their hard work!

Eva was awesome in her warm winter gear for winter in the west, but she was sure to recommend we not wear shorts during a northwestern winter!

Kimball was too cool in his western ski wear and the background on his presentation was stunning!

Rex was so cool in his Midwestern style outfit and his trifold was fabulous with beautiful pictures!

Emily was representative of the southern part of the western region and she did a great job capturing the natural resources!

These kiddos went all out for Wacky Tourist Day! They looked great! I wish I'd gotten more pictures, but we were so engrossed in the presentations I forgot to take more photos! Overall, I'm quite proud of our class and their proactive attitudes toward our first homework project! Way to go Whitley Crew!!

Week of September 12-16

 Happy Friday, parents! We’ve had a fun week! If your child would like to participate in celebrating the color of the day with Kindergarten next week, here are the colors to wear each day.

Monday: Red

Tuesday: Blue

Wednesday: Yellow

Thursday: Green

Friday: Orange

5^th Grade T-shirt Selection

Next week Monday through Thursday, we will be collecting donations toward your favorite 5^thgrade t-shirt design. Please tell your child to bring in coins ONLY to vote for his/her favorite 5^thgrade t-shirt design. There will be 5 options, one from each class.

Celebration

I award stars to the kids for meeting expectations in the hallway, other common areas, good reports during related arts, and for general overall use of the 7 habits. Yesterday we earned our 20^th star! After 20 stars have been earned, I always allow the kids to give suggestions for some type of celebration and then vote on a favorite. Today’s vote was to make Oobleck one day next week! I think this was a great idea from one of our kiddos because not only is it fun, but it’s educational! So, expect your student to come home one evening next week with a small baggie of Oobleck, a fun, slimy substance!

Questions to ask your child about this week…

As a parent, I’m always curious about what goes on in school with my boys. It seems every time I ask about school I get, “It was good.” So each day, I ask them for a high and a low. As our kids get older sometimes they’re more worried about the social aspects of school. If you want to know more about what your child learned this week, here are a few questions to get them talking. J

What have you learned about the U.S. regions?

How do you use the thinking strategies to help you when you read?

What types of poems have you been writing in class?

What are your big rocks (priorities)?

Can you show me how to write a 7 digit number in various forms?

Next Week’s Learning Plan

7 Habits: We will continue to focus on habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind.

Reading: Thinking strategies will remain our focus for this week. Please encourage your child to use the thinking strategies such as questioning and inferring at home.

Writing: We will begin grammar lessons reviewing the parts of speech, learning about prefixes and suffixes, and we will also be co-authoring poetry for 2-3 voices. You can ask your child about this tonight as we began today.

Math: We will continue our unit on place value and operations with whole numbers.

Social Studies: Our study of geography will segue into a focus on map skills this coming week.

Have a wonderful weekend and please contact me with any questions! Later this weekend, I will update our class website with some great pictures from the week!

Week of September 5-9

Dates to Know

9/8~Early Release @ 12:20pm *Please send a note if your child’s transportation will be different on this date.

9/22~Tiger Trek ~ Please collect donations to help support our school! J

 

U.S. Region Project & Wacky Tourist Day!

Tonight I sent home an assignment that will be due on Friday. Each child is to color and label the states for the region to which he/she is assigned. Then your child is to research (using the Internet at home). I have included a list of several websites students may use to gather information on my blog. They need at least 10 bullet points under each topic. Your child also has a highlighted topic on the graphic organizer. For this particular topic in your child’s assigned region, your child will need to make either a short PowerPoint presentation (no more than 3 slides), a handout, or a poster to support him/her when the group presents the information on Friday. Finally, to further support their learning, each child is being asked to dress as a “wacky tourist” from their region. Please just use materials from home. Nothing needs to be purchased for this.

 

Note from Mr. Beatty

Dear Families,

Starting Friday, September 2, the art room will commence weaving with yarn.  This past summer, Mr. Beatty saw a way demonstrated to keep the yarn nice and neat, and it involved using empty clear two-liter bottles for the yarn to be pulled through.

Would you consider sending in a clean, empty, intact two-liter bottle?  It doesn't need a cap, and each bottle will garner the student who brings it 20,000 points toward the art trophy.  We need approximately fifty bottles, and a second email will go out if and when we reach our limit.

Thanks a lot,

Mr. Beatty

Here’s what we’re learning this week!

7 Habits: What does it mean to be begin with the end in mind?

Reading: This week we will continue learning about metacognition or thinking about your thinking. The kids will be learning how to apply the thinking strategies to help build their comprehension when reading a text.

Writing: Our focus for writing this week is to continue exploring various types of poetry. We will try Xanadus and poems for 2 voices this week. Then we will segue into our next unit, Playing with Words, where the kids will begin learning about the various parts of speech and how they are used.

Math: During math, we will continue our unit on place value where students will learn about the relative value of place value positions, review how to read and write numbers in various forms, and learn to apply basic facts to patterns such as 8x3=24, therefore 80x30=2400. We will also begin learning to multiply large whole numbers this week.

Social Studies: During social studies, we will work on understanding regions and learning map skills.

 

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call or email me. Have a fabulous week!

Week of August 29-September 2

Good afternoon, parents!  We had a great day today! This was the first day we switched classes for math flexible grouping and I have to say it was a success! The kids transitioned well and everyone seemed happy and content with how their math classes went today! Feel free to ask your child about math today to see who he/she has for a teacher during this unit.

Reminders

Please be sure to pick up a composition notebook for PE.

 

Dates to Know

8/31~Cross Country Practice
9/1~Choir Rehearsal Begins
9/2~FCA Begins
9/6~No School for Labor Day
9/8~Early Release @ 12:20pm *Please send a note if your child’s transportation will be different on this date.

 

Here’s what we’re learning this week!
7 Habits: What does it mean to be proactive?
Reading: This week we will be learning about metacognition or thinking about your thinking. The kids will be learning how to apply the thinking strategies to help build their comprehension when reading a text.
Writing: Our focus for writing this week is to explore various types of poetry. We will begin by learning about the elements of poetry and then we will segue into trying out acrostic poetry, haiku writing, and shape poetry.
Math: During math, we are beginning a unit on place value where students will learn about the relative value of place value positions, review how to read and write numbers in various forms, and learn to apply basic facts to patterns such as 8x3=24, therefore 80x30=2400.
Social Studies: During social studies, we turn our attention to the 5 themes of geography to help students understand the basic concepts of location, movement, place, human-environment interaction, and regions.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Have a wonderful week!

Idea Development Lesson

*This is a lesson we will be doing in class. This is NOT homework.

After learning about the importance of idea development and some key points to show you how to develop your ideas, it's time to do something exciting!

Follow this link to view kids' rooms from around the world.

As you examine each room, raise your hand to share what you notice about the room. What is interesting or different about it from your own room?

Kids' Rooms Around the World

Now, listen to the story, Whoever You Are. 

Think about who you truly are, what makes you YOU, your culture, and your room at home. Now write a letter to a child in a different area of the world, a child who lives in a room vastly different than yours. Use what you know about idea development to paint a picture in this child's mind of what your room here in Kentucky looks like.

Week of August 15-19

 

**For some reason, I am unable to post pictures at this time. I will post them as soon as I am able. Thank you for understanding.

 

Week in Review

Good afternoon, parents! We have had a fabulous week! This class already feels like a community of learners! They are so sweet and fun and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know your kiddos this week! To share with you a couple of our achievements this week, we have created a Classroom Constitution where the students synergized to create a class mission statement as well as a list of important rights and responsibilities. We will all review and sign this document next week, and then it will be displayed in our classroom for the remainder of the year. We also learned about each other’s personalities and preferences for working in groups. Yesterday the kids worked to create word math where they would add two or more words together and use the sum of those letters to say something about the relationship between those words. It was really cool to see some of the ideas they came up with! Today the kids took on the challenge of silently working together to create the tallest free-standing structure possible using 33 straws and about 18” of masking tape. It’s been a very fun week!

 

 

Homework
This weekend your child has the assignment of creating a culture box. If a box is not available at home he/she may use a bag instead. The culture box assignment can be found in your child’s take-home folder. The idea is to bring it a minimum of 5 items meeting at least 5 of the culture descriptors below. This way each student can share some information about his/her own culture with the class. Photographs are fine to include as well as items that don’t meet the descriptors listed. We brainstormed a list of even more descriptors in class.

Culture Descriptors

language

home/shelter

literature

customs

traditions

food

music

art

religion

clothing

transportation

entertainment

Please encourage your child to bring in his/her culture box on Monday. No written information is necessary. They just need to bring in their chosen items and be prepared to share. Thank you for your help in this matter.

Homework and Agenda

Regarding homework, it is very important that your child complete his/her homework each night. Every night (aside from this weekend) your child will be asked to read for 20 minutes, record the book title, and get a parent signature in the agenda. I will also assign other homework on an as-needed basis. I try to only assign valuable homework that reviews the skills learned in class.

Handbook Forms

If you have not already returned the 3 forms at the back of your child’s handbook, please do so on Monday. Be sure to mark only one answer on the Student Image form.

Thank You!!

So many of you were so kind and purchased items either from our classroom wish list or simply important teacher materials that I know I will use throughout the school year! Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and generosity!

Here’s what we’ll be learning next week!

Reading: What are the expectations for reading workshop? We will spend next week establishing our routines and procedures for reading workshop as well as building our independent reading stamina.

Writing: What are the expectations for writing workshop? What are the 6 traits of effective writing? We will again establish routines and procedures for writing time, and we will also begin learning about the 6 traits of writing and practicing those skills throughout the week.

Math: During math next week, each child will have the opportunity to meet the other 5^th grade teachers. Because we will be flexibly grouping the students this year, we decided it would be best to rotate our homeroom classes so they would have an opportunity to complete a STEM project with each teacher. These will be fun, hands-on activities that integrate math, science and engineering!

Social Studies: What are the big ideas of social studies? Each day I will introduce a new “big idea” in social studies to help students understand the 5 major topics (economics, culture, geography, history, and government.

Welcome to Mrs. Whitley’s 5^th Grade Classroom Blog! I use this blog each year to keep families updated on current events and curriculum taking place in our classroom! My children and I are transferring from Harmony Elementary and we are excited to join the Kenwood Station team this year! We are going to have a great year in 5^th grade! I am looking forward to meeting everyone at our Kenwood Kickoff on August 15^th! Come in anytime between 5:45 and 6:30pm to drop off your supplies, find your seat, and meet your teacher! Enjoy the rest of your summer! I can’t wait to see you!! J