First, let me say welcome to you all! This year, I will post our latest classroom news, curriculum updates and important dates on our blog. I hope this is helpful for all of your families and also easy to access. Please let me know your thoughts as we go forward. This is my first blog actually, so I want to make it as helpful to all of your families as I can.
What a wonderful start to the year it has been! I am so grateful to work with each of your children and your families. Fifth grade is truly a wonderful year - a year full of inspiration and growth. There is a magic in the year, and I so enjoy being a part of this milestone year with all of you. We began our year by discussing the three key components of fifth grade. I always tell my classes that fifth grade is about three things: Dreaming, Leading, and Seeing. We dream about the possibilities of now and the future. We reflect on our strengths and also how we can grow in all areas. In terms of leading, we begin to understand what it means to be a leader and how leadership also carries with it great responsibility. Finally, we seek to see...really see the world, see ourselves and see others through a new perspective. All of these themes will be reflected throughout the year as we learn and grow together.
We began our dreaming as we created our own “dream house” on the first few days of school. We read the book, The Big Orange Splot. In this story, a gentleman named Mr. Plumbean lives on a neat street where all of the houses look the same. Everyone is very happy with their neat street, and the community does not want anything to harm their perfect routine and neighborhood they have in place. One day, a seagull flies over Mr. Plumbean’s house and drops a can of orange paint on his house leaving a big, orange splot. This stresses the community greatly as their street is no longer the same. Mr. Plumbean embraces the orange splot, and from it, he creates his own dream house. After his creative renovation, he states to the community, “My house is me, and I am it...It looks like all of my dreams.” The community initially resists, yet soon follows his example, and the neighborhood grows into an amazing array of originality and creativity. After we read this story, our class discussed the implications for us. We agreed that the message of this book is that everyone’s originality should be celebrated and embraced. We also stated that we want everyone in our community to feel welcome and valued. We then went to work on creating our own “dream houses”, which are now hanging in the front of our classroom. I have attached a picture of our creations. These houses will serve as a reminder of our mission: to welcome originality and value all members of our community. It is also my hope that this mindset will extend outside the doors of Captain and out into the world.
Our community building will continue throughout the next few weeks as we will review our norms and also continually practice procedures. We are also hard at work in different subject areas. In Writing, our first unit focuses on developing who we are as writers. Students have begun to work on their own free writing pieces, for example, their own fiction stories, poems, songs, and many other pieces. We will continue to work on these pieces throughout the school year. We will also have our classroom pieces we will work on. In this first unit, we will write a poem. This poem will be the first piece we will publish this school year.
In Social Studies, we have begun our first unit, entitled “Cultures Meet”. In this unit, we will examine how cultural differences and competition for land lead to conflicts among different groups of people in the Americas. We began the unit by organizing our Social Studies notebooks, and reviewing our knowledge of geography. We have textbooks we will reference throughout the school year, but we will also use various other resources and primary sources to help us as we think like a historian.
In Reading, our first unit: “Agency and Independence: Launching Reading with Experienced Readers,” focuses on solidifying our reading habits, and also, growing our agency, or our determination to meet our goals. As we develop a strong foundation for our reading this year, we also saw the importance of having a reading log to document work and growth. The students formed their own reading logs, and students will record their reading each day. Many of the students chose to use a log similar to last year, while others chose to design their own. The students will log their reading each day. I will check in with them to see the progress they are making in their reading logs and also to make sure they are up to date and organized.
In Math, our first unit “Whole Numbers,” has focused on the skills of writing numbers in word form, standard form and expanded form. We have also discussed place value, comparing numbers and how to successfully round and estimate. We will have a test on this unit this Wednesday, September 4, and we will begin our work in our new math classes on Thursday, September 5.
I look forward to continually updating you on the great learning occurring in our community!! Have a wonderful week ahead!!
