Weekly Newsletter

 

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. This week will be a five-dayer, but this coming weekend will be a five-day weekend. Students will be introduced to the Big 6 Project on Monday. On Thursday we will take a journey over to Pine Grove School to see our 1st grade Book Buddies.

Drumroll please…. the BIG 6….. (download the entire Big 6 packet by clicking Big 6 Project 2012) students will be choosing a topic related to the U.S. Constitution to research using an authentic source (an interview) and the library or internet. The topic could be an actual part of the Constitution, an Amendment, or an issue that has come up in Constitutional debate. Students can choose from a list of 42 topics to choose from (and once a student chooses a topic no one else can take it.) If someone wants to do a different topic he/she MUST see me to have it approved.

Along with the research, students will complete two main components:

1) Create a visual

AND

2) Write a research paper

OR

Produce and film a mini-documentary

OR

Write and create an Xtranormal online cartoon

OR

Design and build a website

Students will be given a pocket folder and a manilla folder with six attached envelopes to help organize the research. Five envelopes will be for essential questions and the sixth envelope will be for sources. The only thing students will need to provide for the research portion are the index cards. On Monday, I will be walking students through this portion of the project step-by-step. Students will have six weeks to complete this project.

 

Upcoming Events

Big 6 Begins – Monday, April 9 (Due Tuesday, May 22)

Book Buddies – Thursday, April 12

Mini April Vacation – April 16-18

Nathan Hale Field Trip – Monday, May 7

Spring Open House – Tuesday, May 22

Last Day of School – Friday, June 15, 2012

Math – Students took the Unit 8: Fractions and Ratios test on Thursday (and finished up on Monday). This week will will start Unit 9: Coordinates, Area, and Volume. Students are in the final year of the Everyday Mathematics program in Avon. I offer math extra help on Wednesday mornings from 7:30 – 7:55 AM. Your child can attend regularly, once in a while, or even just one time. Do not think of this as remedial help or even enrichment – it’s basically whatever the students need who show up. My two requirements to attend are as follows: 1) Parents should send me an e-mail by the night before letting me know their child will be attending. 2) The student should have some idea what he/she needs help with. If their answer is, “I don’t know. My mom is making me go,” that’s not going to cut it. It may be absolutely true, but if students have no idea what they need help with then it’s not always useful time. This year we are using the 2012 edition which does a much better job helping teachers focus on the new Common Core State Standards, but for students you most likely won’t notice anything drastically different from fourth grade. Basically, these standards are an effort to get all 50 states teaching the same curriculum. It doesn’t mean the same program even town-to-town – it just means that in the past a student in California and a student in Montana might be learning very different skills. This is an effort to tighten that up and within a few years the CMTs will disappear and be replaced with national tests. On most nights (except Fridays) students will have homework and the vast majority of the time it will be a Study Link worksheet. Again, probably very similar to fourth grade.

English – Writer’s Workshop continues with activities tied into Writer’s Notebooks. We have been working on the revision process and each student finished creating his/her own online picture book. You can see these on their student blogs. Each student is working on his/her own individual writing project. With the website and blog students have been customizing their own websites and most students have his/her first official post on the website. Writer’s Notebooks will serve as a major vehicle for their writing activities this year.

Reading– Mrs. Pooler continues with Reader’s Workshop. In our classroom, I am currently reading aloud with students – The Fighting Ground by Avi. This is a tie-in to our Social Studies unit on the American Revolution.

Science – Students are currently working on a variety of material in science. They made the switch-over to science labs with Mrs. Mahar recently. Students are learning about this with in the classroom and in the science lab. Students will continue two science labs a week with Mrs. Mahar. In the classroom (with me) we discussed sound and read literature about how sound impacts their everyday lives. This week we will continue those discussions and also focus on the parts of the ear. At Thompson Brook, students have science twice a week in the science lab with Mrs. Mahar and once or twice in the classroom with me. (During the first half the year they had Mrs. Luddy for science.) For the most part, the implementation of the science curriculum is established by Mrs. Mahar as well as any supplies that students need. If you have questions or concerns I’m happy to pass them on to Mrs. Mahar or you can reach her directly at jmahar@avon.k12.ct.us. Unless it’s a personal issue, please CC me on any e-mails to the science teachers so I can help out, too.

Social Studies – We are continuing to work on the American Revolution. As I told students, I’m not a big quizzer or tester in Social Studies. I do assess my students – just not through a standard quiz or test. I could write an entire thesis on my dislike of rote Social Studies memorization, but I’ll try to sum it up in a few sentences. My students walk away learning about many historical events and some even remember specific dates, but I could care less if students remember that the Boston Massacre took place on March 5. I care very much that they know it TOOK PLACE, they know WHY it took place, and they know the historical significance of HOW that one event helped begin a revolution that led to the formation of our country. If a student can memorize the date and know nothing else about the event except that a few people were killed, what’s the point? After basic geography (because if students don’t know that Japan is not off the shore of Connecticut they will at some point in their lives sound foolish), most of Social Studies in fifth grade is based on history, with a big focus on the 1760s – 1860s.