December: A picture is worth a thousand words!

Wizards Wear

We have placed our order for Wizard t-shirts and hoodies and we are looking forward to them arriving sometime in the New Year. Take a look below at the election we held to vote on the design. This took place the week of our presidential election as a way to teach kids about voting and the election.

Congratulations to the winners of the 24-26 Wizard t-shirt design.

Math

We have almost finished Unit 3 which will wrap up with an assessment in the New Year. Students have learned how to multiply fractions with whole number, mixed number and fractions. We are currently working on division between whole numbers and unit fractions. As part of our weekly routines, students are randomly put into groups and complete their work on vertical whiteboards. A reminder that students have a weekly homework assignment. Homework is given to students on Monday and is due on Thursdays. Overall, this has been going well from my perspective. Many students are bringing their completed homework in early!

Recess & Team Time

We have enjoyed the snowy December and it was a joy to watch the kids sled at our snack/recess time.

Keeping each other safe

We recently noticed an uptick in kids having hands-on each other in unsafe ways so we've been addressing it during our morning meetings and reinforcing it throughout the day. Mr. Pierson and Mr. Woods joined one of our morning meetings and taught us about singing the blues as a metaphor for how we feel we when aren't feeling safe. Your kids were an amazing audience for our guest performers and speakers.

Language Arts: Students made idiom posters as part of our figurative language learning. We have since discovered that Ms. Michael uses non-stop idioms throughout the day.:)

We finished our class read-aloud of Restart and students designed board games for the book. This was a highly engaging project where students utilized all sorts of skills such as teamwork, designing and developing a game, problem-solving, time/project management, self-direction, comprehension skills, and writing and revising. Our culminating activity was a Game Day with the 5th graders on the Dream team. It was a spectacular success and the kids had loads of fun! Hearing them answer all the questions they needed to know to advance in the games was proof of learning! I've included some photos from the early creation stages to the big game day.

Making a connection to one of the allusions in Restart.

Wizards Got Talent!

Our breakfast and talent show was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who donated items and/or signed up to help make and serve food. Here are some pictures from the event. Clearly, there was zero fun happening.;)