Ah! It is better late than never. I have been a little slow on the update of our classroom blog this year. This is a great window to our fifth grade world and I enjoy sharing our days with you!
The first few weeks are always hectic. Learning names. Learning routines. Figuring out the dreaded fifth grade homework! It has been a great experience putting together our community and learning to share our work space with each other. Our classroom is our home for most of our day and I am very thrilled to say your students are happy to keep our room clean and are proud of their work space.
The past few weeks we have focused on routines, however, we have established our Daily Geography entry task. This is our task that students do each day when they enter the classroom. It is a five minute question to review geography skills. The week's worth of questions are corrected on Fridays and apply to the effort grade of social studies.
Students also order lunch, put lunch boxes away, get situated for the day and prepare to listen to the daily messages. We have specialist right away, so snacks are put out to eat upon the return.
Spelling is an independent lesson. It is handed out on Fridays (we are currently on week 5) and due on the following Friday. The test is first thing in the morning and geared to have students recognized incorrect spellings and also, to spell them correctly.
We have started our integrated unit for social studies. Students LOVE it. We had the pleasure of having Mr. Gere step in on our most recent lesson of Explorers from Spain. We will continue to study Explorers from France and England as well as we zoom into the colonization of America. Fun events on the horizon will be in December as we have a culminating event for Colonial Boston: think clam chowder and colonial games like Cat's Cradle. SUCH a hit last year, I had to take yarn away from kids all the time!
I love teaching. I love learning.
This year I have returned to school to get a master's degree in educational technology. I LOVE teaching with technology. Students will get the chance to use a multitude of media throughout the school year as well as different avenues to produce their work, showcase their learning, and scaffold their technology experiences.
It was a pleasure to meet all of you at Open House and I hope to see all of you in the classroom soon. I try to update the blog weekly with our happenings and keep you in the loop as well. Please "follow" our site through an RSS feed which drops the updates directly into your email, Google Reader, or you can join through Google as a "follower" !
If you have any questions on how to follow, please do not hesitate to ask!
I can't wait to see what the year brings as the students grow, learn, and flourish.
Happy Fifth Grade!
Tina McDaniel
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