Have you learned something new about the human body? I've discovered so many new things these past few weeks. Did you know that people who floss their teeth every day live longer than people that don't? Did you know that it's actually bad for your body's internal clock when you sleep late on the weekends?
As the students and I wrap up our study of the human body we've taken advantage of this time to discuss all that we've learned, it's been fun! All students took a Human Body Exam last Friday to practice our test taking skills and today we reviewed many of the answers. It's also a great opportunity for us to discuss test taking strategies.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
To help us decorate our Valentines Day containers. If you're able to help next week please let me know. Thanks!
We need a spelling volunteer for this Friday, are you able to help?
WORD ORIGINS
5th Graders are now working on word origins for their weekly spelling practice. For this reason their word lists are much more thematic than they're used to in the past. All 5th graders have a list of abbreviations to use when doing their word origins. In addition, they are looking for the following: word's original definition, date of origin, and country of origin. Students may work on their word origins as homework OR as class work.
If your son or daughter doesn't know the meaning of a word, it's a good chance this word will end up as a word origin study word!
31 January 2011
28 January 2011
Waukazoo Winter Games
The games begin Monday! Attached to this message you'll find our class' schedule for the winter games.
Tina Klein will be taking pictures during the events this year. I'll be uploading pictures to the student council site where they'll be available for purchase or download. The WZ student council site is: http://zoocouncil.blogspot.com
Tina Klein will be taking pictures during the events this year. I'll be uploading pictures to the student council site where they'll be available for purchase or download. The WZ student council site is: http://zoocouncil.blogspot.com
24 January 2011
Spelling Bee
Congratulations to our very own, Sam, for taking first place in the Waukazoo 5th Grade Spelling Bee! Sam will move on to compete with the 2nd place winner, Sophia, at the regional spelling bee in February.
CONGRATULATIONS, SAM!
21 January 2011
Art Opportunity
Art Classes at the Holland Area Arts Council
Mrs. Art has asked me to share that she is offering a seven-week class at the Holland Area Arts Council for young artists. This class is offered on Thursdays after school from February 3 - March 17. The class is a lab school for Hope College arts education majors but it's also a wonderful opportunity for the kids to connect with Mrs. Art!
If you're interested, please contact Mrs. Art at 616-403-6394. Please let me know if you are considering signing your child(ren) up for the class. My girls are interested and we could make arrangements to ride share to class each week.
Mrs. Art has asked me to share that she is offering a seven-week class at the Holland Area Arts Council for young artists. This class is offered on Thursdays after school from February 3 - March 17. The class is a lab school for Hope College arts education majors but it's also a wonderful opportunity for the kids to connect with Mrs. Art!
If you're interested, please contact Mrs. Art at 616-403-6394. Please let me know if you are considering signing your child(ren) up for the class. My girls are interested and we could make arrangements to ride share to class each week.
20 January 2011
CLASSROOM UPDATES
What's going on with the human body?
Students will be giving in class presentations to each other this Friday on their foundational knowledge about the human body. With their project partner, they will each present about their body system. They'll be able to share and learn from each other facts about the body system, organs, functions and more.
Students are also hard at work on their "healthy body" brochures. These are teaching tools the kids are developing reflecting on HOW to keep their particular body system healthy.
Within the next week, watch the blog for photos of the body systems as well as the brochures.
Pink Out
The 2nd annual pink out event is coming soon! On Friday, February 11 students and staff across the district will work together to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Daytime activities occur in the individual buildings—at Waukazoo we want to see students wearing pink! Teachers will be able to wear jeans based on a donation to the American Cancer Society. The activities extend into the evening, beginning at 5 p.m. and include pregame and game activities during the West Ottawa vs. Jenison varsity basketball game. Students will be bringing home an order form of "Pink Out" merchandise, including T-shirts, silicone bracelets, pom-pons, pink beads (only $.50) and more. On the order forms, you'll have the option to preorder pregame tickets (not the game). It should be a great evening, and it's a wonderful way to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
Spelling Bee
This past Monday the 5th graders participated in a 5th grade class spelling bee. The three 5th grade winners (But aren't they really all winners…kudos to the students that participated, regardless of who's the winner!) were Sam G, Lucy V, and Erin M. Sam, Lucy, and Erin will be participating in a 5th grade spelling bee at Waukazoo next Monday. Two 5th grade winners from Waukazoo will move on to the regional spelling bee mid-February! Good luck to all our spelling bee contestants.
Reading & Writing
Students continue to read nonfiction in class and learn about its features and structures. They will learn a few strategies to add to their "strategy file" to make reading nonfiction an easier and more manageable task. However, as this unit winds down they will begin working in small groups to read and discuss a novel of their choosing. This is a perennial favorite! Furthermore, 4th grade readers have been asked to read a fantasy novel and 5th graders a novel of historical fiction. These novels will then serve as mentor texts as students begin to write fiction in writing workshop. Many have been eagerly anticipating this next unit of study. In fact, our class will be a demonstration class for my next writing training meeting in March. It's a compliment to the children that I was able to volunteer our classroom (and my teaching)!
Students will be giving in class presentations to each other this Friday on their foundational knowledge about the human body. With their project partner, they will each present about their body system. They'll be able to share and learn from each other facts about the body system, organs, functions and more.
Students are also hard at work on their "healthy body" brochures. These are teaching tools the kids are developing reflecting on HOW to keep their particular body system healthy.
Within the next week, watch the blog for photos of the body systems as well as the brochures.
Pink Out
The 2nd annual pink out event is coming soon! On Friday, February 11 students and staff across the district will work together to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Daytime activities occur in the individual buildings—at Waukazoo we want to see students wearing pink! Teachers will be able to wear jeans based on a donation to the American Cancer Society. The activities extend into the evening, beginning at 5 p.m. and include pregame and game activities during the West Ottawa vs. Jenison varsity basketball game. Students will be bringing home an order form of "Pink Out" merchandise, including T-shirts, silicone bracelets, pom-pons, pink beads (only $.50) and more. On the order forms, you'll have the option to preorder pregame tickets (not the game). It should be a great evening, and it's a wonderful way to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
Spelling Bee
This past Monday the 5th graders participated in a 5th grade class spelling bee. The three 5th grade winners (But aren't they really all winners…kudos to the students that participated, regardless of who's the winner!) were Sam G, Lucy V, and Erin M. Sam, Lucy, and Erin will be participating in a 5th grade spelling bee at Waukazoo next Monday. Two 5th grade winners from Waukazoo will move on to the regional spelling bee mid-February! Good luck to all our spelling bee contestants.
Reading & Writing
Students continue to read nonfiction in class and learn about its features and structures. They will learn a few strategies to add to their "strategy file" to make reading nonfiction an easier and more manageable task. However, as this unit winds down they will begin working in small groups to read and discuss a novel of their choosing. This is a perennial favorite! Furthermore, 4th grade readers have been asked to read a fantasy novel and 5th graders a novel of historical fiction. These novels will then serve as mentor texts as students begin to write fiction in writing workshop. Many have been eagerly anticipating this next unit of study. In fact, our class will be a demonstration class for my next writing training meeting in March. It's a compliment to the children that I was able to volunteer our classroom (and my teaching)!
13 January 2011
Non-Fiction
In the classroom students have moved into a study of nonfiction. This means our in-school reading books are nonfiction (sometimes people refer to this as expository or informational text) and our lessons each day are primarily focused on nonfiction reading strategies.
The strategies we are learning include, but are not limited to, retelling or summarizing nonfiction, nonfiction text features and text structures, building schema in nonfiction, reading a textbook. All of these strategies work together to create critical readers who engage with nonfiction text and begin to understand their level of understanding of the text. We are also learning what to do when we don't understand the nonfiction text we are reading.
I would encourage you to add more nonfiction reading in your home. Start with the newspaper for current events and move to looking for nonfiction reading at the library. Find out your child's interests and look for biographies on his or her favorite athletes. Consider a fascinating scientific topic or time in history. Practice with reading nonfiction now will make the transition to middle school classes and textbook reading a little easier!
The strategies we are learning include, but are not limited to, retelling or summarizing nonfiction, nonfiction text features and text structures, building schema in nonfiction, reading a textbook. All of these strategies work together to create critical readers who engage with nonfiction text and begin to understand their level of understanding of the text. We are also learning what to do when we don't understand the nonfiction text we are reading.
I would encourage you to add more nonfiction reading in your home. Start with the newspaper for current events and move to looking for nonfiction reading at the library. Find out your child's interests and look for biographies on his or her favorite athletes. Consider a fascinating scientific topic or time in history. Practice with reading nonfiction now will make the transition to middle school classes and textbook reading a little easier!
Classroom Updates
Parents: I've been trying to write this blog posting all week! Working around a busy classroom, student council planning, and my own crazy busy family is sometimes overwhelming! But...we're getting it done!
6 Things
We are practicing a time management skill this week called, "Six Things." Each day this week we are making a list of 6 tasks (or things) we want to complete that day. The list may cover home or school tasks and it should be specific. For instance, rather than one of the tasks be, "clean my room;" the task would be more focused--"clean my desk," or "clean under my bed." I am also doing the six things each day and reporting to the students my progress each morning. Being accountable to them has been enormously helpful to me! You might want to try this strategy at home!
Word Origins--for 5th Graders
The 5th graders are beginning to focus on word histories or word origins in class, as an accompaniment to their weekly spelling work. The following websites were used in homework this week:
Spelling bee announcement: Interested 5th graders will compete in a classroom spelling bee on Monday! Three winners from the class will go on to compete in a schoolwide spelling bee in two weeks. Two winners from Waukazoo will go on to compete in a countywide spelling bee later this winter. This information was just passed on to me, so I'm sorry if this seems like late notice. However, there is not usually a great deal of time given between the announcement of the date and the actual class and school spelling bee. The following website might offer some assistance to the 5th graders that want to compete in the spelling bee: http://www.spellingbee.com/students-parents. *Sorry 4th grade parents: but students younger than the 5th grade are not permitted to participate in the Howard Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.
6 Things
We are practicing a time management skill this week called, "Six Things." Each day this week we are making a list of 6 tasks (or things) we want to complete that day. The list may cover home or school tasks and it should be specific. For instance, rather than one of the tasks be, "clean my room;" the task would be more focused--"clean my desk," or "clean under my bed." I am also doing the six things each day and reporting to the students my progress each morning. Being accountable to them has been enormously helpful to me! You might want to try this strategy at home!
Word Origins--for 5th Graders
The 5th graders are beginning to focus on word histories or word origins in class, as an accompaniment to their weekly spelling work. The following websites were used in homework this week:
- http://etymonline.com/abbr.php
- http://www.fun-with-words.com
- www.dictionary.com
Spelling bee announcement: Interested 5th graders will compete in a classroom spelling bee on Monday! Three winners from the class will go on to compete in a schoolwide spelling bee in two weeks. Two winners from Waukazoo will go on to compete in a countywide spelling bee later this winter. This information was just passed on to me, so I'm sorry if this seems like late notice. However, there is not usually a great deal of time given between the announcement of the date and the actual class and school spelling bee. The following website might offer some assistance to the 5th graders that want to compete in the spelling bee: http://www.spellingbee.com/students-parents. *Sorry 4th grade parents: but students younger than the 5th grade are not permitted to participate in the Howard Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.
06 January 2011
Classroom Volunteer Schedule
I've uploaded the *final* classroom volunteer schedule (For now!) to Google docs. Copies went home yesterday with those students whose families have requested paper copies of classroom documents. If you would like to fill an still empty date, please let me know and I will then fill you in and subsequently update the schedule on Google Docs.
FINAL VOLUNTEER SCHEDULE (JAN-JUNE)
FINAL VOLUNTEER SCHEDULE (JAN-JUNE)
02 January 2011
Studying the Human Body
As students return from their holiday break they will begin learning about the Human Body. Students will be choosing a human body system to research, study, and eventually report. Some of the work will be done at school and some of the work will be done as homework. The students will begin ALL their work at school, but the following websites will offer assistance when the students begin working at home. More information will follow about our study of the human body!
- Arnold and his Organs: Help Arnold find and replace his organs. This is a very basic site to show students where everything is inside their bodies
- BBC Interactive Body: Pick a game,male or female, and rotate the organs/bones and place them in the correct place. The "fact sheet" has information on each organ.
- Kid's Health: The Nemours Foundation's Center for Children's Health Media - excellent information for parents, kids and teens in easy to understand language.
- Yucky Gross & Cool Body: What makes the human body work? Explore gross body sounds and yucky body parts!
- National Geographic Human Body: Explore the human body!
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