Dear 5B families, It has been a busy four day week! Students in 5B have been delving into the area of triangles and breaking down shapes into more manageable parts to find the area. They have been reading, sharing, and discussing poetry. They have been working on their independent studies. And they have been enjoying reading Home of the Brave. I asked students to share with me what they have enjoyed about the book so far, and the most common answer so far is that they were surprised they enjoyed a book written entirely in poetry! I can't say I'm surprised, since that's the typical response I get every year that I've taught this book. What's extra great though, is that several kids in the class have started searching out other chapter books written in poetry from the library, and Mrs. Griffin never lets us down with good books! A few heads ups:
Government On Tuesday students were asked to respond to the following statements with answers of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree. Then they had a chance to share their thoughts and agree or disagree with others. They are always a respectful class when they are sharing their ideas, and they didn't let me down during this discussion. Students used examples from their lives or things they have heard from family or the news, and some students changed their opinions as we discussed. Most students saw grey areas with the statements instead of taking an absolute view. It took the class a little while to get into it at first, and only a few people were sharing, but once they got going they didn't want to stop. They wanted to keep talking when I had to cut them off after 30 minutes and 3 question. They asked if we could continue to discuss more another day, and of course I said yes! These were the questions:
After our discussion I asked the class to read an article called "Rich whites and poor students of color more and more separated in schools," which was published in 2016 in the Washington Post. The class was overall surprised by the article. For some students there was a misunderstanding that this was not legal segregation, but a more natural segregation caused by the prices of homes and families moving to areas with better schools. We discussed the article from the lens of real and ideal and the list of 10 statements above. They made a lot of deep and thoughtful connections. We have a very compassionate and social justice oriented class <3 They also convinced me that we should hold this discussion outside, and since it was sunny and "warm" on Thursday during our last period and didn't require a whiteboard, I relented. They overall did a great job outside, and I'm sure we can repeat this more as the weather continues to improve! Poetry! The class has been really delving into poetry! On Monday and Tuesday they had a scavenger hunt where they had to look for different types of poems, or figurative language, or authors in my poetry books. They read a lot of different poems and then came to the rug to share a favorite. Most were favorites because they connected to them in some way. For example, Austa shared a poem about spring and liked it because her birthday is in spring. Hallie shared a poem about dogs because she loves dogs (in case you didn't know!). Ella C. shared a poem about mosquitos and liked how it reminded her about her own attitude about mosquitos (that they are pests!). Some students liked poems that rhymed or helped them visualize. Ben liked a poem by Langston Hughes that used the word mangled because it helped him picture what was happening in the poem. Area of rectangles and triangles In math, I assigned table groups 2 area problems. Students had to use logic and their knowledge of squares, rectangles, and triangles to break apart or take away pieces of shapes. It's hard work! For the most part they started off fairly unsure about how to attack the problems, but they had such a great attitude and just kept trying to look at the problems in different ways and listen to their group members to see if they could understand and expand on their ideas. Of course then I made them present their problems to the class. Practice those public speaking skills and that math vocabulary! I continue to appreciate that when students come up, even if they have solved a problem incorrectly, they keep at it and listen to me and the rest of the class as we try to problem solve and work to get the correct answer together. That's what math is all about! Great work! Best,
Rebecca Comments are closed.
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