Our First Week of School!

We are so excited to be back in school, and learning so many new things!  This post written by the kids and explains all the things we have been doing since school started.

READING

During reading we have learned a few new reading strategies like making connections, predicting and inferring, questioning, monitoring, summarizing, synthesizing, and evaluating. Those are all the strategies that we have learned. They will make you better in reading.  We will be learning more about these.

WRITING

We have started a project called writing around the neighborhood.  We have drawn a sketch of our house and yard. Writing Around the Neighborhood is about writing stories that we have had at our homes.  Like someone I know was talking to my little brother and ran into a metal pole.  So on the map I drew a pole for that story.

Google docs is a place to go to when  you are working with someone faraway or talking to a friend. Google docs is so cool and fun because you can revise and edit others work online.  That’s what we are learning to use before we post on our blog.

LUNCH

Yum! Yum! The chicken fried steak is the new tasty hit. Also the new milk is more delicious then last year’s. And recess before lunch! We like recess before lunch because we get hungrier and eat better too. The teachers like it better because we aren’t loud and rowdy, from coming in after recess. And the salad is different too.  It is prepared by Mrs. Judd instead of the salad bar we’ve had in years past. The bells that ring even sound different! That’s what’s new for E-valley school’s lunch.

NEWS

One of the things that’s fun about fifth grade is that we get to watch CNN Student News every day.  It’s a 10 minute program designed for students to learn the main headlines of what is happening in our world.  Here is what we learned this week:
The east coast is preparing for a terrible storm!!!  It is a threatening hurricane known as Hurricane Irene. People who live there have been storing food, water, blankets and other appliances that will help them survive. NASA photos also predict that it may head north.  NASA ‘s photos say that it’s going to hit hard.
Meanwhile, the east coast also suffered a 5.8 earthquake! That is very rare for this part of the country.  We even looked it up on a website called USGS Real-Time Earthquakes.  Click this link if you want to see earthquakes happening within the past week!

We also heard about the war in Libya.  Libya has been fighting over one year. They are also working together to kill their ruler. Their ruler, Khamis Gadhafi  has been the ruler of Libya for  over forty two years. Gadhafi has been living wealthy in his palace while the Libian people have suffered from starvation and many fatal diseases. To find out more about the Libian Civil War, go to CNN Student News   or CNN News.

MATH

Recently during math class we’ve been learning about the 4 math concepts mean, mode, median, and range. The median is the middle number. The range is the difference between the highest and the lowest number. The mode is the number that appears the most often. And finally the mean is the total divided into even groups.

Heroes

In class today we watched a short video called Team Hoyt.  This is a news clip about a father and the unconditional love he has shown for his son.  They are both heroes in my eyes because the father loved his son enough that he wanted him to experience life just like anyone else, despite his handicap.  The son is heroic because he inspires others with handicaps to not let it stop them from achieving their goals.  He has graduated from college and is now working toward a master’s degree.  What an incredible team these two are!  How would our world be a better place if we were as selfless as this father, and as positive as they are with their “Yes, You Can!” motto!

After watching this video, what does it make you think of?  What makes someone a hero?  Who is your hero?  Would the world be a better place to live in if we all were as selfless as Dick Hoyt?

Hershey Club

Ms. Jones has a program called the Hershey’s Club. If you read ten books from different genres in one quarter of school (genres are different types of books) you get a huge Hershey’s bar! It is so enjoyable to eat a Hershey’s bar and read at the same time. Yumm!!! We will be so happy when we are reading more books eating a Hershey’s bar next quarter!

Free Form

These aren't done, but we will finish it next week....stay tuned

Today we also learned about organic shapes.  We made some designs on watercolor paper by just drawing free form lines.  Next, we painted the closed in areas of the designs with watercolors. We haven’t quite finished those yet, but next week we will fill in the different shapes with all different patterns.  Here is a picture of what it looks like so far!

Radial Balance

Making our mark!

We are learning about radial balance. Radial balance is if you have something in the middle of a paper and it repeats itself toward the edges. So we traced our hands and cut them out. Then we painted around the hand while it was laid on a black piece of paper. Next we got some paint brushes and painted some designs around the hand. We got the end of a paint brush and dipped it in some paint, then we dabbed the paper with it.

Crazy Dream

The night before school starts, I always have a hard time sleeping!  I’m excited to see everyone again, looking forward to a new class, nervous that my class might be awful ,  and worried I won’t have something very important ready for this class full of eager and high achieving students!!!  Do any of you ever feel this way?

Crazy Dream written by Shel Silverstein

Last night I had a crazy dream
That I was teachin’ school.
My teachers had turned into kids,
And I laid down the rules.

I gave ‘em a hundred hist’ry books
To memorize each night,
And made ‘em read ‘em on their heads
Without turnin’ on the light.

I sent ‘em on a field trip
To the outskirts of Mongolia,
And gave ‘em an overnight assignment
To grow a twenty-foot magnolia.

I asked ‘em how many awful grades
Can cause how many tears?
And if they got one answer wrong,
I just hung ‘em up by their ears.

And when they talked or laughed in class,
I pinched ‘em till they cried
Louder and louder- ’til I woke up
Feelin’ very satisfied.