A snowy update!

Good Morning!  I wrote this post yesterday and forgot to publish it. Here is our last update of the year. :)

We have been studying Fractions, Decimals and Percents in math. This is a LONG unit and we will not finish it until after our Christmas break. We've been focusing quite a bit of time on how to find equivalent fractions. This will help when we start converting fractions into decimals and percents.  Unit 4 assessments are finished and will be going home before vacation. 

Students have been working on a realistic fiction story this month and are working on their final drafts this week. This unit has proved to be difficult for some. Students seemed to want to write anything but realistic fiction!  Ha!  I made some compromises and promised the students that there would be some opportunities to write fantasy and historical fiction later in the year. I also encouraged students to write stories at home, since so many of their ideas were fabulous!

Since our Social Studies unit on Explorers is finished we were supposed to start our first Science unit last week. Instead, we started our typing unit. Students are learning how to type properly. We are using a program called Typing Web. Students will complete 12-15 lessons at school and are encouraged to continue with this free program at home. Students should know their user name and password, but if they are having trouble, feel free to email me. We will start Science after our Christmas break!

Mugs for our Mug Exchange have been trickling for about a week or so. The students are getting excited! Our Marshwood tree is decorated and looks great! (It's a purple tree with a purple and white tree skirt!) If you need assistance with a mug, please let me know. I want all students to be able to participate. Students will be able to wear pjs and slippers on Friday and will also be able to bring a blanket or pillow. We want to be comfy for our movie and hot cocoa! I received a large number of parents willing to volunteer. Thank you!  Since there were so many, I will be creating a list of the supplies we need and what supplies we already have here at school. I will send that list via email. 

Last week was full of chorus and band performances. We have a lot of students in our class who perform in both chorus and band. What a wonderful job they did!  Bravo! 

Report Cards were sent home on Friday. Please keep the inserts and sign and return the envelope. 

Look's like we have more snow coming this week. Just a reminder to send your child to school in weather appropriate clothing. Students will be going outside everyday so they should come to school with boots, snow pants, hats, gloves or mittens and a winter coat. 

Important Upcoming Dates:

Mug Exchange - December 20th (mugs due December 16th)

Christmas Break - December 23rd-January 3rd (We are back at school on January 6th!)

Weekly Update 11/18 - 11/22

Good Afternoon!

We started this morning off talking about the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Our class had a lot of questions about the details, but we spent most of our time talking about JFK's life and career before his death. We read an article in Time for Kids and also went online to see some pictures of his life. Next week, I hope to talk about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address with the class. If you have any age appropriate books at home, feel free to send them in about either President!

Last week we were able to scoot over to the high school for a sneak peak at Alice!  If you haven't been able to see the full length show, this weekend is your last chance!  Five of our students are in the production and it is FABULOUS!  What a talented class we have!

We spent about three hours this week completely NWEA tests. Once the results are in and I have had a chance to set goals with the students, I will share the results with you. Great Works began taking this test last year. Some teachers may have not shared the information with you, but I will send home a sheet that explains the results. Feel free to email me if you have any questions about them.

Our Personal Narrative writing unit is finished!  We had a great celebration a few weeks ago and students were able to bring home their comment sheet last week.  After I finish grading each one, student pieces will come home. This week, we started our Realistic Fiction writing unit!  Students will be using the "Five Facts of Fiction" to help create their story. This week we spent a lot of time building our character; their name, age, physical characteristics, what their life is like, what they like to do, etc. Students used phone book pages to help choose a name for their character!

In Math, we started Unit 4; Division. We will be spending the majority of our time on the traditional method of division. However, if students want to use the Partial Quotients method, they are allowed to. If you would like a tutoring on the Partial Quotients method, you can find one here.

Today I sent home a letter about our holiday celebration. We will be celebrating with a mug exchange and hot cocoa party. Please read the letter and get back to me if you are will to donate something for our celebration. I know it seems early, but I wanted to send it home so we had plenty of time to prepare for it!  We break for Christmas much earlier this year than in years past. No harm being prepared! :)

The Library will be holding a Holiday Book Fair the week of December 2nd-6th. Family Night will be December 5th from 5:30-7:30pm with family games in the cafeteria and elves to do some wrapping. Mrs. Moloney is looking for some volunteers! Go to www.signupgenius.com and search for her email address (cynthia.moloney@rsu35.org) to volunteer!

I have pictures to post on the blog from our writing celebration and our Skype about Beringia. I will update again this weekend!

And lastly, MGWS has a Facebook!  Check the page for announcements. Mrs. Lindgren and myself will be updating the page.

Important Dates:
November 27th-29th - No School, Thanksgiving Break
December 6th - Chorus Caroling
December 11th - Chorus/Band Winter Concert 1:30 and 7:00
December 13th - Chorus trip to Eliot Elementary School
December 13th - MGWS Sleepover
December 20th - Winter Mug Exchange

Weekly Update 11/1

Good Afternoon!

I apologize for my blog absence!  October is such a busy month and I'm sorry I haven't updated you on what's going on in our classroom. I'll do my best to catch you up!

We are halfway through Unit 3 in Everyday Math. Unit 3 focuses on Geometry. Students have been practicing measuring angles with a half circle protractor and a full circle protractor. There are some great games available online for practice, too!  Check out one of the games here. We also touched briefly on the United State Census and it's importance. Unit 2 tests will be going home on Monday with a Progress Report for each standard.

We've entered the editing phase of our Personal Narrative Unit!  Students soaked up the revision lessons we did this week and last. We are using our very best handwriting to write a final draft and we will be CELEBRATING on Wednesday!  We are very excited to show off our final pieces. The students have worked very hard! I will be sending home their final draft and will keep a photocopy here for grading purposes. Make sure to ask your child about AAAWWUBBIS words, Flashbacks and how to tie up loose ends at the end of a story.

In Social Studies, students are working hard on their research projects!  Students are in groups of two or three and researching an early European Explorer.  After a few mini-lessons on how to research and using reliable websites and published works, students began their research. This week students started their Google Presentations. They are looking great!  Presentations are being worked on at school and there is no expectation that they will be worked on at home. However, if you student wants to show you, they can log-in to their RSU 35 Google account from home and show it to you!

Our school is participating in a food drive for the Lions Club! Our classroom has been asked to bring in Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate!  If our class brings in over 50 items, I've promised them something special!

I enjoyed talking to all of you at Parent Teacher Conferences this week and last. It's always nice to talk to all of you!

Upcoming Dates:
November 7th - Veteran's Day Assembly and Breakfast 9:00am
November 8th - Picture Retakes
November 11th - No School, Veteran's Day
November 21st - Walk to School Day
November 27-29th - No School, Thanksgiving Break

Weekly Update x2

Things have been pretty low key for the last two weeks in Room 10!  We've been quietly plugging away on NECAP testing each day and finally finished the last of the testing this morning! Woohoo!

During testing, we haven't been able to to complete as much in class as we would with a normal schedule. We did a few math lessons and writing lessons and were able to finish and present our student slideshows. Late today, students will be sharing their slideshows with you via Google Presentation. While the presentations took longer than I expected, it was a good learning opportunity for the kids. Mistakes were made along the way and they were able to learn how to troubleshoot and work together to fix the problems.

On Tuesday, students who are missing work from the first six weeks of school will be receiving a "Missing Work Notice". I will also attach missing assignments to be finished. This work will be due the following Monday (October 21). If your child finds the work completed and can turn it in, there is no need to redo the assignment on the blank sheet attached to the notice.

Earlier this morning I sent out an email about headphones. I'd love for students to have an extra pair of headphones (or earbuds, etc) to use at school. Let me know if you do not have a pair and I will make sure your child gets one.

Conferences are coming up! If you have not done so already, please fill out and return the pre-conference form I sent home last week. If you need another one, please let me know.

-Mrs. Starkey :)

Important Dates
No School - 10/14 - Columbus Day
Parent/Teacher Conferences 10/24 & 10/29
District Flu Clinic - 10/17 @MHS 3-8pm
MGWS IceCream Social - 10/18 6-7:30pm
Picture Retakes - 11/8

Classroom Wish List
Headphones for each student
iTunes Gift Cards for iPad apps for Education
Pillows for reading on the floor
Paper Towels
We are set for tissues, snacks and juice boxes, thank you!!

Friday Math!

Weekly Update 9/23 - 9/27

Thank you to all the parents who came out for our Grade 5 Open House on Tuesday. It was great to see some familiar faces and to meet some new ones!  If you weren't able to make it, I understand. Thanks for checking in. :)

This week in Math we reviewed Unit One and completed the assessment. Progress Reports and the corrected tests went home today. Students are evaluated using the beginning, developing and secure measurements on each goal for the unit. Each Progress Report is broken into three sections: Oral/State Assessment, Written Part A and Written Part B. The goals we are looking at to be "Secure" are only the goals listed under part A.

We also began Unit 2, Estimation and Calculation. Family Letters for Unit 2 were sent home today as well. However, don't forget that you can access them anytime online! Simply log-in to everdaymathonline.com with the information that was sent home earlier this month.

Today, students from our class, Mrs. McPherson's class and Mrs. Lindgren's class participated in the first "Friday Math" session of the year! Students were broken up in three groups and worked on a skill from Unit One. In Mrs. McPherson's class, students were introduced to SumDog!  In Mrs. Lindgren's class, students created posters, song and raps to help remember divisibility rules and in my class we practiced Place Value with a flip chart on the Promethean Board.

This week in writing, students chose their piece of writing that they will take to final draft!  On Monday, students wrote a Flash Draft. A Flash Draft is a first draft that they write as quickly as they can. Later in the week, we went back to our drafts and thought, "What is our story really about?" For example, is it a story about getting ice cream? or is it a story about spending time with someone special and you just happen to be getting ice cream with that person. After thinking about that, students wrote a second draft of their story. A great revision strategy!

We continued working on our Classmate Interviews and students are almost done creating their Google Presentations on their partner. I had hoped to be done this week, but we will need a few more days to complete this project.

Conference Confirmation Slips came home today. If you did not complete the survey online, I signed you up for an open slot. I have a lot more slots available, so if the time assigned to you is not convenient, please call the office at 384-4010 to reschedule. I also sent home a Pre-Conference work sheet that will help our conference run smoothly. Please fill out the pre-conference sheet and return it by October 11th.

Thank you!
-Mrs. Starkey :)

Important Dates to Remember:
PICTURE DAY is MONDAY September 30th

Our Classroom Wish List:
Snacks/Juice boxes for students who forget their snack
iTunes Gift Cards for iPad apps for Education
Pillows for reading on the floor
Tissues
Paper Towels

Weekly Update 9/16 - 9/20

Good Afternoon!

This week flew by in Room 10.

In Everyday Math, we continued our work with factors and prime numbers; taking both skills to the next level with prime factorization. For this skill, we used a strategy called Factor Trees. This is the end of Unit 1. On Monday we will review the unit and Tuesday will be the Unit 1 Assessment.

In Reading we worked on responding to literature. Last week we read "No Guitar Blues" by Gary Soto. This week, students had to find evidence to answer a question given to the class about the story. Students practiced restating the question, quoting the text and showing evidence to "prove" their answer.

We took a short break from our Explorer's Unit to begin learning how to use the students' new district gmail accounts. Students will have access to Google Drive with their accounts. They can access this account from any computer and will be doing the majority of their computer work with this log-in. Students also learned how to create SAFE and STRONG passwords with Mrs. Moloney in the library. Log-in information is firstname.lastinitial@rsu35.org. Our first project using Google Drive will be a Google Presentation on a classmate. Students are in the process of interviewing a classmate and will complete a presentation on them next week. Presentations will be shared with parents! :)

Our work with Mrs. Bogard and Personal Narrative Essays continues throughout September. This week we learned the Snapshot Strategy, Point of View and the Inspired by Strategy. We also took a look at the Writing Rubric for Personal Narrative and set goals based on our writing so far.

If you have not yet completed the survey for Parent/Teacher Conferences, please do so by clicking here: Parent/Teacher Conference Survey

Our Classroom Wish List:
Snacks/Juice boxes for students who forget their snack
iTunes Gift Cards for iPad apps for Education
Pillows for reading on the floor
Tissues
Paper Towels

Check out MGWS in the news! Pumpkinman Tri

Thank you!
Mrs. Starkey :)

Important Upcoming Dates:
5th Grade Open House - September 24th, 2013 from 6:30-8:00pm
Walk to School Day - September 26th
Picture Day - September 30th

Our First Days (in pictures)

Welcome to the new school year!

Hello! Welcome to our class blog. I hope you all had a nice, relaxing summer. I am excited to get our year started and I can't wait to meet all of you. Welcome to 5th grade!

Our Gundalow Trip! Part Two

Our Gundalow Trip! Part One

Spring has Sprung! (Finally!)

We enjoyed an afternoon outside with Mrs. Morrison's class. What a gorgeous day!

Week in Review

Good Monday Afternoon to all our blog readers!

We have been very busy in Room 31 these days. In Social Studies we have been studying all things MAINE!  We wrote mini-reports on a few famous people from Maine which will be on display for Artists and Authors Night (March 27 from 6-8pm). We also spent time learning about the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Governor. We will be studying more about our state legislature this week and next before our trip to Augusta on March 28th!

In Math we finished up Unit 7.  Unit 7 was long and introduced many new things.  We will take the Unit 7 Test on Tuesday, March 19th. A review will go home today.

This week we will being a new unit on Digital Literacy and Citizenship. Students will be studying three units on things like digital responsibility, personal vs. private information, how to search on the internet safely and a lot more. I am excited to be teaching these units and hope to collaborate with third and fifth grade teachers over the summer about our new curriculum.

Dates to remember:
March 22 - Trimester 2 ends; grades close
March 27 - Artists and Authors Night 6-8pm
March 28 - Mrs. Starkey and Mrs. Williams field trip to Augusta
March 29 - Report Cards go home
April 11 - Seussical, Jr! 9:30am and 7:00pm

What we've been up to!

Good Morning!  It's been a while since I've updated and I'm sorry about that. We have been very busy in Room 31!  Here's what we've been up to.

In January we started our study on the Human Body by studying cells!  Cells are the building blocks of life.



We finished cells right before February vacation and will be starting the Circulatory System this week.

This month in Social Studies we will begin our unit of study for the State of Maine! We will end this unit by taking a Field Trip to the State house on March 28th.  Parents are welcome to join us, too!  Four chaperones are allowed per class (on the bus) however, any parent is welcome to follow the bus to Augusta and stay the day with us. (Students must ride the bus.)

In Math we are halfway through Unit 7!  Unit 7 is all about fractions.  This is an introductory unit for adding and subtracting fractions as well as probability.  We have been working hard!

In writing we have been studying and writing poetry!  The students were so proud to each  publish a writing book filled with poems.  The books will be on display at this years Artists and Authors night. Artists and Authors night is a Great Works tradition!  Students display writing and artwork and also have the opportunity to preform at school that evening. There will be more information coming home soon about this. Mark your calendars for March 27th from 6:00-8:00pm!

Report cards for Term 2 go home Friday, March 29.

Lastly, Spring Parent/Teacher conferences are March 14 and 20 from 3:30pm to 7:00pm.  I will be sending home a sign up sheet today! Please email me with any questions.

Happy New Year!

The end of December did not go as planned in our classroom, but I am hoping that the illness that struck me and my family is gone and we wont be interrupted again! The new year has started off wonderfully! Upon returning from Christmas break, the children and I were surprised by Mr. Burnell with our new Promethean Board!!  The interactive white board is great on so many levels. We got to try it out last week and we had a blast.

We spent a lot of time getting ready for the Partial Products method for multiplying. We also spent a lot of the week getting back into our routine. It had been far too long!  

The students also took the second round of the NWEA tests last week. Look for a Student Progress Sheet to come home next week showing the gains your child has had since fall. I have a few students that need to do make-up tests this week before the reports can come home.   This is a great tool for me to use to plan lessons for our class. 

Lots going on in our classroom these days! There will be quite a bit of corrected work coming home this week. 

Important Dates to remember:

January 21 - No School, Martin Luther King Jr. Day

March 28 - Augusta Trip (7:30am - 4:00pm)  tentative