September 8th-11th
Happy Tuesday!! We are now into our third full week, and the kids are doing a fantastic job of learning the schedule, procedures and my expectations!
One of the things that I incorporate in my classroom is a gradual release model. I have taught it to the kids, and they have done a remarkable job picking up on it! The gradual release model is a "Me, We, Two, You" approach. Basically Monday is a "me" day. I do everything for the kids. I introduce the skills for the week, I give a spelling pretest, introduce the vocabulary words, build background and read a story. Tuesdays are a "we" day. We do everything together as a class. We reread portions of the story, have discussions, work on grammar together as a class etc. Wednesdays are "two" days. They are able to work with a partner to complete the days tasks. This would include anything language arts related. They can work with a partner to create graphic organizers using text evidence, create a 30 hands presentation over a skill, or whatever it is I am needing them to do that day. Thursday is a "you" day. On Thursdays they know that my expectation is for everything to be done independently. They do their grammar, writing, reading etc. all on their own. Of course I am there to help if they need it, but for the most part everything is to be done all on their own. This is a really good indicator to me of who has not yet mastered a skill and might need a little extra help, and who has gotten the material I covered within the week. Friday is our test day. We play a fun review game over all the skills we have learned in the week, and they take their spelling post test, and their Journeys post test. The test for Journeys is rather difficult so we do a whole class review of the test so I can help them with a few tricky ones, then the rest is done on their own. I really like these weekly assessments because they are WONDERFULLY written! They very much resemble what they will see on their Common Core assessment in the Spring! The kids have done a fantastic job of knowing which day is which and what to expect each day, which has been comforting to them I think! I think that is all I need to pass along to you this week! They are all doing a wonderful job, and I am really enjoying them!!
What are we learning this week?
This week in language arts we are working on learning about theme. This can be a difficult skill for 5th graders as they often want to identify it as the main idea. Finding the hidden message the author is portraying is often difficult for kids at this age, so we will be playing a few fun games throughout the week using Disney movies to identify theme! In grammar we are working on the 5 kinds of sentences, and for writing this week, we will be starting a personal narrative.
Last week in Social Studies we did a review of the three branches of the government, and found facts for each branch and created our own government trees. This week we are covering the different kinds of maps used in Geography, which also covers all the key functions of a map.
