A tribute to a fabulous retiring teacher!

One of our amazing 5th grade teacher's is retiring this year and our class decided to create a book called "Common Sense after Retirement." Here my students are re-enacting common sense scenes.  

""Don't poke somebody continuously!"

"Don't write on anybody."

"Don't swim with sharks."

"Don't play freeze tag on the street!"

"Don't swim in flash-floods."

"Don't eat glue" 

"Don't eat too much food."

Learning Government is FUN!

Here are my amazing students taking their government tests . . . we did station testing instead of a pencil and paper test:+)

Making Oxymorons Visual

Oxymorons with style!

He has such a mean smile!

Go take a power nap!

Silent Math Chimes

Silent Math Chimes

For math this week we created silent math chimes. We created and designed squares and circles . . . this project was used for applying our math concepts in order to produce a colorful masterpiece. The vocabulary we covered with this project included: base, parallel, right angle, rotate, degrees,concentric circles, center, chord, diameter, radius. The kids had a blast! 

Teacher for a day!

 Here are some of my math students teaching another student a specific math concept. They had to create their own lesson plan and assessment.

Hyperbole Frames

Having fun with a hyperbole . . . here students created an exaggerated frame to fit their hyperbole!

Visual Reminders

Behavior Management; Clip it!

Pictures taken of their clean desks. Every Friday I show them this visual to remind them that their desk can look like this . . . so do it!

 Posted objectives so they know what we are doing on a daily basis.

 Quantum Learning: Be the VICTOR not the victim!

Math Strategy Board

Here is an idea for an interactive bulletin board. Simple! I use this for when a new math concept is introduced and we see how many different strategies we can come up with to get the same results. It's a lot of fun because the kids enjoy seeing their strategy in the classroom. It also works as a reminder in case some students forget how to do certain problems.

Identifying Voice in Novels

Voice!

Phew! My students understand it! While teaching how to identify voice this week I created a graphic organizer guiding my students through their reading how to locate the personality (voice) of a character. Coupled with the graphic organizer, I modeled identifying the character's voice with the read aloud we are reading in class, Number the Stars. Below is the modeling portion. Not only did they have to find evidence to support their findings but they had to back it up with direct quotes. 

Debate Time!

Researching our patriot/loyalist.

Our classroom set up for our panel debate for Patriots and Loyalists!

 Some portraits the kids drew of patriots/loyalists. 

Debates! My students have been learning about patriots and loyalists and took it to another level. Students were asked to research a patriot or loyalist and "become" that person. They had to imagine they were a patriot or loyalist and take on their perspective. At the end of the week we had a debate about how and why people felt so strongly as to sides. The debate became heated when "King George" stated to the patriots-specifically to" Paul Revere", "We give you back your money in the form of opportunities." Wow! Did that spark fireworks with the patriots. It was incredible to watch 5th graders tap into their adult minds and voice such strong views!

Stress Turned Into Refreshed Minds

The middle school in which my elementary feeds into has fifth graders take a 6th grade placement test. This determines which students are placed in various levels/classes when entering 6th grade. It takes 60 minutes and is done on the computer. While the students were emerged into the test, the test kicks the students out. My students were very upset. We tried to log back in but it would not allow anyone to get back in. After our failing attempts to log in, we went back to our classroom. The kids faces were frowns and their body language was filled with tense muscles. Recognizing this I told them on the count of 3 we were all going to scream as loud as we could. We did so and it felt great! I suggested we turn this experience into a positive experience, they came up with the following: we were able to see the questions we will have to do again, at least we know itwasn't as bad as we thought it would be, we are able to think about if the answers we entered are right and at least we were able to get out of the hot computer lab. What was once a stressed group of students now persevered into reflective thinkers! What more can you ask for?

Reflection

Today while teaching my students about how passionate you should be about your opinions I realized how opinionated they really are. As I was modeling two opinion papers, with two points of view, on animal experimentation and if TV is bad for your health and academics it became clear to me that my 5th graders began to come "alive" with their thoughts. One student who was pro-animal experimentation stated, "Well, I believe that instead of experimenting for human needs why can't they experiment for animal needs like how to help cure some of their diseases." Meanwhile another student, who was anti-animal experimentation, began with, "We are supposed to be looking out for mankind and all living creatures, how does this align with morals and values." I was taken back! The student who was pro-animal experimentation is a student who does not speak up in class and hardly volunteers. The other student is one with extreme ADHD who is not medicated and has difficulty expressing his feelings. Wow! Words cannot express I was so proud and touched by these students that it made it clearer to me why I value teaching so much!