Expressing our Dreams

This week has been a very exciting week indeed.  I would like to thank all of the parents who came out to back-to-school night.  It was wonderful to have the opportunity to connect with you on Thursday night.  I look forward to getting to know each and everyone of you more throughout the year.

As part of our social emotional program, we have started down our path on the 8-to Great highway.  Our first highway is "get the picture."  The activity that we did during morning meeting was looking at Dreams vs. goals.  Goals are specific and measurable while dreams are more bold, grand, and imaginative.  I was amazed at how thoughtful  and attentive the students were during this particular share-out.  Ask you child what their dream is, you might be surprised by their answer.

This week in writing, we worked on writing friendly letters to ourselves.  At the end of the year, students will open their letters to see how much they have grown.  Each student measured themselves with yarn and then placed the cut string in the envelope with the letters.  It will be amazing to open these at the end of the year and see our growth.  Also this week we have started "Bill's Bodacious Bookworm Club." Each student will be choosing an appropriate leveled reading book. As a class, we generated a list of possible end products that suit each child's learning style preference.

We also began looking at the use of figurative language for our writing.  We will be analyzing lyrics of songs the children are interested in and looking for examples of metaphors, personification, alliteration, etc.  It could be a great opportunity to stay connected with what music your child is listening to. Ask your child what one of their favorite songs are and read the lyrics together!

What an amazing class

This week we have really stepped it up into high gear.  One of our power writing topics this week was, "What type of environment do we need to be successful in writing?" It was wonderful watching the students transform their environment by reflecting what works for them during writing.  Some of the shared responses were- "we need a quite space," "the environment needs to be kept clean," "sit next to someone who will not distract you."  Afterwards we conducted an experiment to test what we decided.  I posed the hypothesis, "Will we get more work done if we follow these guidelines?" Sure enough, when students were given the chance to self-regulate, all the students were able to complete the assignment for the day.

The students created a goal setting sheet that we will be used to help make some positive personal changes.  We looked at our particular strengths and weaknesses and specific academic, personal, and social goals.  I created a goal of having more consistent parent communication, so be expecting a phone call from Alexis or me soon!

For social studies, we finished collaboration on our classroom constitution.  For each right that we want, we have a corresponding responsibility.  We also discussed a way for students to self-asses using a scale from "D to A."
D=democratic
C=cooperation
B=bullying/bossing
A=anarchy
If your child comes home telling you they want to be a "D" student, that is a good thing.  In the next few weeks, we are going to be looking at the issues that are facing America today.  The upcoming presidential elections are going to provide a great opportunity to have some debates in the classroom.  We are fortunate to have such a real life connection to humanities.

Building Communities

This past week we have been continuing to work on mastering classroom procedures and routines. Students created classroom jobs and wrote detailed descriptions of the jobs.  When children are included in the decision making process, they tend to take more ownership of their jobs.  We have also been practicing how to give feedback to each other to improve the quality of work.  Our motto is that feedback needs to be kind, helpful, and specific.  This year, we will use feedback to create multiple drafts and beautiful work.
We  have begun to work on our "powerful sentences" and "power writing" to improve writing fluency and content.  We have also started reading and responding to literature.  If you have not done so already, please make sure that your child brings a novel to school that is at their reading level. We are also beginning to look at the American constitution as a basis for creating our classroom constitution.  By analyzing our government, we will come up with a list of rights and responsibilities that we will use as our rules for the classroom.

First Week

I am very excited to have competed our first week of fifth grade. This week our focus has been on team building activities and getting to know each other.  We also have been going over the expectations of the classroom routines.  Next week we will be drafting our classroom constitution and creating the vision of what we want our year to be like.
Remember that we are setting up our portfolios right now, so please make sure that your child has a three inch, three-ringed binder.  Also be sure that your child has 3 spiral notebooks too.  It appears that we have enough tissue and paper towels for now so don't worry about bringing in those items if you have not done so already.  If you have any further questions or concerns feel free to contact me at-bill@innovationsacademy.org.