First for this week, a quick reminder that the 4th Math Olympiad contest in coming up on Wednesday, February 11 for all 4th and 5th grade math students. If students are absent, they will not be able to make up the contest (since this is a national contest, the rules are set by the Math Olympiad folks.) We do go over the results and answers in class so even if students are absent, they can still have an opportunity to learn through the problem solving and sharing we do. I just got the information about this year's PSD Elementary Math Olympiad tournament. Due to restrictions in number of teams allowed this year, we will only be able to take 10-5th grade students for 2 teams. The date is Wednesday, May 6. Please be looking over your spring calendar and talk to your 5th grader to decide if this is something they are interested in and have time to commit to. I'll be determining teams after Spring Break. There is one final Werner contest on March 11. On Monday, February 2, we celebrated the 100th day of school at Werner. For most of my groups it was a normal day. However, I decided this year 5th grade deserved a fun challenge. As a class, the kids worked alone and in partners to solve 100 problems. AND they completed their challenge (although we did need a little time on the 101st day to complete the last few.) I love that they were excited about math and every time they completed one problem, they promptly asked for another to help the group reach its goal. Here is a quick snapshot of the evidence of their hard work: This quarter I am working with 4th and 5th language arts/creativity groups. Both of those groups just completed literature circles and have this week enjoyed some culminating activities. 5th grade read When You Reach Me set in the 1970's. The girl in the book has a mom who earns a spot on "$20,000 Pyramid" so today the 5th graders and I used the game Outburst to create our own version of "$20,000 Pyramid." (We also found old YouTube videos of the original game with Dick Clark as the host.) We had fun with categories like popular kids Halloween costumes, things you find in a salad, words that begin with snow, and female fairy tale characters. Fourth graders have begun book projects on either Bud, Not Buddy or Hatchet. Neither book has chapter titles so for a creative project (and a chance to practice main idea) the kids had to give the chapters' titles as they read. They also have a menu to choose 2 projects to complete this week and next week. Our goal is creating quality projects based on our books with appropriate detail and visual appeal (this gets to many of the elements of creative we talk about.) Below are copies of the menus they have (click to enlarge.) Ask your child which projects they have chosen to spend their time on. We'll be sharing them in class at the end of next week.
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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