Silent Hallway Drag Race

We are nearing the end of our Motion and Design unit.  In our unit we have learned many different ways that a vehicle is capable of moving.  Our most current way to have a vehicle move from point A to point B is using a propulsion unit...in this case a rubber band wound around a free spinning axle, while the other end is attached to a fixed axle sent our vehicles flying.  To put our vehicles into action, and for a little competition, we had a "Silent Drag Race" in our hallway.  The car that traveled the shortest distance was eliminated from competition until only one car remained.  Check out our race:

Stepping Stones in Our Classroom

The following is a quick video showing what our class so far has enjoyed about our new Stepping Stones math curriculum.  In the video you will hear from several students about how they think about math and learn about our Think Tanks.

Winter Sing Along a Success!

Our students put on a great winter sing along this year.  They definitely have us in the spirit for the holidays.  Enjoy the pics and sounds!

3 x 6 Writing Slam

In writing yesterday we had some fun with spontaneous writing.  We did a "3 x 6 Writing Slam."  Students were given a silly sentence starter.  In this case, the sentence was "'Quick, over here!' said the caveman as he tumbled over the waterfall."  All of my students had to start their story with this sentence.  They then had 3 minutes to write as much of their story as possible.  When the three minutes was up, they had to stop (finish the word they were on) and rotate to the next person's story.  They had 30 seconds to read and then 3 minutes to write.  We did this rotation six times until they got back to their original piece.  Today, students will practice editing the story on their own.

Check out the video to get an idea of how our class looked/functioned....

Motion and Design with Google Spreadsheet

Our current science curriculum is "Motion and Design" through the Einstein Project.  In this kit our students get hands on experience learning about how and why vehicles move the way they do.  We spend time learning about Newton's Three Laws of Motion as well.  

This year I have been trying to incorporate more Google Drive tools, especially when opportunities arise to use Google Spreadsheet.  In our most recent lesson, students had to learn how an unbalanced force effected their vehicles' movement.  In this case, the unbalanced force was washers.  At first, their vehicles did not move with small amounts of washers, but eventually, as you will see below, they got their vehicles moving very fast.  The faster their vehicles went in combination with the washers hitting the ground, made actually seeing inertia (vehicle moving without a force acting on it) possible.  

While students made these observations, they also collected data on a Google Spreadsheet.  The spreadsheets were simple, three column, designs.  With their data, students quickly created graphs showing their results with basically one click of a button.  This was a fun, simple, and quick way to collect and analyze data in our fifth grade classroom.

Word Relationships and Nuances - Part 2

To review word relationships and nuances in LEAP today, we created Word Relationship Word Clouds.  In doing so, students had to choose which category of word relationship was most interesting to them, or one they wanted to explore; like synonyms, antonyms, homophones, multiple meaning words, "stronger" words, etc.  Students explored thesaurus.com and to find word relationships for a ONE starting word if doing synonym, antonym, or "stronger" word.  If looking for homophone pairs or multiple meaning words students explored Google Images for words that appeared on classroom posters.  

As students explored, they added their words to ABCYa!'s word cloud generator.  They had to include Word Relationships five times (so it would be the biggest word on the cloud), their category three times (the next biggest), followed by as many words as they could find once.  It was a fun way to conclude our second week of word relationships and nuances.  Here are some of the results:

Opinion Writing: Warm Me Up!

In yesterday's post I shared how we were doing pre-writing in our classroom.  Today students shared their pre-writing with one another and have began to create a more finalized draft using their Chromebooks.  The following video shows work in action.  Believe it or not, during activities like this, it is generally as quiet as you hear.  When used the right/write way, technology can engage kids with more than just games!  Proof in action...

Word Relationships and Nuances - Part 1

In our LEAP class (RtI) we have been focusing on discovering word relationships and nuances in our everyday reading.  This has been tricky, to say the least.  I learning about word relationships and nuances we have identified word relationships as synonyms, antonyms, homophones, same spelling / different meaning, etc.  In learning about nuances, we have learned how nuances are simply a subtle change in the way "something" appears.  Nuances, in our classroom, have been described as subtle changes in color, mood, or even within synonyms - eventually perhaps changing into an antonym...CRAZY!

Today, as a wrap-up to my first group's rotation, we are using the app Pic Collage to collect nuances (around our school) in color.  The following are various examples we collected today:

Words their Way and SpellingCity.com

In our fifth grade classroom we use Words their Way as our core for word study curriculum.  Now that my students have become fairly fluent with most of the word study activities, I have added I. The option to practice word study and spelling using the website Spelling City.  This website has a lot of engaging games for students.  Plus it is fair fairly simple to set up.  In my case, since is like the site, I have paid subscription, which offers more variety in activities, besides just spelling activities. Check out some of our fun today.

Opinion Writing in the Fifth Grade

12323234 Paragraph Template

In keeping up with CCSS, we are currently in our mini-Opinion Writing unit.  We have been practicing writing our opinions, by keeping our ideas brief and to the point (in most cases).  Our opinions have been shared on the topic of what our Social Studies project should be on (Pilgrims or John White) and whether or not students should climb into random holes they find in the ground (kind of goofy).  

Opinion Writing Template

For teaching opinion writing, we have been using a "Step Up to Writing" model/strategy for building a brief and to the point paragraph.  In fifth grade, we call it a 1,2,3,2,3,2,3,4 Paragraph.  Check out this simple Google Presentation to get the general idea: 12323234 Paragraph.

When my students use 12323234 paragraphs, they initially have access to an organizer (either paper or digital).  They simply fill these in, and then proceed to writing a real paragraph either digitally or by hand.  

Transitions Poster

For our current opinion piece, my students are using the following organizer/worksheet: Opinion - Hot Chocolate or Soup?  I want to figure out how to make the previously mentioned document more of a "fill in the blank" style document, so that it is more digitally friendly.  If you have ideas, please share!  In the pictures below, you can also see students using a transition words poster to "beef" their paragraphs up.  Check out our writing session from today.