Hour of Code

This week, Glenridge is participating in a world-wide event called Hour of Code.  5S will get the opportunity to have our hour of code on Wed, Dec 10th.  Students will get to spend time exploring self-guided tutorials to learn about coding and computer programming.  I began my journey into this area of technology last Friday and it definitely hurt my brain little bit.  However, I was successful in animating the first few letters of my name... it's a work in progress.  Please use the resources below to learn more about Hour of Code, to encourage your child's development of these skills, and even try your hand at coding. 

Information on Hour of Code

A Message from President Obama, to kick off Hour of Code

Tutorials for Beginners

Brainpop Coding and Computer Programming Games

Scratch - Program your own stories, games, and animations

Behind the Scenes of 5M

5M this week!

Science- This week in Science we studied chemistry. We studied solutions and mixtures and made our own experiments with our table mates.  We explored the ideas of concentration and density.

Reading- During reading, Ms. McMillion is reading a book called Crash. As she reads the students have to write thoughts, info about the characters, etc. in their reader’s notebook. This week we really focused on what pressures the main character, Crash is facing, and how he is acting in response to those pressures.  After a couple of chapters, students get their book and go to a quiet special spot in the room to read.

     This week Mrs. Bergstrom, the ELL teacher, came in to read a story with us called, "Nasreen's Secret School" by Jeanette Winter.  This connected to our focus on social justice issues.  We are exploring issues around the world and within our own community that do not seem fair.  This story really got us thinking about how lucky we are to be able to learn freely at Glenridge.  

Writing- This week in Writing our class is working on picking the perfect personal narrative to spread their experiences onto the paper.

Math- In Math this week students studied really hard about adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers to get ready for their test next week (Tues. the 28th of October)

Learning buddies- During learning buddies, we finished helping our buddies learn their letters by making a ABC book. After the students and their buddy finish their book, the students read to their buddy until it's time to go.

Life Skills - Mrs. Spann came in on Friday to teach us about multiple intelligences. We talked about the theory of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner and took a survey to determine our areas of strength to help us better understand the best way for us as individuals to learn.  


                     Bÿ-Wįłłå and Śãrå ^_^=^o^

Behind the Scenes with 5M

Our week flew by! We were busy working with our learning partners to challenge our thinking, we started collecting ideas for our personal narrative, we began our chemistry unit, and we got to lead another CLAYMO lesson. It was nice to have the early release on Friday after such a packed week.

We worked with our learning partners to develop prompts and questions we can use anytime during reading to help push our thinking deeper.  It was nice to work together to create this resource because through discussing our ideas, we were able to come up with really useful prompts and questions to challenge our thinking. We now have a resource to use whenever we are writing or talking about our reading.  

The first step in writing our personal narrative is collecting a whole bunch of possible story ideas. We took a couple days to make some lists based on a couple collecting strategies to help us brainstorm some stories. Next week we will choose a couple to try them out for our narrative. We are being pushed to write a narrative that follows what we know about published stories - the characters are developed, there is a main problem that the character has to work through, and that problem gets resolved by the end of the story.  

We could not wait for this chemistry unit to begin! The first concepts we explored were creating and separating mixtures. We made a mixture of gravel and water, a mixture of powder and water, and a mixture of kosher salt and water.  Then had to experiment with how to successfully separate the materials from the water.  We ended up having to use a small screen for the gravel and a coffee filter for the powder. We are in the process of discovering how to separate the salt from the water. We are loving this unit!  

The focus of our CLAYMO lesson this week was being kind and helpful around the school. We each led our group to develop a poster that will give examples of ways we can be kind and helpful in specific areas of the school like the classroom, the hallway, the bathroom, and the playground. We really got to work as a team to create these posters.  Soon they will be hung around the school as a reminder to all of us of how to be kind and helpful all the time.  

We hope you have a great weekend! Next week is conference week!

Reporters - 5M

Ways we are and can be Glenridge heroes