Dot Day, Nouns, & Word Problems

This week was Dot Day so I read The Dot to my homeroom class. Every year I use this day to start our random acts of kindness that we do throughout the school year. We pick a door in the school and leave many, many positive post it notes on the door. Of course, my kids wanted to start with Dr. Headen, our new principal. 

The only rules are they must be positive notes and they must sign their name. 

I'm sure she was surprised when she returned to see her door looking like this!

We have been studying nouns and I found this game to help them practice concrete and abstract nouns. The kids loved it!

They played the game in pairs and the winner of the game got a ticket for the good job jar. 

Do you need some games to noun practice? Games 4 Gains had this great pack for Nouns so I purchased it. The kids loved this game and I can't wait to use more of them next week. 

We have also been working on making word problems easier. This is something my students struggle with every year. I wanted to introduce them to this collaborative problem solving activity for 5th grade math. 

So I put the kids in small groups and had them work together to solve the word problem. Then I set up the screen and we used our 4 Mobis so that each group could share their thought process and problem solving. 

I love using the Mobis for this because there are times when groups solve the problem in different ways and they are able to share with the entire class. This time everyone solved it exactly the same way. I like using the groups to solve the problems because it helps those who may struggle with word problems because they help each other!

Week 5 & 6- Hiccups & Math Fun

When I got home last weekend my internet was down and I wasn't able to do my weekly post. So this week I'll share a few things that happened over the last 2 weeks. 

Have you ever had a kid with the hiccups in your classroom? My students get them all the time and I have a great way to get rid of them. It works every time. Give the student a cup and have them fill it with water all the way to the top. 

Then turn upside down and drink that way from the wrong side of the cup. So your top lip goes on the outside edge and your bottom lip goes on the inside edge. Drink some water that way and then stand back up. Easy way to cure the hiccups every time!

Have you seen this book? I gave one of the activities a try during math. 

One of the pages has dice roll prompts. So I partnered my students up and had them work in pairs to solve word problems. They rolled a dice to discuss a question before the problem solving started. 

Then they each worked separately to solve the problem. Finally they would roll the dice to choose the final discussion question for that problem and compare answers. 

There was a lot of on task discussion about math! They decided this was a lot more fun than just sitting and solving the problems alone. Plus, everyone was engaged!

We used my favorite reading strategy again this week, Keep It or Junk It. I also hung my posters on the wall under the clock so everyone could see them. 

This is another great way to have students working together in groups. They work to find words to help answer a focus question and them write an answer to that question. 

Have you used Kahoot? I created a review quiz to help prepare for the social studies test this week. We did it Monday and when the kids came back to me Tuesday they were begging to play again. They didn't care that I hadn't made a new game yet. 

I grouped my students to work as teams and submit their answers with the iPads. It is like a game show and they earn points for each correctly answered question. It also shows the leader after each question. They were cheering so loud when the correct answer showed up that I told them they would have to have a silent celebration or Mrs. Reasner and Mrs. Smith (our neighbors on either side) would ban us from playing. 

I wanted to share a picture of me and my Kindergarten buddy. I talk to him every morning in the gym and he has been trying to learn to tie his shoes. He works so hard and almost has it down!

Finally, here is a picture of my wonderful 5th grade team! We all purchased matching shirts and wore them today. I have the best team! Our shirts say, "In 5th grade we... share, love, laugh, grow, show respect, apologize, sing and dance, do our best, encourage, make mistakes, create, play, word hard, have fun, learn   We Are Family

L to R: Mrs. White, Mrs. Reasner, Mr. Schmitt, and Mrs. Smith

STUDENTS: I'd love to hear from you! What is your favorite part about 5th grade so far?

Week 8- Close Reading in Math, Number Crunchers, and Newton's Laws

This week was full of lots of new things in our classroom. We started with Close Reading. Our instructional coach said she wanted us to do a close reading with our students before our next meeting and have something to bring back to share. Since I teach math and science I decided to adapt the close reading to word problems. I set up this chart so my students could use it to record the information in their math journal. This is just like our CUBE strategy for problem solving so it was easy for them to collect the information from the word problems and add it to their journals.




The 4th box must contain the work that show the answer to the problem and a complete sentence that answers the question in box 2.





I think has really helped my students with word problems. Some of them see a bunch of words and decide they can't do it. But this has allowed them to persevere and find the answer! Want to hear one of my students explain it in her own words? Listen to Gianna's showme below.



We also spent some time talking about the types of mistakes we make when doing math.



By the end of the week my students were able to identify the types of mistakes they were making and correct them.





(See previous post for the posters- free)



We also played Number Crunchers. (Free posters from the previous post)



Instead of working with a partner we worked in small groups. Each student had their own set of Versatiles and a Smartpal with the problems inside. They followed the Number Crunchers rules to solve the problems. It was great listening in to groups and hearing them share and talk about the types of mistakes that were made.


We have been studying Newton's Laws this week in science. If you study this you MUST check out these activities! My students loved them!

Newton's Laws of Motion Stations









This one had to be my favorite. Parents sent in raw and boiled eggs. I put a ? on one and an ! on the other. The students then had to spin the egg and use Newton's 1st law of motion to figure out which one was boiled and which was raw. I loved hearing their thoughts in this station.





STUDENTS: Which was your favorite Newton's Law Station? Why did you like it the best? What did you do in that station?