Physical Fitness Testing

 The California Department of Education provides videos to show the tests 5th grade students will be taking in March 2018.

Flexibility Test:  Shoulder Stretch 

Abdominal Strength/Endurance Test: Curl-Up

 Trunk Extensor Strength/Endurance Test: Trunk Lift

Upper Body Strength/Endurance Test:  Push Up

 Aerobic Capacity Tests:   PACER  or One Mile Run

USA fun links

 A couple of fun links to explore the USA: National Geographic , Wilson and Ditch , and Tour the States song.

Highlights of the Month of September

Language Arts

We are continuing the novel Maniac Magee focusing on theme (kindness can make all the difference and treating all people with respect) and character inferences. After lunch we have been enjoying the ghost story Took by Mary Downing Hahn.

Room 22 continued our fiction narrative unit with getting inspiration from pictures and writing from the perspective of an inanimate object. We selected one piece to edit focusing on character, plot, and setting elaboration. Students are in the process of typing the second draft in Google.docs.

Math

Room 22 has been busy with multiplication. Focus has been on halving/doubling method, partial product method and the traditional method of 3 digit by 3 digit numbers.  We have also been working with prime factorization, exponents, and learning the order of operations. 

Science

We began a unit on Matter. We have discussed the differences between solutions and mixtures and physical vs. chemical changes.  Students continue to focus on life sciences (plants) in the lab with Debbie. 

Social Studies

Room 22 is learning about the different regions of the United States. We are focusing on the geography, natural resources/industry, and climate of each region and creating a map of each region. 

The postcard race is going well! Keep those cards coming!

(since this photo was taken, we received New Mexico, Oregon, and Nebraska)

Miscellaneous

We have met with our Room 8 (2nd grade) buddy class and created a poster based on our similarities.

Highlights of the First Two Weeks

Language Arts

We have begun reading Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Students have been discussing what makes a story part of the "realistic fiction" and "legend" genres, the importance of reading a book's blurb to figure out key story elements, and using inference skills to talk about the personalities of the characters. Room 22  also enjoys listening to Rump for a few minutes after lunch. 

We have begun the writing unit: Narrative Fiction. Students listened to stories by author Jon Scieszka which are fairy tales told from a different character's perspective and/or re imagined. Also we listened to stories involving "messy situations" and "what if?" scenarios to inspire us with ideas for our own fiction stories.

Math 

We have been brushing up our multiplication skills using the volume of rectangular prisms.

 Science

Students have been learning about the scientific method and practiced utilizing the steps with an experiment called "How Many Licks?" based on the old TV commercial regarding Tootsie Pops. Students hypothesized how many licks it would take them to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop and then performed the experiment.  😎

Art

Students made self-portraits in a cartoon style, chose a word that describes their personality and made a word bubble; and created hand art using warm and cool colors.