As we embark upon Bridges Unit 3, I thought you might like to see the family letter provided by the program. I am sending home a hard copy today, but here is a link to a digital version.
In addition, this unit in Number Corner is very vocabulary heavy, with lots of geometry and data collection terms. This might be a good month to check out the vocabulary app mentioned in the letter, or to simply review terms for quadrilaterals and graphing with your child.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
NaNoWriMo Comes to a Close!
The month of November is almost over, and that brings an end to National Novel Writing Month. Though, of course, students are welcome to continue developing their stories for as long as they like, our word counting activities conclude on November 30. At then end of this post, please find information regarding instructions for "winning." This must be done by November 30th; I cannot help students with this process in December.
Is your child behind on his or her word count? Don't panic! Opportunities for writing abound, including two events at local libraries this week. The Albany public library is hosting a write-in this Tuesday, November 25, from 6-8pm. Details here. The West Branch of the Berkeley public library is hosting a long write-in this Saturday, from 10-5:30. Details here. Though I hope to attend both of these events, I cannot be responsible for childcare.
In other news, this week students are completing their explorer presentations. I was impressed with their hard work, and the kids learned quite a bit about internet sources, citing their research, and collaboration as well as information about their explorer. They are ready to take on their next presentation on the American Colonies (information coming in December).
This week, we wrap up our work with fractions. Students used the clock, money, and number line models to explore adding fractions with unlike denominators, and have progressed to the Least Common Multiple (LCM) and Greatest Common Factor (GCF) strategies for adding, subtracting, and simplifying fractions. For extra practice over the long weekend, you may wish to check out these activities:
Ordering and Comparing Fractions with Dick and Dom (this is a Monty Python style video game, with all the silliness that implies)
Preview our next unit with these activities:
I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!
Maureen
INSTRUCTIONS FOR WINNING NANOWRIMO:
Please read this entire section if your child is likely to meet his/her word count goal by Sunday, November 30, thereby "winning" NaNoWriMo, and particularly if you and your child would like to take advantage of the offer to get five printed copies of the completed novel for free (courtesy of
CreateSpace).
Since we don't have school during the last few days of NaNoWriMo, you'll need to take time with your child at home while you have access to the internet to validate your child's final word count. Writers must complete the word-count validation process before November 30 at 11:59 pm in order to be eligible to claim winners' prizes, including the free printed paperbacks. Please follow the steps below to validate your child's word count in order to claim winners' prizes:
(Adapted from http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/how-to-win)
Step 1:
Have your child log into his/her ywp.nanowrimo.org account and go to "Edit Novel Info." (They have done this at least once in class, so it should be familiar.) If your child plans to continue working through November 30, be sure you've updated your time zone. We want the students to have all the
noveling hours they need. Students can update their time zone on the User Settings page.
Step 2:
If your child hand-wrote his/her novel, he/she needs to "validate" his/her word-count by pasting in randomly-generated text that is the same number of words as his/her final, "winning" word-count. (The randomly-generated text is simply a proxy to represent the number of words your child has written.) Go to http://www.lipsum.com to generate the correct amount of random text, then
copy and paste it into the validator on the "Edit Novel Info" page. Please note that the method for validating handwritten novels requires that students count accurately and report honestly in order to come up with the correct amount of randomly-generated text.
Step 3: Publishing!
Once you have submitted your child's final validated word count by following the step above, you will be eligible for the free publishing offer. Passwords for the publishing offer will be available in
early December. Look for a coupon code on the winner's page of your child's account and follow instructions from there. More info on the offer is available here: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/node/619879
Important note: To claim this publishing offer, your child will have to type (or dictate) his or her novel sometime during the coming months (the offer is valid until June 30). He/she is free to revise and edit his/her novel while transcribing it. When looking at (or later typing) your child's work, please remember that he/she "put away" his/her "inner editor" during the process! The novel is
likely to ramble and have many grammatical and other kinds of errors. It might not even make sense. Please honor the great accomplishment of sticking to the task and writing all those words over the course of the month. It is a formidable task and valuable experience no matter the quality of the finished product.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Haunted House and Parent Education Night
Halloween is almost here! We are in the planning stages for our haunted house, and will finalize our plans early next week. We do not have access to the music room until after 3pm on Thursday, October 30th, so I am looking for volunteers to help me put our plan into action. Parents, please email me if your child can stay after school to build the Haunted House. Until we are finished, they will not get signed into aftercare. Parents are invited to help, too! I imagine it will take a couple of hours to complete the project, though I am unable to give an exact completion time.
In other news, a parent education night is coming up! Many of you have expressed to me that you would like to learn more about BPC's math program. To this end, we are offering a parent education event for Lower School parents on Thursday, October 30. Math Explored with Vera Balarin, BPC Math Specialist, 7:00 - 8:30 pm, Library. I hope you can come!
Thursday, October 16, 2014
5th Grade Happenings
Today our buddies performed their dress rehearsal! Enjoy these buddy and sibling photos from after the show. The 5th graders were a great audience.
Fifth grade is a busy place these days! As students become more comfortable with 5th grade expectations and routines become, well, routine, we are moving along through the curriculum at a faster clip. Here are some curricular highlights:
History: Students are wrapping up investigations into what life was like in the Americas, Europe, and West Africa prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the Americas. Students are learning that each continent supported thriving cultures, and will thus have context for when these regions become intertwined during the period of European exploration. Next week we will explore Columbus's voyages, and the following week we will begin new research projects on European explorers. Detailed assignment sheets will be available on paper and posted to the blog once the projects are announced.
Math: We are looking at contexts for adding fractions with unlike denominators. Specifically, we are using money and clocks to provide an easy way to determine fractional amounts. For example, students can look at a clock and see that one third of an hour is 20 minutes, and then can add one third to one half (30 minutes) to easily see an answer of 50 minutes, or 5/6 of an hour.
For resources, check out this interactive clock model or this blog post about our curriculum's methods.
Reading: We are reading Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Headless Cupid together, enjoying discussions as well as analyzing the author's technique for inspiration for our own novels. Ask your child about Amanda, David, Janie, Blair, and Tesser!
Writing: We are writing brief pieces analyzing Ms. Snyder's technique, as well as preparing for our upcoming novel, in a more traditional way. Students work in their NaNo workbooks at their own pace and some are storyboarding key scenes in their novel for inspiration. Excitement is building! In the coming weeks, we will discuss typing versus handwriting and select a way to enable our best writing come November.
Join us for the NaNoWriMo Kickoff party. Check out the flyer here.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Link to Math Activity
Today Ms. Duncan showed me a great activity that supports this month's Number Corner, and we played around with it as a class for a few minutes. Many of the kids wanted to check it out themselves, so here's the link: http://www.fi.uu.nl/toepassingen/00247/toepassing_wisweb.en.html
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Family Letter re: Math Unit 2
Attached is a letter from the Bridges Math Curriculum regarding our next math unit. Please let me know if you have any questions. I will update this site periodically with games and activities that support our work in this unit.
Unit 2 Family Letter
Unit 2 Family Letter
Monday, October 6, 2014
NaNoWriMo Coming Up!
A few shots from our preview performance on Thursday!
Now that our amazing performance is behind us, it's time to focus on two exciting October events -- The Haunted House and NaNoWriMo. We will discuss both of these events in class, but I will summarize the highlights here for you.
The Haunted House project is an opportunity for the 5th grade to really work together as a team to complete a project. Though they receive adult support to carry out their ideas, it is our goal that students really take ownership of this project. Therefore, if your child shares with you ideas that seem somewhat unrealistic, try asking questions that encourage them to figure out more reasonable goals. Try to avoid telling them what won't work.
NaNoWriMo is approaching! Unlike last year, we will not spend time working page-by-page through the workbook (though self-paced workbook time will be provided in class). 5th graders are expected to prepare in the way that best works for them, which may include the workbook, or may include storyboarding or other techniques. It is most important that excitement builds for the big event, so I will try to keep the planning process from feeling like a chore. Please let me know if your child is feeling stressed, and we can work together to lessen any anxiety.
Write-Ins are a successful way for many students to meet their word count goals (or catch up on a few days' worth of words). We unfortunately do not have staff to run write-ins on parent-conference days (Monday and Tuesday, November 3rd and 4th), so I encourage parents to set up their own write-ins. I have included instructions from Kira Del Mar about running your own write-ins. Let me know if you need any additional support!
Tips for running a NaNo write-in:
- Provide space and time for writing, but also allow for breaks, chatting, and wanderings-of-attention. Storytelling is hard work, and it's rare that students will write uninterrupted for more than 30-40 minutes at a time.
- Remind writers to stop and count their words about every page or two (we use the counting and labeling by 10s method: count 10 words and write a small '10' above that word, count another 10 and write '20,' etc. until the bottom of a page, where you write the whole-page total).
- Run occasional word sprints. These should be 5-10 minutes each (I usually go for 6, 7, or 8). Here's the procedure we usually follow:
- Who'd like to word sprint? If you're participating (which you don't have to), put a star after the last word you just wrote, so you know where to count from when you finish the sprint.
- This will be a ____ minute word sprint.
- Shake out your hands, make sure your pencil is sharpened, and ready, set, write!
- Give a warning at the half-way point and the one minute mark, then count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, pencils down, hands up!
- Pause to give writers time to count their words, then collect word counts.
- Encourage students to beat their own best time, comparing their previous work to their current work.
- We usually do word sprints about every 15-20 minutes, or when there are at least 4 or 5 people ready to participate.
- Remember that NaNo is about creativity and storytelling, not about proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc., so resist the urge to correct any errors you may observe over writers' shoulders.
- Entirely optional: we sometimes provide small reward treats that students can collect when they reach milestones like 50% or 100% of their daily goal. These can be snacks like marshmallows or strawberries, or things like stickers or erasers. I'd be happy to provide some for you if you end up hosting.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Article about Math Education
I thought some of you might enjoy this article I found in an ed tech newsletter. The second page really describes the type of research-based learning we are doing now in mathematics -- moving away from a "teacher as giver of knowledge" model to a "student as discoverer of patterns and building knowledge him/herself" model. To learn more, click here.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Assembly is this Friday at 9am!
We have our first performance assembly on Friday, October 3rd at 9am. A full dress rehearsal will occur Thursday, October 2nd, for all lower school students to view, and on the Friday performance, family and friends are invited to attend. We look forward to seeing you there.
In other news, I hope to use this blog to keep you up-to-date about the techniques we are using in math. Today, I have a few games and activities you may wish to try with your kids:
The Factor Game: We played a pencil and paper version of this game in class. Try this version with your kids!
Grid Method: This activity practices the partial products method of multiplication that we have been practicing in class. If this sounds like a foreign language to you, I encourage you to check out this site! http://www.iboard.co.uk/iwb/Grid-Method-547
Volume: This activity reviews the work we've been doing with rectangular prisms. http://www.interactivestuff.org/sums4fun/3dboxes.html
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
First Buddy Meeting!
Not all of the pictures managed to upload to the site, so feel free to ask me if you'd like to see one of your kid!
Many families have asked me about the types of math we are doing in class these days. I'll take this opportunity to update you about what we did in math yesterday: defining math strategies.
We focused on a few, namely:
The Five is Half of 10 Strategy
If given the problem 5 x 78, it is easier for many to solve 10 x 78 first, and then divide it in half to find your product.
The Fifty is Half of 100 Strategy
To solve 50 x 78, it is easier for many to solve 100 x 78 first, then divide it in half to find your product.
The Over Strategy
If you are trying to solve a problem like 49 x 78, it may be helpful to start with 50 x 78 and then subtract one group of 78.
The Partial Products Strategy
When working on a problem like 99 x 3, it may be easier to solve it in parts: (90 x 3) + (9 x 3)
We will continue to practice these and other strategies this year, and for the next couple of weeks in particular. Ask your child to locate these strategies in use on their homework pages!
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