When I got my first Donors Choose project funded, I was really baffled by the Thank You package.  I just wasn't sure what the Thank You letters were supposed to look like.  Where they supposed to be actual notecards?  Should it have a picture?  Paragraphs?  Letter format?  WHAT???? After a bit of trial and error, I have finally settled on what seems to work for me.  (I have actually gotten some feedback from Donors Choose on some of the packages I sent back so I am thinking that this is the way I should go)  I thought I would share what I do, in case others are just as lost as I was in the beginning. First off, let me tell you that I have my entire class write the Thank You letters.  This way, I am sure to have at least 5 that are decent to send.  I also do not edit them.  I figure sending authentic writing is the way to go.  I know there are some people who take these letters through the writing process.  I am just not one of them.  I frankly do not have the time (I have been ...
My students, for whatever reason, are having the hardest time converting fractions to decimals and visa versa.  We have gone over the concept.  I have taught them the algorithms.  The kids have had plenty of hands on exposure to it.  However, they just aren't grasping the idea that 3/4 = 0.75 ALWAYS.  Even if it is paired with a whole number.  2 3/4 = 2.75, not 2.34. So I am at my wits end.  With The TEST looming, I just need them to know the basic conversions.  So I am reverting to plain old memorization.  Yes, you read that right.  Memorization.  So I won't get teacher of the year for it...eh.  It is my mission....the ARE going to know those conversions. My first plan of attack was to create a foldable of all the most common fraction/decimal/percents conversions they will encounter. This paper is folded into thirds.  I then had the students cut 5 slits on the top. When the first flap was opened, the students put all of the equivalent fractions on the top.  Then th...
Jen at The Teacher's Cauldron is having a Word Wall linky, and I thought I would take this opportunity to link up.  Now, some of you may have seen my word wall post when I first wrote it...but I am going to wager that most of you haven't.  It was one of my firsts...and I know there weren't as many of you here when I started ;) I don't use my Word Wall in the traditional manner.  I used to, really I did.  But I found that I just wasn't getting the most bang for my buck that way.  The kids weren't using it so it basically became a really big wall decoration.  As time went on though, I realized that I could use that same space to help my students learn their Greek and Latin Roots. One of the major standards in 5th grade is learning these roots.  I have gone to great lengths this year to get them to learn the roots and the word wall is the first step. Each Wednesday, the students create Root Word cards.  (You can read more specifically about it here .....I...
We have been spending a lot of time reviewing for The TEST lately.  One of the areas I have been focusing on with my class are text features.  These little areas in text are so easy to skip over when reading.  How many times have you seen a timeline or a diagram and just passed over it?  The only problem with all of that is that often times, vital comprehension information is contained within them.  So I have been spending a great deal of time in class helping the students to use these features when reading. We begin each week with a different text feature.  After diagramming each feature, we look for examples in our text books of them.  We have been creating on-going foldables with these examples.  Inside the flap, the students list the uses of the text feature. The students have a few of these by now.  4 text features can fit on one page.  To make this, take one piece of white paper and fold in half.  Then glue that to the top of a second sheet of paper.  The foldable is on top...
This week, we have moved on from human body systems to that of plants.  Vascular plants to be exact (don't I sound so scientific when I say it like that?)  The basic goal of our lessons is to show students that plants have a set of tubes inside of them, very similar to that of the human cardiovascular system, that is responsible for delivering the food, water, and gas necessary for life to each of the cells. First, we started with the celery experiment.  The kids weighed the celery, and made careful note of whether or not there were leaves present.  Then, the celery was placed in a vial with or without water.  After a day, the celery was weighed again, the amount of water left was recorded, and students drew conclusions about how the celery took in water. Basically, the celery in the water wilted a bit, took in red die, but did not weigh any more than it did to begin with, even though there was less water in the vial.  Since we had a control (a vial just with water) we measur...
Today was one of those days where we caught up on everything.  Do you ever have those days?  When you see that there are just so many open projects that they need to be dealt with?  We have been so busy learning and creating new responses to the learning, that I felt we needed a day to just catch up on all of the work. I thought I would share a little organizational tip I use with you. Now, this is not mind blowing.  In fact, my master teacher did a handwritten variation of this when I was student teaching 15 years ago.  When I have a bunch of work that has been turned in, I take a list of the students and just cross off who has turned what in.  Each pile of work gets a separate list.  Then, underneath the Flow Map I write on the board (see, I even use Thinking Maps for our independent work ;) ) I write the numbers of all the kids who still need to turn in their work.  This helps them to see who needs what and allows the kids to be a bit more organized in their own w...
We are in crunch time until our big TEST.   The next two weeks are basically review for the students as far as math goes.  Because I like to embed my test prep all year long, I really am not doing the "take out your test prep book and bubble in the answers."  They get that.  They know how to do it.  We have practiced all year so I am really not worried about them underlining and showing evidence. What I am worried about is them forgetting the actual skills they need.  There are just SO many skills that we teach in 5th grade, it becomes a big blur...even for me at times.  It would be easy to break out a workbook and just drill and kill them, but seriously, I am bored just thinking about it.  The best way to review that I have found with my students is playing a game.   These kids *love* games (I honestly think if I had them take the TEST as a game they would all ace it).  And I love anything that they are learning with.  So I created this Go Fish game to help us review fra...
What do you do when you have 5 minutes until the bell?   You can't just let the kids go home (though, sometimes it would be SO nice to do ;) ) and breaking out the books to start a new lesson is out of the question, so you need to have some little filler activities to do with them.  Here are a few things that I do to help fill the time, but still have *some* educational basis. 1.  Mental Math My kids LOVE this.  There is no paper or pencils allowed.  The only tools the kids have is their mind.  I basically give the kids a very long math problem, where they are doing multiple operations in succession.  For example, I will say, "5 plus 5, minus 8, times 2 equals...."   When I say equals, that is the students' cue to answer.  They may only raise their hand when I say equals.  The kid who raises their hand first gets to answer and then we start again.  Sometimes I make the problem really hard, sometimes really easy.  The idea is that they are using their brains an...
I know, super boring title right?  But it is quick and to the point, which is what I hope this post will be (fingers crossed...as you all know, I am not so good at that ;) ) My students just finished their Quarter 3 Math Assessment, so I thought we could bring all of that knowledge together for a new concept lesson.  I have written about concept lessons before ( fractions here and surface area here ). I love doing them, as they help to cement so much learning.  I usually do these types of lessons as an introduction to a concept, however this time, I used an actual real life task for the students that required them to use the knowledge they have about data and statistics. I gave them the class results from the Quarter Assessment.  Each question that was missed was tallied up, so that the students had a record of how many students missed each standard.  I also gave them the standard that went with each question.  The students, working in groups, then calculated the fraction, simplest...
Let me preface this by saying that my family was invited to see this movie (at the gorgeous El Capitan theater in Hollywood...which in and of itself is an experience), however all of the opinions and ideas are my own.  :)   One of my jobs as a teacher is to find many different ways to approach the curriculum.  Reading books is fine, but there is something to be said for experiencing the world first hand.   As I go through my day, I am always looking for the next "connection" that can be made to the standards I am to teach.  When I watched the movie Chimpanzee , which opens this Friday, April 20, my mind was going crazy with all of the curricular connections that were popping up!  Most notably, comprehension skills (probably because we are in crunch time to The TEST) This movie, which was filmed in the jungles of Africa, centers around a family of Chimpanzees.  Like any family, there is a hierarchy and order to which it functions.  At the heart of this movie is the ne...
It's the most wonderful time of the year!! (did you sing that as you read it?)  The American Revolution has begun in my classroom and I am SO excited.  I LOVE this unit.  I think I teach history all year long *just* so I can get to this unit.  There is just something about the story of these little patriots going up against big bad England that gets me every time (I know, I know...not that simple, but it is fun nonetheless) Anyway, I thought I would share with you a few of the things we have been doing in class over the past week or so, just in case you are working on this unit too. To begin, I had the students think about what they have learned about colonial times.  Since the Revolution takes place in the colonial era, I thought it was important to bring up some of that knowledge.  They created this foldable as a way to jog their memory and search back into their Social Studies book.  My kids did it with plain paper, but I created this "cheat sheet" for you .  Yo...