Hands On!

The students seem to have survived their first substitute day quite intact. He wrote a great note about them - of course - so I’m rewarding them with a week without spelling! (Of course, that relieves me of the work of putting a list together on Monday morning, but let’s not focus on that….)

We had a pretty ordinary Monday. We went to the library.

A bit later, the fifth graders reviewed the results of their kosher salt and epsom salt solutions investigation. They then decided they needed to look at the crystals left after evaporation to learn more about the difference between these two kinds of salts. So they put some of the solutions in evaporating dishes.

In the afternoon, we began working on the Hands-on-Equations program to help the students learn algebra. This is a fun way to do it. We will be working with these materials over the next few days, so you will be reading more about it.

Homework:  (1) Finish the final draft of the fairy tale. Students had about 50 minutes to edit their rough drafts and start the final drafts in class, but some did not make as much progress as others. The final draft needs to not only tell the story accurately, but also needs to have good description, dialogue, and correct paragraphing. (2) Do the storyboard to go along with the fairy tale. It should be in four sections for exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action. (3)  Do the Two Times One practice sheet. (4) Fifth grade Science:  Finish reading pages 18 and 19. Define all the words in bold on pages 16-19. Copy the questions on pages 19 and answer in complete sentences. (5) Fourth grade history:  If necessary, finish the social studies review questions for the upcoming test.