Our first week of fifth grade!

It's been a busy, exciting first week back. We shared the things we were excited for- Echo Hill, sitting on the wall at church, and bake sale stands and the things we were nervous about- math, tests, and accolyting during our morning meeting time. Every day we start with a class circle to say good morning to each other and get ourselves centered for the day.

We started off the year with great team building activities like "Saving Fred."

Saving Fred

Poor Fred (a gummy worm) was sailing along in his boat (a cup) when a storm blew up and flipped over his boat! Luckily he was able to wiggle his way onto the top of the upside down boat, but unfortunately, his life jacket (a gummy lifesaver) was stuck under the boat! Students had to get Fred back into his life jacket and into his boat with only the use of one paper clip per person. They were not able to touch the boat, worm, or life jacket with their hands. All teams were successful in completing the task, although two teams had to rescue "Ghost Fred" as he perished a few times by falling into the water.

 

 

 

 

Math

We've jumped right into math! This year, we want to create mathematicians that are able to manipulate numbers fluently and use multiple strategies efficiently. We've set up our problem solving journals that we will be using all year. Starting with a very simple problem, we are able to notice all the different strategies that we already have in our head. The first problem we solved was: Mark bought four dozen eggs. How many eggs did he buy in all? Here are all the strategies and algorithms we were able to use to solve this simple problem.

We also worked on our Back to School Bob. Students have to solve different math problems to identify what shape his head is, body is, and what his job is. Students then have to incorporate different geometric shapes into the creation of their Bob. 

 

Math games require us to use logic and skill to win. We love playing math games!

 

 

Social Studies

In fifth grade we design a classroom flag and name for our classroom. We talked about different flags around the world and what the symbols and colors on the flag mean. Students then broke into pairs to design a flag that they think will represent our classroom. We will soon take a vote on which flag will represent our class for the year.