Global Horizons: Fifth Grade- Foxworth & Bosch

The last day to turn in the permission slips and the $2 for the field trip to see the LHS Drama students perform Aesop’s Fables on Thursday, March 22nd is tomorrow 3/16/07.

Mr. B.

I know what some of you are probably thinking, “Where has Mr. Bosch been on this blog since September?”

Well, it has been to put it kindly a crazy year this year and unfortunately keeping up with this blog has fallen low on my list of priorities until now. I am so inspired by my partner Mrs. Foxworth and the great job that she has done with this blog that I am moving it up on my list of priorities.

Today in math the students who did not do so well on Tuesday’s math test on GCF and LCM had an opportunity to take a retest. For the students that were not taking the retest they worked on some practice problems relating decimals to fractions.

In Block 1 we continued to discuss “cells” and the major parts that all cells have. The students filled in their note page as we discussed this in class. At the end of the block time we quickly toured the “Cells Alive!” website. My Block 2 group had Spanish today so we will finish our discussion on cells tomorrow.

Tonight, the only homework the students have for me is to prepare for the Morning Work quiz (Math 4 Today #28).

Mr. B.

We continued our study of prepositions today as we went over our homework and then watched a BrainPop video about prepositional phrases. Next we read Benjamin McFadden and the Robot Babysitter by Timothy Bush. This science fiction book was a nice change of pace for us because we’ve been reading a lot of biography lately. One of the themes of this book is “What you think you want may not always be in your best interest.” Then students continued writing their field trip personal narratives and worked on their research Open Mind projects. We hope to finish these up this week.

Students received new spelling words today.  Then they began a new writing activity.  Following the directions posted on our class activity blog, students began using Word to write personal narratives describing our field trip.  I was impressed with the enthusiasm with which students were writing!  Students who prefer doing other things besides writing were writing with great detail.  Not one student asked me how long their story had to be!  After editing these later this week, we will post them on our individual student blogs.

What a great day we had in Charleston on Friday!  We learned a lot about marine habitats at the South Carolina Aquarium and enjoyed seeing the turtles, alligators, fish, and other sea creatures.  Although it was a little cool and drizzly during our picnic, the students enjoyed a long period of recreation afterwards.  The 3-D movie Sharks at the IMAX theater was a big hit!  It seemed like the sharks and jellyfish were swimming right at us.  We were very pleased with how well our students displayed the Roadrunner Responsibilities during our field study.  Everyone was very cooperative which made for a pleasant, educational day for us all. 

After examining our new vocabulary words this morning, we continued to read Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee. We finally finished this wonderful book of mini-biographies today. Students completed a written response after we completed the book. Each student chose one woman to write about, describing her accomplishments and the value of the accomplishments. Students also enjoyed self-selected reading time as well. Both classes received a new student today.

Mrs. Foxworth’s students have a social studies test tomorrow on “Expanding Overseas.” Check out the Quia Practice activity as a tool for review.

Life at school is never dull, but today was a little more unusual than most days.  Upon arriving at school this morning, I learned that some of our classrooms didn’t have light.  Of course our classrooms were some of those!  We had emergency lighting in the halls, but our 5th grade Global Horizons classes don’t even have any windows.  Mr. Bosch took his homeroom to the media center.  My homeroom had morning meeting in the hall behind our classroom.  Mrs. Hutchison offered her Eagles room to us since her 4th grade students were gone on a field trip.  After homeroom, Mr. Bosch took my students to her room for math, and I went to the media center for Block 1 with his students.  This change in venue actually worked to our advantage.  I read aloud 5 more mini-biographies from Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee, and we discussed the accomplishments of these great women.  Then students continued using encyclopedias and biographies to gather more notes as they researched.  By 9:40 we received word that power was back on in our classroom, so we were able to go back to class to take our online vocabulary quiz.  Block 2 continued researching with online tools.  Lights and elecrticitu are valuable tools. 

In spite of having to come in early from recess due to rain, we had a good day.  After taking the spelling test, we reviewed the correct way to write bibliography entries for books and encyclopedias.  Then we went to the media center to continue our research.  YES, even though we are a Global Horizons technology class, I still expect my students to know how to use books to conduct research!!! I was very impressed with how focused most students stayed while we were there.  Some students even found a biography about the person they are exploring.  After students took notes, they wrote down a bibliography entry for each source used today.  The Word a Day test will be tomorrow. 
Mrs. Foxworth’s students finished checking notes today on the unit, “Expanding Overseas.”

It was good to be back after missing 2 days to attend Cognitive Coaching training.  Cognitive Coaching is an interesting concept that teaches thinking strategies and problem-solving skills. 
Our time together flew by this morning since it was an early release day for collaborative planning.  We spent some time reviewing over our spelling assignments. The spelling test will be tomorrow as usual.  Students also created an Open Mind word web for the word hermit.  The Word of the Day quiz on last week’s words will be Friday.  Students continue to research and take notes.  They are getting good practice using DISCUS and using Diigo, our social bookmarking tool. 
Folders went home today.  The blue permission form for the field trip to LHS to see a play is due tomorrow.   

Today we continued reading Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee.  This wonderful book contains 26 one-page biographies of women who have made a positive difference in the world.  Each biography contains a quote from that woman.  Jane Goodall was one of the women we read about today, and her quote was, We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place – or not to bother.   One of the key branches of the research project is to identify the important accomplishments of each of the famous people being studied.  Reading these short biographies is helping us identify main ideas and important details.  We also continued working with possessive singular and plural nouns.

Foxworth’s students will have a social studies test tomorrow on our discrimination unit.  Here are links to Quia study activities: Unequal Opportunities and Women’s Rights.