A Week in Review

December 17 - 21

 

Dear Families in Room 210,

 

We had a fabulous week of learning! I am so proud of the students and the focus they showed this week. We were busy and active and ending the week in our pajamas only seemed fitting (and cozy)!


Virtue Awards:
There are no new Virtue Award winners this week, but I am proud to say that EVERY student in our classroom has received a Virtues Award already this year!!!
 

 

Reading:

We finished our delightful read aloud with Mrs. Bethel's class, The Last Holiday Concert. The students enjoyed it (as did the teachers!). We learned about leadership and responsibility through the eyes of the main character, Hart Evans. And to quote Albus Dumbledore, we were reminded that “doing what is right, is not always easy.”  When we return from break, we will have the opportunity to switch gears and read a non-fiction biographical text about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!!  We’ll have 2 weeks prior to the holiday celebrating his birthday to take an in-depth look at his amazing life and journey.  Near the end of January, we’ll transition to a historical fiction text that supports our learning and focus of the revolutionary war. 

 

Writing:

Students finished the final drafts of the narrative stories this week. They worked hard to independently revise and edit their work. Most students chose to publish their final drafts on the computer. I was impressed with their hard work!

 

Social Studies:

The 90 second "commercials" that students designed to persuade the audience to move to their colony were performed! Our class is full of creative actors that worked diligently to advertise their colony with catch slogans and visuals that listed reasons for someone to settle in that place. The Tuesday after break, students will take their Chapter 7 test.

 

Math:

The fraction action is coming to an end. We finished the unit, focusing on probability and relating fractions to decimals in the last two lessons. We will spend the first week back from break, reviewing and practicing the main concepts from the lesson before we take our end-of-unit assessment.



Class Store:
I was so impressed with the students creativity on Thursday! We had our first class store and students sold and bought goods from their classmates. We even had time to shop in Mrs. Bethel's class store, too! We walked away with more knowledge on supply and demand, effective pricing, competitive business, and new ideas for our next store!

A Note from Mrs. Hatlestad
Thank you so much for all that you do every day to support your child and me. I cannot express the gratitude that I feel working here at Medina, with these exceptional students and amazing parents. This is a special place to work and live and I feel blessed to have a job that I am passionate about with kids who I hold dear to my heart. From my family to yours, Happy Holidays.

~Mrs. Hatlestad


Upcoming Events:

• December 22 - January 6 - Winter Break
• Thursday, January 10^th
• Wednesday, January 16^th:  Middle of Year STAR Testing – computer lab
• Thursday, January 17^th:  Heritage Project Part 3 (Essay about Parent)
• Monday, January 21^st:  No School in honor of MLK Day
• Thursday, January 24^th:  Heritage Project Part 3 (Essay about Grandparent)
• Thursday, January 24^th:  Poetry in Motion Assembly 8:30-9:30AM
• Saturday, February 9:   Medina Auction

 



A Field Trip to Chinook!

A Week in Review

December 10 - 14

 

 

Only ONE more week left until Winter Break! It's hard to believe that 2012 is coming to an end, the past 15 weeks have zoomed by! We had another full week of learning in Room 210. Here's what we've been up to:

 

Field Trip:

Our field trip to Chinook at Ringdall was a success! The 5th Graders were wonderful ambassadors for Medina Elementary and I was so proud of them! Equally impressive was the Chinook band, orchestra, and choir!! We're grateful to Chinook for inviting us to their concert.



Virtue Awards:
Angela C. for showing the virtues of CREATIVITY and COOPERATION! Angela is working diligently to complete a Social Studies project with her group. Her team really appreciates all of her hard work!

Audun K. for showing the virtues of FRIENDLINESS and PEACEFULNESS! Audun is always kind to everyone and gets along well with others. His gentle nature makes Room 210 a better place.

Vincent B. for showing the virtue of EXCELLENCE! Vincent has worked hard to ensure that he has 100% of his Literacy and Math homework completed and turned in on time! Way to go Vincent!

Reading:
We read Cougars by Patricia Corrigan in our Journeys curriculum. Our target skill was "main idea and details" and we worked to monitor and clarify as we read. In this nonfiction text, we discussed the author's purpose and focused on what the main idea was, as well as the details the author gave to support it.



Writing:
We started the week off by comparing narratives to memoirs. We brainstormed what makes narrative writing strong (i.e. vivid details, strong word choice, dialogue)  Students wrote rough drafts and begin revising and editing. Their final pieces should be done next week!

Math:
Students continued in their fraction unit this week. We learned some fraction key terms: "Least Common Multiple" and "Greatest Common Factor" and had many opportunities to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators.





Social Studies:
Our classroom has turned into the "Actor's Studio" this week as small groups of students continued working on their 'commericials' for their colony. The billboards are coming together beautifully as students are focused on their end objective which is to convince their classmates to 'move' to their colony.

Science:
The UW doctoral students were back in our classroom this week as they conducted student interviews. The student interviews were focused on the Landforms unit and students' overall feelings towards science. They also interviewed me while students were in Band/Orchestra; asking about what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum unit. I enjoyed talking with them and look forward to our continued partnership in our Mixtures and Solutions unit.

Reading Buddies:
We had our last Reading Buddies session of 2012! We met to finish the backgrounds of our "Snowmen All Year" poem. The 5th graders have been excellent models and teachers to their second grade buddies in regards to reading fluency and technology leadership.





Enjoy this last weekend before break! And as always GO SEAHAWKS!

~Mrs. Hatlestad

Upcoming Events:

December 22 - January 6 - Winter Break
February 9- Medina Auction

Counting It Down…

A Week in Review

 

Dear Families in Room 210,

We had another busy week, full of learning! It is hard to believe that there are only TWO weeks left before Winter Break!


Virtues Awards:

Isabelle E. for showing JOYFULNESS and FRIENDLINESS! Isabelle always has something nice to say and a smile on her face! She makes Room 210 a friendly place!

Linnea L. for showing DILIGENCE and EXCELLENCE! Linnea is prepared and ready to learn each day! Her commitment to her learning is impressive!

Sarah Z. for showing KINDNESS to her classmates every day! Thank you Sarah for remembering the “Golden Rule” and treating others as you’d like to be treated!

 

Report Cards:

Report cards were sent home with your students today!  I have met with each student to review their report card and explain their grades. If you have any questions, first ask your student, then feel free to send me an e-mail. Please read a message from the District regarding scoring (a copy of it is included in the report card envelope):

 

 

 

Reading:

We read Storm Warriors by Elisa Carbone in our Journeys curriculum. We used the target skill "drawing conclusions" to extrapolate evidence from the text that helped us understand the main character, Nathan. We used the evidence to make predictions about him. We also focused on using Greek and Latin roots in our Vocabulary Strategies lesson. Students worked to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words using the roots: tele, rupt, photo, and scrib.

 

 

Math:

There was more 'fraction action' this week! We worked to understand equivalent fractions and how to use a multiplier to "unsimplify" them (and use division to simplify them). The SMART Board was a great avenue for learning with this concept as actually taking the same size "wholes" and transposing one on top of the other to show how two-fourths and one-half are the SAME SIZE of the whole!

Science:

This week concludes our Landforms Unit of study for Science.  Students worked diligently to complete the content assessment that included questions such as:  “What word is given to the process that forms deltas?” and “Where does the soil material in a river delta come from?” My favorite question asked: “Explain the reasons for why you think stream tables with steeper slopes produce results different from stream tables without slopes?” 

Up Next:  Unit #2 – Mixtures and Solutions

 

 

Social Studies:

Unit #7 – Comparing the Colonies is full speed ahead this week!  Students have been researching, reading and learning all about distinguishing between the New England, Middle and Southern Colonies (we’re focusing on 6 of the 13 Colonies this unit; Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Georgia).  Students broke into small groups this week to begin creating a billboard advertisement to promote the favorable aspects of their colony.  Not only do they need to list key features of their chosen local, but convince the class to “buy” their advertisement billboard!  We’re continuing to take copious notes; utilizing Cornell Notes strategy (something widely used throughout high schools and colleges around the nation.  As we teachers returned from our visit from Chinook last week, we also noticed Cornell notes used by students across curricular areas; so we’ve added this as a goal area to utilize this strategy as much as possible in 5^th grade!  

 

                                                 Virtues:

Our Virtue Parents, Karyn and Gina led our class in a lesson on the Virtue of the Month, COMPASSION. Students viewed the news story of the NYPD officer who bought shoes for a homeless man in need. We talked about how the police officer showed compassion and reflected on how we've shown compassion in our own lives. Then, students watched a video on the Ronald McDonald House and learned how this organization provides housing for families who have children receiving treatment at Children's Hospital. The video made me reflect on just how fortunate I am to have two healthy toddlers at home. Students created holiday cards for the children and their families to bring them cheer. We are also accepting donations for pantry items for the House, please send non-perishable items to school with your student and help us support the Ronald McDonald House!

 

Here are the links to the videos:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7SHw7-t520

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4J20wVlLN0

 

No Weekly Reports this week because Report Cards were sent home today. 

Happy Weekend and GO SEAHAWKS! 

 

~ Mrs. Hatlestad 

 

 

Upcoming Events:

 

12/14 Field Trip to Chinook (at Ringdall) for the Band/Orchestra/Choir concert

12/22 - 1/6 Winter Break