news and views

WARNER FIFTH GRADE'S DAILY JOURNAL

Our first day!  We had a wonderful and exciting day!  What an awesome bunch of students!  Already, I can see that they will be great to work with!  This year is definitely going to be a super one!! As has been our tradition the last few years in fifth grade, we followed a watermelon theme for the first day. All of our subject activities related in some way to watermelons!!  We did watermelon math problems, of which some were quite challenging. Exploring on the wireless mobile lab, we learned that watermelons are not fruit, but are actually a vegetable!! Imagine that!!  For art, we made still life pictures of a slice of watermelon, and we made magnetic watermelon picture frames in which we placed First Day of School photos.  We also spent a good part of the day going over instructions and procedures and talking about all the 'perks' that go along with being the oldest in the elementary.  Of course, along with privilege comes responsibility.  Fifth graders need to be good role models to the younger students.  All this information was presented to the fifth graders in the form of a power point which seemed to work really well. The weather was gorgeous, and at recess, the students enjoyed catching up on all the news with their friends.  Best of all, they started the year off with PE on the very first day!! They thought that was pretty cool! All in all, it was a wonderful day, and I predict only good-No great!!- things in the days ahead!

     Despite the best of intentions, News and Views is off to a slow start.  Please accept my sincerest apologies.  We will do our best from here forward to keep you up-to-date on all of our activities.     

    Today, we had a great day!  All the students are working hard to learn and practice all the procedures and guidelines in place for them in the fifth grade classroom.  I am very proud of all their efforts!!  Rather than report on just today’s activities, I would like to give you an overall view of what a typical day is like for us and what we studying in each subject area.

     We start our day off with a ten minute work time from 8:20 to 8:30.  Following the Pledge and morning announcements, we jump right into Rocket Math, where we are fine tuning our multiplication skills.  We have found that we are all a little rusty after the summer break!  Next, we have Accelerated Math for 30 minutes.  Each student works to master objectives.  We have set a goal of four objectives per week that need to be mastered.

     After a short break, we dive into our textbook math where we are studying place value to the billions.  The students are doing an excellent job working with such large numbers!  Following Math, we have Reading.  We have just finished reading The Hundred Dresses, a wonderful and timeless story of friendships, acceptance of differences, and standing up for what we believe in.  On Tuesday, we will begin the novel, Dear Mr. Henshaw, which is about friendships and acceptance of things we cannot change and the strength that comes from that acceptance.  From 11:15 until 12:00, the students are at recess and lunch.

     English comes next.  Learning the different kinds of sentences and identifying  subjects and predicates have been our focus in English.  We have also begun to exchange messages with our Scotland pen pals! The students, on both sides of the Atlantic, filled out All About Me surveys.  Mrs. Parfect, then, did an outstanding job of matching the students up based on their interests.  We have both sent e-mail messages to Scotland and have received ones in return.  Technology is so awesome! Both sets of children have also received pictures of their special pen pals, and Mrs. P’s class has already written and posted snail mail letters to us.  The letters should arrive by the end of this week! We will then answer them in kind.  It is our plan to send two e-mails and one letter per month.  Mrs. P, and I have also been in the process of planning some exciting projects that both classes can participate in and exchange information.

     Science follows English.  We are studying life processes and the cell.  Be on the lookout for information about a special Edible Cell project! This project will be due on Tuesday, Sept. 12^th.  Thank you in advance for your help with it!

    Next, comes thirty minutes of ‘specials’ (music, PE, library, or guidance), followed by our Lit Circles where the students read novels in small groups.  Recess is at 2:00.  Coming in from recess, we check over planners, and I read aloud to the class.  Our last class of the day is Social Studies.  We start the year off by reviewing both the regions of the US and geographical terms.  We took on the 4^th graders in a game of Battleship where the students had to name the absolute location of the hidden ships by naming the coordinates of latitude and longitude.  It was so much fun!! Unfortunately, the 4^th graders sunk four of our ships compared to our sinking three of theirs.  Next time….!!!  The main emphasis of fifth grade Social Studies is the study of the founding and the growth of the United States of America.

     And THAT is what a typical day in the fifth grade looks like!!  Again, I would just like to say what a wonderful job the fifth graders are doing!  Parents, thank you so very much for all your support in getting the year off to a great start!!

    Today was a great day! First, we did our Rocket Math, and we really worked hard.  Rocket Math is when we practice our multiplication skills, and there are 40 problems on the sheet.  We have to get them all done in one minute.

     After that, we did ACM.  ACM helps us with different problems in math.  Once that was done, we had a 5 minute break.  Then, we started math.  Today, we did review with the teacher.  For reading, we read the book, Dear Mr. Henshaw.  So far, it has been really good.

     After that, we had recess and lunch.  We had spaghetti, green beans, pineapple, and garlic bread.  In English, we were working on simple subjects and predicates diagramming them.  It is whenever you divide a sentence like this example: He liked where he lived…………He / liked.

     In Spelling, we are on list 2.  In science, we are learning about plant and animal cells. Next week on Tuesday, we will show our edible plant cell models.  Today, in Social Studies, we had a pretest.  I hope everyone did their best.

    Today, we had music!  We sang songs about America. We read books in our Literature Circles; they are about baseball.  Then, we had another recess.                                        

     Well, I think I told you enough about our school day, so let’s talk about PTCO.  Tonight, they will meet, have a supper, and talk about what they are going to do for the school year.  Good bye for now!

                                  News and Views Reporter

                                              Courtney

Just a footnote to our day. We also received our first 'snail mail; letters from our pen pals in Scotland!!! We were all so excited!!! We will now begin our letters back to them, and we will e-mail them again next week!!!  What fun!!!
 

CLICK HERE TO GO TO EDIBLE PLANT CELLS PHOTO PAGE!!

      Today, we had a big day. At the beginning of school, everybody brought edible plant cells. We had 3rd and 4th grade come to our class and look at our cells. We all had GREAT cells! Everybody commented on the cells. Mr. Kay even gave us a test on where parts were located in the cell. All of the cells looked well put together. We had fun making them, and a lot of people said that we were awesome!
      For math, we got to listen to a rap song on decimals. It was really fun, because the class came up with moves to go along with the song. We went out for recess and played and we, then, came back in and started reading. THEN, the lights went out!!
     We were all so shocked because they didn’t come back on for two hours or more! We, then, had to read in the dark. We had our noon recess, but when we came in, the lights were still out, so we had to wash our hands in a pitch black bathroom! While we ate, still no electricity! Back in the classroom, we had to do our work with only a little light from the outside.
      In Social Studies, we were given baggies of paper clips and a dice. We had to come up with a game and make the rules for it. Then, we had to make a list of how we felt. A lot of us said we were confused. The activity was to help us to know how the men felt when they made the Constitution. Next, we learned actions to the words in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America. Then, we watched a Schoolhouse Rock video about the colonies and the Constitution.
      In Science, we learned how birds and reptiles are alike by watching a video on birds and filling out a video report. Then, it was time to go home!
                                     News and Views Reporter                       
         Sidney

     Today in class, everyone was happy. At the beginning of school, a lot of people who had forgotten to take home their science projects had to throw them out because they were smelling pretty badly. Everyone loved our science projects!
     Then, the 8:30 bell rang, and we said the pledge and listened to Mr. Kay saying the announcements. After that, we started Rocket Math. Most people are doing so well in improving their math. Accelerated Math came after Rocket Math. You have to get your objectives each week. We do four each week.
     Then, at 9:20, we took at break for five minutes. When the break is over, we start Math. We are working on decimal tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and ten thousandths. We did pages 20-21. Some of the kids finished it, so they probably used their time wisely and got it done.
     In fifth grade, there is one thing called “Couch Potatoes”. If your name is on the name holder, you get to sit on the couch to work on assignments. People work on spelling and other things and try to get their work done, so they won’t have any homework.
     Next, it was reading. People say reading is fun! Today, at reading, we read the last chapters of Dear Mr. Henshaw, so we had questions to do after that. Kids that finished early worked on other things like spelling and math. Reading goes up to recess.
     At recess, most kids played football or soccer. After recess, we lined up and walked in for lunch. For lunch, we had waffles, sausage, hash browns, milk, and oranges.
After lunch, we did Social Studies where we had to look up pictures on the laptops. We used the pictures to make posters about Constitution Day. Most people found pictures of James Madison and the Constitution of the United States of America and of soldiers from 1787 and from today. And that is what we did for Social Studies.
     For gym, Mr. Kay was teaching us, and we played soccer. We tried to kick goals. At l:30, we went back into the school where we had Lit Circles. Mrs. E. said that only one person from each group should go to get the books because it took too long and was too noisy if we all went.
     For last recess, we did the same things as for the last recess. Then, it was time for Science where we watched a video.
                                               So that is that for today! See you!!
                                                News and Views Reporter, Jerrick


 

Tuesday was a pretty normal day.  We started out with shop.  Then, we did Rocket Math and Accelerated Math.  We did spelling pages 38-9.  We ended the day with Bus Buddies and with the flag people bringing in the flag.  Good job to Bus Buddies! You are being very responsible!  You, too, flag people!!                                                 The end!     Lacey

This week is Homecoming Week.  Today is Wednesday, so it is 50's Day.  There are so many good outfits!! We all can not wait until the parade.  In school, we are making Flip Books for Pedro's Journal.  We watched a movie about fish and  everybody learned something new. All three Lunch Bunch groups are already done, so good job!! In gym, we played volleyball.  We had fun in gym!!  We also used the Wireless Lab to write to my dad, Chad, over in Iraq.

Sidney

    22 0REOS, WOW!!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE OREO PROJECT PAGE FOR 0UR RESULTS AND MORE PHOTOS!!

Today at school, we stacked Oreos and Brady got the highest with 22 Oreos in a row the first time! Then after we all did it, the teachers did it. During reading, we did some of our Flip Books. Then, we did two pages to get caught up. After that, we all went out to recess. In English, we wrote a story about the Oreos. We all got started on our stories about the Oreos, but then we had to get into our Lit Circles.
Nicole

Today the students spent some time working on Oreo activities. One of the activities the students did was stacking Oreo cookies to see how many Oreo cookies they could stack before they toppled over. Each student was given two opportunities to stack the cookies. It was interesting to observe the different strategies each of the students used. I also observed how on the second try the students would try a different strategy to attempt to make a bigger stack than the first time. On the second try most of the students met or exceeded the total number of cookies that they stacked the first time. The activity was made more difficult in that the students were required to wear a plastic glove in order to be able to eat the cookies after the project was complete. Some of the towers started leaning so the students would start putting the cookies on in a way to try to balance the tower. Several students took off their 60’s costume because they got in the way. They also had to compensate for the gloves they wore. The fingers of the gloves were longer than their fingers so they had to find a way to keep the gloves from going under the cookie and getting caught in the stack which in turn sometimes caused the stack to tumble. The students took this activity seriously. It was fun to watch the intense expressions of the students as they were deep in thought as they did this activity. Ask the fifth graders about this project and see what they have to say!
 
 Mrs. Vaughn

WARNER HOMECOMING 2006

Miranda

von Trapp Singers

Today's Math was very fun because we only had eight problems.  Tomorrow, we are getting new Bus Buddies.  They are Kindergartners that we help get to the bus.

      We started out in Rocket Math.  Everyone is working towards passing the first level of multiplication.  We had two students that passed the first level.  Now, we have at least ten or eleven that have passed the first level!

            In ACM, we need to be at  26 objectives by Monday ACM time.  Some kids are way ahead of their goal!  In Math, we had 37 problems.  We were learning how to add and subtract decimals, and had an hour to work on that.

            In science, we watched a movie about reptiles.  Some parts were really cool, all though, some parts were disgusting!!  There was one part where a snake was sneaking up on a pig.  The, all of a sudden, the snake grabs the pig and squeezes the pig to death.  Pretty much everyone jumped when that happened!

            In Social Studies, we read in our Social Studies books about the people that lived before us.  We, also, did a worksheet on the early people of North America.  In English, we did our writing test.  That was also for reading. 

            And that was what our day was like today!

                                  News and Views reporter, Carly

For reading, we read to page 43 in our Pedro’s Journal book.  Then, we had a worksheet, number four, to do.  We have this thing called a flip book, also, where we draw a picture and write a summary from each part we read. In English, we wrote a letter to Aleisha D., who graduated from Warner last year, because she is in the Army.  She was Andrew’s sisters’ babysitter and he got her address for us.

            For spelling, we had to review for a test.  It is a review unit this week, so there are a lot of words to study! In Math, we did pages 50 to 52!  For science, we had a video and notes.  Our last video was Reptiles, and we did a report for school. For social studies, we read to page 59.  We had questions on page 59, and we did practice book page 15.

                                     Emily

News And Views
  We started out the day with Rocket Math. Everyone is doing very well in mastering their multiplication facts. After Rocket Math we had Accelerated Math. We had to be at twenty-six objectives this week.
 Then, Mr. Gunn came in and played Family Feud with us. The Florida Pink Panthers won the championship. We all had a great time. After that we had math. We are all doing very well on adding and subtracting decimals.
  Spelling came next. We had a review unit this week over our first five units. We had FIFTY words! Then it’s reading. We are reading Pedro’s Journal. We are almost done with the book. It’s about the sail over to America by Christopher Columbus. We ha d a work sheet over the pages we read today. Then we had recess and lunch.
  After lunch we watched a science video about humans. We had to do a video report with it, too. Then we had P.E.  We had our last day of volleyball. Next week, we start running.
  We came back and had lit. circles. Everyone is trying to get through their books by the end of the month. Then, there is recess.
 Last, we had social studies. We are learning about different civilizations. We had a work sheet on this.
  We all had a lot to cram into one day!
                 News and views reporter,

                                 Erin

Parker

For the month of October, we have three kids' birthdays coming up: Courtney, Tyler, and Lacey.  Their birthdays are right in a row! We get more treats! THAT WILL BE NICE!!  Well, that's it for today.  See you!

Jerrick

    We started out with Rocket Math, as always.  Congratulations to these people that have passed the first level of multiplication: Jese, Ellen, Lacey, Erin, Carly, Taylor, Sidney, Miranda, Andrew, Courtney, Jerrick, Joey, Evan, Brady, and Chris!!  Then, we went to ACM.  There aren't that many people behind in their goals.  Then for Math, we worked on doing Algebra.  We did our first page of it today.  For reading, we found examples of figurative language in our Pedro's Journal book, and had a quiz over the prefix 'counter'.  In science, we did the study guide pages from our packet.

     We made Halloween cards for our pen pals from Scotland.  There were many, many wonderful cards!!  For social studies, we had to draw certain houses of early Native Americans.  Then we had to write about one of the houses.  After recess, we had Pop Your Top.  Students who remembered their money got to get juice, Gatorade, or bottled water to drink.  The class had earned popcorn, so we had popcorn, too, while we read for our Book-it goals.

                           Have a great weekend, everyone!

                                                               Carly

                 The smile says it all!!  Her dad is HOME!!!  He arrived home safe and sound from Iraq last Friday.

     Today is October, the 16th. Hi, this is Courtney, your News and Views writer for today. I am going to tell you about our day.
      In reading, we read our book, Pedro’s Journal. Tomorrow, we will be done with that book. We also did our flip books that we are using to summarize the story. They look really good! Then, we did our prefix ‘super’ list. We will have a test over those words on Friday.
     In English, we wrote a letter to Ryan Criddle. He wants to work on a submarine for the Navy. I guess he likes water.
     When we did spelling, we had pages 54-5. We are doing words that sound like ur and ir. In science, we corrected our study guides. Almost everyone got theirs alright. Then, in social studies, we had to read pages 70-5. We are studying about the early American natives.
     Today was my birthday! I turned eleven. It was great!!
                                                         Courtney

PHOTO BY JOHN DAVIS OF THE ABERDEEN AMERICAN NEWS
	WELCOME HOME!!
	THANK YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FOR ALL THE SACRIFICES MADE ON OUR BEHALF!!

     We started out with Rocket Math. Then, we went right into Accelerated Math. In our regular math text, we are working on Alegebra!
     In Reading, we finished our book called Pedro’s Journal. I thought it was really good! We have a science test coming up tomorrow. Today, we are reviewing for our test.
     In Spelling, we are in Unit 8. We also have several people who have made Spelling Wizards! You make Spelling Wizard when you have gotten eight Wizard points on your spelling tests. You get Wizard point by getting A’s on your tests. After you have sixteen Wizard points, you get a pass for a free unit. You still have to take the test over that unit, but you do not have to do the work in the spelling book!
                                                                  Carly

     Today, we started out fine! We filled out our planners and then, rolled for Homeworkopoly. The bell rang, and we said the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Kay said the announcements.
     Helpers checked planners, and then, we did Rocket Math. After that, we did ACM. We will have a fire drill tomorrow sometime. We finished ACM and Mrs. Schwan came down and talked to us about band.
     Then, we did Showdown with algebra problems for math. It was fun! After that, we played a game in Reading where we had to pretend we were sailing with Columbus and we had to get our ship across the Atlantic and back again by drawing strips and then figuring out if what was on them was a true statement or a false one. We did this by finding the paragraphs in Pedro’s Journal that would prove what they were. Next, we had a study time for our science test. Someone had won us a study time in Homeworkopoly!
     We had English next, and then, recess. Lunch was followed by PE. Then, we worked on our Say Boo to Drugs posters for Mr. Gunn’s contest. Halloween is coming!! After that, we had third recess. Then, we had other things to do.
     Wearing the birthday hat, today, is Lacey!! Me! Today is my birthday!! Soon, it was time to go home! What a busy day!!!!
                                                               Reporter: Lacey

      Today is Thursday. Today, we started out with working on our weaving projects for social studies. Then came Rocket Math and ACM, like a regular day.
     Our high school football team is going to play Wolsey/Wessington tonight at Wolsey. We have made it to the playoffs!! Tomorrow, we get out at 1:30 because of a teacher in-service. Mrs. E. is gone today because her mom is sick, so we have Mrs. Vaughn as our teacher.
     Today for lunch, we had beef stir fry, rice, dinner rolls, and peaches. We had music today. Did I mention that we will play Doland/Conde in volleyball on Monday and Castlewood in the football playoffs on Tuesday?
     We had our science test today, and we also made conference folders. Also, we wrote letters.
                                                                          Evan

      Hey! How are you? I’m fine! My name is Jerrick, and I am doing News and Views for Friday, October 20th. I am writing about what we did today.
     At 10:00 we ran the mile for gym and did other fun stuff. We played basketball toward the end of gym. We played DribbleWar. Everybody thought it was fun! I came throught and won!Mr. Kay got out! For lunch, we had subs, fresh veggies, apricots, tator tots, and milk.
      Mrs. E. was gone again today because her mom is sick. Mrs. Vaughn taught us. We got out at 1:30 because of a teacher in-service. Well, I’ve got to go! See you!
                                                            Sincerely,
                                                                         Jerrick

OUR WEAVING PROJECT

     We had weaving and planners for the morning. Pledge of Allegiance was next. We got to work with Rocket Math and ACM. Because it is a new nine weeks, we started over with our goals. After that, we had math. It was pretty easy.
     Reading was our next subject. After we got done reading, we were able to work on our weaving projects. Second recess and lunch were very good.
     For English, we sang the Preposition Song. It is a list of prepositions that you sing to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic. It helps us memorize the prepositions, so we can find them in our sentences. We also had a little assignment.
     Then, it was off to library, or should I say the Book Fair?! It had a lot of good books. Sidney won the poster and Kari won money to spend at the fair!! After that, we went to the Music Room. We learned a lot of new songs. For our Christmas concert, we are doing a Christmas Around the World theme. Our class will do Scotland, of course!! We are learning a Scottish Christmas song and the Scottish song by Robert Burns called Auld Lang Syne.
     We came back and had Lit Circles. Recess was next. When we came in, we had a little more time to work on English. A lot of people got it done. Science was to reread the part we had listened to on Friday. We, also, had a worksheet to work on that went with what we had read.
     We had to quickly check planners, bus buddies left, and it was the end of the day!!
                                                   Miranda

     Hey! How are you? I’m doing fine! My name is Jerrick, and I am going to write about today. We had gym today because Mrs. Damaska needed to be gone to take the All-State singers out to Rapid City for the concert. So, we had traded and had music on Wednesday and gym on Thursday. Today, we are getting out at 1:30 because we have conferences. The teachers stay and meet with parents until 8:30 tonight. We get to go home!
     Well, that’s it for today, so see you!
                                                     Sincerely,
                                                          Jerrick
P.S. Have a good day!! See you!!
 

     Finally, it is Halloween! What we have all been waiting for!! It started off as a normal day. First, we did the Pledge, and then, we got to work on Rocket Math, spelling, and ACM. Next, we went to math, more Algebra, but we’re used to it. For reading, we are to read pages 47-66 of The Kid Who Ran for President. For English, we split into groups to play a game where we had to find simple subjects and simple predicates. We didn’t get to science today. More learning about native tribes in Social Studies, and then, at 2:30, the real fun began!
     The first game we played at the Halloween Party was called Gourds which is a game where you bowl with guards instead of bowling balls. The next game we played was Charades, and we acted out monsters. Then, just like that, school was over!      Thank you to our room mothers for a fun party and great snack of caramel apples and punch! Can’t wait until tonight when we get to dress up and go trick-or-treating!
                                                                            Brady