November+Weekly+Wiki

November 26-30, 2012

This week was stupendous!

This week in Math, we took the division pre-test for our new chapter. The top grade was a 52%, so we didn’t do too good, but it was only a pre-test. We still do timed tests, and about 5 or 6 of us get all 50 in less than 50 seconds! Wow, that’s fast. We worked on division patterns with multiples of 10 again, and made arrays to figure out basic division problems. We also learned to divide a 3 digit number by a 1 digit number. Soon, well actually after Christmas Break, we will be getting to the hard stuff. The highest we will do is 4 digits divided by 2 digits!

This week in Language Arts, we worked really hard on supporting details and theme. That is because we had an Assessment on Theme! All of us are going on Study Island on our laptops and are doing reading to practice and get better too! We have been doing dittos for spelling and we are getting into bigger words also. We are reading a book called __My Teacher is an Alien__. We are listening to it together on a tape. It is a science fiction book about a girl who finds out that her teacher is an alien and she and a boy named Peter are trying to get evidence that the teacher is an alien because he wants to take five students into space with him! It is a very good book and we are almost finished with it!

This week in Science we watched a video with Bill Nye. He told us about the seasons. Do you know that if the Earth was straight up and down instead of tilted, we would only have one season? After watching the video, we typed a paragraph about seasons. The paragraphs were great! We also drew diagrams on our laptop to go with our paragraphs. Another thing we did was learn about the moon. Did you know the moon gets its light from the sun? We also learned about the moon’s phases. The phases are the new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, and waning crescent. After that it starts all over again. That’s what we did in Science.

This week was exciting because we got a new student! Her name is Haven, and she came all the way from Georgia! Haven is very nice and she likes our class a lot. Also, this week we got Monday off. I think a majority of our classmates would agree that Monday was a day to kick back and relax. “Ahhh.” Two more things I would like to add is that we started a new trimester and we got our report cards this week.

This week couldn’t have gotten any better.

By Vivian, Melisa, Joe, and Ashlyn

November 12-15, 2012

This week was Pawtastic!

In Language Arts, we did Main Idea papers where we read a paragraph and then answered questions about the short story. We also did our free write. We got to write about anything we wanted as long as it wasn’t inappropriate. Then we started talking about Science Fiction. Science Fiction is made up things like aliens. It mostly takes place in the future, but some takes place now or in the past. We started a book on Tuesday called __My Teacher is an Alien__. It’s about a sixth grade class who feel they have the nicest and best teacher of all. But when their teacher, Mrs. Schwartz, quits her job, the class is left with a mysterious new teacher. One of the students named Susan sees their new teacher, Mr. Smith, peeling his face off revealing his true alien face. Susan hears Mr. Smith’s plan on what he is going to do to the class. Can Susan save her class? Hopefully we find out next week. We also did a lot of work in Study Island this week.

This week in Math we learned to multiply decimals by decimals. We did that four days of the week, and each day it got harder. An example of one we might have practiced the first day would be .6 x .4 = .24. To get the decimal where it has to go, we see how many places are after both decimals. Next, we did a multiplication review sheet because we have our test on Tuesday. Also, we continued on our timed test. Almost half of us are getting all fifty! Plus, about five people get fifty in under a minute. The people who haven’t gotten all fifty are working hard, and will get there soon.

This week in Science, we were talking about planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, and comets. Planets are what make up the solar system and the dwarf planets like Pluto are too small to be an actual planet. Asteroids are rocky pieces, like mini planets, traveling in between Mars and Jupiter. In between Mars and Jupiter there is a place called the Asteroid Belt. It is where all the asteroids flow. Then there are comets. Comets are a clump of frozen gas, dust, and rock pieces that orbit the sun. When they get close to the sun, they start to go fast and their tail swings out. If you can’t remember which planet comes first or after, there is a saying that goes like this: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nuts.

This week was special because Joe turned 11 on Sunday and he brought cookies in on Monday. He brought in chocolate chip cookies. They were phenomenal. Also on Monday, Mrs. Upp came in. She is our counselor for our school. She taught us good things to do when talking to somebody. She taught us to have open posture and make eye contact. She also taught us to listen and give the person speaking our undivided attention instead of wandering off in LaLa Land. The last special thing we did this week was the fire drill. We were missing somebody, but he was with Mrs. Holms.

This week was the coolest week of 5th grade.

By Ashleigh, Brooke, Melisa, and Sean

November 5-9, 2012

This week was paw-some!

This week in Language Arts, we had a pronouns test. We had to make sure the sentences were correct. Here is an example: Maddy and she sister went to the football game. It should be Maddy and her sister went to the football game. We also went on Study Island. Study Island is a website we go on on our laptops in class to practice different things like reading and math. Our challenge from Mrs. Tomlin was that we get a hundred percent on pronouns on Study Island to get ready for our test. Almost all of us got 100%. We also did papers called main idea. On main idea, we would read a paragraph. Then we would answer two questions. The first question was, “What was the main idea of this paragraph?” The next question was, “What was a supporting detail?” There were usually four paragraphs.

This week in Math we started multiplying 3 digits by 2 digits. It’s the same thing as multiplying 2 digits by 2 digits, but with one more step. We also continued doing timed tests. Believe it or not, but some people are getting 50 problems in under 40 seconds! What we’re doing for morning work is multiplying 2 digits by 2 digits. Mrs. Tomlin wants to keep doing it so we don’t forget how to do it. Another new thing we did was multiplying using decimal patterns. It’s where you multiply decimals by the multiples of ten. For example, if you had .43 x 100, the answer would be 43 because you move the decimal over by how many zeros you multiply by. The last thing we learned this week was multiplying decimals by whole numbers. This is what it is: If you had 11.43 x 5 and you multiplied it correctly you would get 5,715. But we’re not done yet. You put the decimal with the same amount of numbers behind it as there are in the problem. So the answer would be 57.15. That’s what we did in Math.

This week in Social Studies, we started an Indian poster. The first day we started, all of us got on our laptops and chose the pictures we were going to use. Also, we wrote short sentences about the pictures we had chosen. On the second day, we attached the pictures on a poster website and typed out our short sentences. Most of us finished on the second day, but the people who haven’t are going to finish today (Friday). Make sure you check out our individual wiki pages for both our Winter Counts and our Indian posters. Lastly, we did a worksheet on our vocabulary for Chapter 2 and 3. This week in Social Studies was spectacular!

This week we had an extra half an hour of gym on Wednesday. We had it because our class worked together and made it to 100 points for our goal again. We all have to work together and make it to 100 by walking quietly in the hall—that’s one point. We get another point for crumb check at lunchtime. That means we have to get all of the crumbs off of the table before Mrs. Tomlin comes around to wipe the tables off. Our last way to get points is to get a teacher compliment. That earns us 2 points.

Even though we are sad that the week is over, it was still fantastic.

By Ashleigh, Joe, Brooke, and Morgan