Sadly, it seems increasingly likely that our school closure will mean that we will not have the chance to build a fifth grade play this year.
I will be posting lessons on Google Classroom in each subject area. There will be online and offline suggestions for each subject. I encourage you all to visit the school website, which will have many resources for families as well as links to the pages created by Art, music, Physical Education, Library and Technology teachers.
My most recent email for families follows…
Dear Fifth Grade Families,
Next week we will be moving to more formal remote learning. The school webpage will have lots of useful links and will connect you with specialist teachers and their ideas and resources. My class blog will direct you to Google Classroom, where I will have most of the material I will present. In this email I am going to try to break things down by subject and give both on-line and off-line options for students. The expectation is that we will move to a half day of school work for each student (3 to 3.5 hours). The times in parentheses are recommendations for each subject M-F. My goal is that students feel connected to one another, to teachers, and to the learning they are doing. I hope they feel like they have achieved something and are proud to share it. When and if they are ready, I will share what they have done with their peers.
I hope you are all doing well. It was good to talk with (almost) all of you in the past couple of days!
Yours truly,
Bill Stewart
Reading (40-60 minutes):
Off-line: Read an independent book (30 minutes daily). Talk about it with someone at home or remotely.
On-line: Record your thoughts about the book you are reading on the shared student reading page.
-Do Lexia (20 minutes)
-Read a book on Epic! (could be part of 30 minutes of reading)
Read the NEWSELA article about cats. Take the quiz and respond to the writing prompt. Highlight unfamiliar words in red.
Writing (20-30 minutes daily):
On-line: There are 8 lessons in the
writing prompts site. So far 6 students have submitted pieces to me for revision and edits. One has published. There are lots of good ideas here.
-work on the class play idea. (Google Classroom)
-write a narrative using the story starters in Google Classroom
Off-line: write a fiction story. Prompt: tell a creation myth about the endangered species that you wrote about and one of their interesting features or behaviors.
Math (30-40 minutes daily):
Off-line: Play Spend and Save with someone. I am attaching the directions. You will need playing cards (A-9, Ace= 1, no face cards unless you want Queens to represent zeroes) and coins. Scrap paper helps. You start with $100. Heads you spend, tails you save. Three cards make the amount. You choose the order of the digits.
Review basic facts with cards (2-people): try addition and multiplication, first to correctly say the sum or product gets the cards. (adults and older siblings can slow themselves by having to write the solution or something similar)
Online: Xtra Math, Symphony Math, Prodigy Math and/or Khan Academy
Science (30 minutes):
Off-line: take a walk and see what types of animal and plant life you can find. This is an exciting time of year for life sciences. Ponds are filled with eggs and amphibians calling out for mates. Birds are migrating and nesting. Plants are blooming (what are the first buds producing? Flowers or leaves?) Many animals have come out of hibernation. What signs can you see? I saw moose and deer antlers that were just shed and lots of tracks. Keep your eyes peeled! Share your observations with whoever you are with. Add to the signs of spring page.
On-line: signs of spring page, plant observation, Mystery Science videos and experiments, plus:
National Geographic has new streaming video feeds at 2:00 every weekday! Check them out
here.
Social Studies (20-30 minutes):
Off-line: What can you find out about current events? The school closures and changes we are making in terms of physical distancing are unprecedented in the memory of almost everyone in this country. What are people saying and doing? How have the changes affected you in positive ways? What has been the most challenging for you and your family? Keep a journal or let me know what is happening through email or Google Docs (share with me).
On-line: There are links in Google Classroom to world geography sites. We will be taking a deeper dive into World Geography in the coming weeks.
-Scholastic has made all of their pages available to students. We are in
Week 2 of their offerings on-line
Choose your Own: Off-line or On-line (20-30 minutes):
Send me what you’ve been working on at home and I will try and share it with the rest of the fifth grade class. I have really enjoyed seeing your projects and would like to invite you to give one another positive feedback. There is a document for feedback.
This is an opportunity to learn whatever you want and share it with the class. You could include a video of yourself learning to count in another language, how to juggle pins, learning to write in calligraphy, or training your pet to do a trick. The options are limitless!
The links are the first item in Google Classroom at the top of the Classwork page.