This afternoon I sent your child home with a pretty lengthy at-home learning packet that covers Literacy and Social Studies work and activities for the next ten days. Google Classroom will serve as your child's virtual hub, and I explained that a lot of work can be submitted through Google Classroom. I'll be checking in throughout each day, posting new content, discussion questions, etc. The classes were also both told that they should feel free to post there if they have a question for me, OR if they have to ask something a bit more private students can always type a question in a Google Doc and share the Doc with me! Should someone lose their packet, I have attached a PDF of the "syllabus" (the packet without all of the extra "stuff") to this message. Click below to download the file. Should students need to access any other information or should you or your children have questions over the next few weeks, please don't hesitate to be in contact. I'll be active on Google Classroom, you can email me at [email protected], and you can also message me on Bloomz! Stay healthy and safe! Katelyn
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I can't believe that the month of January is already halfway done, but here we are! I just wanted to give a little update as to what we have been up to in Literacy and Social Studies as well as share where we are headed!
Social Studies We have been hard at work learning new vocabulary and building background related to the Age of European Exploration. Students have also put themselves into explorers' shoes by writing two letters: one from the perspective of a Portuguese explorer asking for his exploration to be funded, and another from the perspective of a sailor on an expedition, sharing the details of his daily life. In both of these instances students were also tasked with the job of incorporating into their letters the newly-learned details about the Age of Exploration. Today we took time to remember the reason we have off this coming Monday by examining some primary source documents: a photo of Dr. King during his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, and excerpts from his "I Have a Dream Speech". In the coming days/weeks students will: - Finish gathering and taking notes on background information about the Age of Exploration and take a quiz on this information to demonstrate their understanding of the main points they have already learned. - Begin an Age of Exploration project! More information to come... Literacy: We are finishing up our integrated Literacy/Social Studies unit focused on Light & Sound! We have been discussing the parts of the eye and how these parts come together to help us see. We have also read about and discuss various inventions related to light and sound (Argus II, i.Light, The Mosquito, the makeup made to emulate the Blue Morpho Butterfly), so feel free to ask your kids about some of these incredible inventions! At the end of this unit students will take a Cold-Read assessment, or a brief reading/writing assessment that requires students to read a never-before-seen text and answer questions about the text. Some questions are multiple choice, others are open response, and ALL require students to go back into the text to find their answers. In addition, students will be taking the Reading Inventory (RI) again next week. This computerized assessment helps to measure students' reading comprehension skills and will give us an updated Lexile score for each student. I will also be doing oral reading fluency assessments and may administer other literacy assessments based on student need. When all of this testing is done I will be sure to send home the results to share with you! In memory of Emmet Manheim, the Manheim family has opened a writing competition up to Stark's fifth grade students. All students are tasked with writing a piece that conveys the theme of "Powering Through", with the purpose of inspiring young people to power through difficult circumstances using perseverance and a positive attitude. Students are in various stages of the writing process: many are still planning, organizing and developing their ideas, some are drafting, and a few students are already in the revising phase. These pieces aren't due until the beginning of March, but it is my goal to have all pieces completed and ready to submit by the 2nd week of February. Other things we have been up to include: - watching several Ted Talks and discussing/writing responses to these new ideas; -learning new academic vocabulary (words such as: principle, interpret, theory, source, distribute, structure, establish, constitute, analyze, and authority); - continuing our work with our book clubs (all of which will be ending in the coming weeks); - making sure we are all back on track, focused, and continuing to build our independent, responsible work habits in preparation for middle school! Stay warm, and please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns! -Katelyn I can't believe we already find ourselves in November; this year is flying by! Our Nature's Classroom trip was a huge success, and I very much enjoyed getting to know the kids a bit more, watching them flourish in a new environment! Below are some updates as to what we have been up to in Literacy/SS class as well as what to expect in the weeks to come:
- We are finishing up our Realistic Fiction unit this week! Students will take a "cold read" assessment this Thursday-Friday. This is referred to as a "cold read" as it assesses students' abilities on a never-before-seen text. Additionally, the kids are finishing up their first full writing process, either in the last stages of revising or beginning to publish their Realistic Fiction stories. They will continue to work on these stories over the next few weeks, at which time we'll be able to share our writing and celebrate the students' hard work! - Our classes are going to begin the next Literacy Unit on November 18th. Light & Sound is a unit that combines Science-focused content with reading/writing informational texts. Students will do much of the Science with Mrs. Brown and will focus writing (comparing and contrasting, organized expository paragraphs) and reading (identifying the main idea in nonfiction texts, differentiating between main ideas and supporting details) with me! - We are in the final stages of our 1st Social Studies unit: The First Americans. Students are working in groups to develop an in-depth understanding of specific indigenous tribes, and will present their information to the class on Tuesday, November 26th! We will begin our next SS unit (European Exploration) when we return to school after Thanksgiving. - Over the past few months I have introduced a few new routines/activities that I'd like to share with you. One is the use of a mentor sentence. Each week we intensely focus on one sentence, labeling the parts of speech, sharing what we notice about the sentence's language and organization, making inferences, revising the sentence, and identifying aspects of the author's writing we'd like to emulate. I also use the mentor sentence and its content to teach new skills and concepts. On Fridays students take a quiz to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts learned throughout the week. Another new routine revolves around TED Talks! I place a lot of emphasis on encouraging students to be open to growing as thinkers, and this activity taps into that idea. Typically I'll show a short, kid-appropriate TED Talk, give students an opportunity to take notes as they watch and chat about what they saw, and then ask students to write a brief response of any kind (a deliberately-vague assignment). This might entail sharing what they now wonder about the speaker or the talk, making connections between the talk and their own lives/something else they've seen or learned, sharing their opinions about the talk, etc. We've only done this once so far, but students seemed excited to learn more about the world! Ask your child about the first TED Talk we watched! - We continue to work on building independence, time-management, and managing social pressures and interests vs. academic expectations. I'm also pushing students with regard to building reading and writing stamina. In addition, I always stress with my students the importance of being able to advocate for oneself, asking friends to stop talking, moving away from friends when unable to focus, etc. It would be helpful if you could echo this message at home as well. - If you have not yet signed and returned your child's 1st MP Progress Report, please do so ASAP as they were due on on November 1st. If you haven't yet signed the Progress Report because you never saw it, please let me know and I will make another copy for you! Thanks for taking time to read all of this VERY long update! Have a wonderful week! -Katelyn Tavolacci Good evening! I just wanted to share with you some info as to what we have been doing so far this year! In general, we are working to build independence in all areas: following daily routines, using classroom resources/strategies to get help (as opposed to always defaulting to asking me for help), following directions, time management, etc. These are crucial skills to have entering middle school, so I try to stress the importance of these skills ASAP during fifth grade. Here are some other things we are working on:
Literacy: We are in the midst of our realistic fiction unit. Students are reading realistic fiction books in small book clubs (ask your child what book he/she is reading and how they like it so far), and I am modeling skills with Pam Munoz Ryan's Because of Naomi Leon (a perennial favorite). We have discussed the elements of realistic narrative fiction, learned to infer character traits by observing characters' feelings, actions, thoughts, etc., discussed and identified the three elements of setting (place, time, environment), learned to identify the three points-of-view through which a story can be narrated (and the pros/cons of each), and discussed the structure of narrative stories using a graphic organizer called the "story mountain". The writing we have done mirrors the reading, with students having just finished planning their own realistic fiction story's main character, setting, and the events using the same graphic organizer. In addition, students have participated in other literacy-related activities and lessons. Students learned the IEEEC (intro, evidence/examples/explanation, conclusion) structure for writing paragraphs, sorted the words on the 1st Academic Word List into three categories ("word friends", "word acquaintances", and "word strangers - ask your child what these three descriptors mean!), and we have begun our routine work with mentor sentences this past week. During each full week we will focus intensely on one sentence from a well-known children's book, first sharing what we notice about the writing (parts of speech, punctuation, literary devices), then working to revise the sentence (a skill which helps students strengthen and experiment with their revision skills, which can then be put to use in their own writing), identify characteristics of the author's writing that they might try out in their own writing, and then taking a short quiz on the mentor sentence/work related to it. Literacy Assessment: In addition to all of the curriculum-based learning, I have been assessing students' reading skills. The classes took their Reading Inventory (RI) very early on, and I have been doing additional oral reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension assessments with them. Once testing is finalized I will be sure to send home a snapshot of all of their beginning-of-year scores so that you are able to see where your child is starting the school year according to various literacy assessments. Social Studies: So far we have learned a bit about the peoples who originally inhabited the country's Northwest and Southwest (and students took a quiz on this information), and will soon be learning about the tribes who lived in the Woodlands and Plains. This unit is using the acronym GRAPES (geography, religion, arts, politics, economy, social structure) to help students learn and organize new information. After these introduction lessons, the fifth graders will have a chance to work on a group project, honing in on specific tribes within a region of their group's choice. They will be able to present their information to the class in a manner of their choosing. This is also a great way to facilitate students' research and interpersonal skills! Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Please don't hesitate to reach out should you have any questions! Katelyn This is just a quick reminder that Open School Night is tomorrow night: Thursday, September 19th! There are two presentation sessions for you to attend: one begins at 6:00 and the other at 7:00. Mrs. Brown and I look forward to seeing you there!
Katelyn Tavolacci Dear Room 204&205 Families-
I just wanted to thank students and families for a successful first day of school! The first day is always a whirlwind, so I'm sure your children are heading home incredibly exhausted, and I look forward to things calming down a bit. We haven't quite gotten into any real literacy or SS work just yet, but students had a chance to get to know each other a bit (ask about the Index Card Challenge) and learn a lot of our routines today! We'll do more of that work tomorrow before things really heat up after our long weekend! -Mrs. Tavo Good afternoon!
This is just a reminder that Mrs. Brown and I will be hosting a "Meet the Teachers" hour on Wednesday, August 28th between 1pm and 2pm! Feel free to stop by, take a tour of our rooms and say hello to us before school officially starts! We hope to see you there! -Mrs. Tavo Dear Fifth Graders & Families-
I hope everyone is excited for the 2019-2020 school year (I am)! I am very much looking forward to getting to know all of you and getting back into the swing of things after taking some time off to be with my little one last Spring! If you're in my homeroom you will soon be getting your "welcome mail" from me (if you haven't already)! In that letter I challenge you to find a question to answer on our class website. Here are TWO questions for you to answer in the comments: What is your TOP moment from this summer? Why was this moment so amazing to you? What is the BEST book you read in the last year? Why did you enjoy this book? I look forward to reading your answers and to seeing you soon! -Mrs. Tavo |
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