October 25th

Hi everyone,

We had a great week ending in a fabulous Halloween parade.  The kids wore their costumes for the parade and Halloween All School Meeting, which was a lot of fun. Our faculty theme this year was candy.  The students had a great time guessing the faculty costumes. We enjoyed many treats from classmates as well as a wonderful Halloween snack table set up by our grade parents.  Thank you so much to Kerry Bennet (our class grade parent) and all the grade parents for their efforts and help with this.


The students worked this week on volume in mathematics and wrapped up a Mix It Up project in math where they used PowerPoint to represent an assigned number in as many mathematical ways as they could think of.  The whole fifth grade set up a gallery of our work in the Commons and visited one another's presentations on laptops.  It was cool and the kids enjoyed seeing one another's work.


In Social Studies, we are deep in our exploration of Jamestown Colony.  The students worked on two-column notes for Jamestown and received a set of Understanding Goals that lay out three main concepts I want them to understand by the end of the unit.  We examined a Jamestown website that details the Werowocomoco Indians (led by Powhatan) and their culture and lifestyle.


In addition, students stepped into the shoes of and English Colonist coming from England to live in Jamestown.  They were each assigned a name of a colonist (taken from primary source documents) and a job. Students created a cargo list of items they would bring to Jamestown and worked from the perspective of their assigned colonist.  Once this was concluded I donned my King James crown and read a modernized version of the Jamestown Charter, which was established by the Virginia Company.  Students were shocked when the learned the Charter specified they had to be divided into three groups upon arriving on land in Jamestown: one to build a storehouse for food, one to prepare the land to sow seeds, and one to explore the area around the landing site.  Once divided into an assigned group, they gathered their cargo lists and see how many of the things they'd "packed" were useful for their assigned jobs.  They quickly realized how unprepared the Jamestown settlers were when they arrived.


This is an example of how our Social Studies curriculum teaches for understanding with primary source documents and aims to examine perspective and an understanding of Social Studies concepts through the eyes of the people we're studying.  We had a lot of fun in Social Studies this week!


This coming Thursday, November 4th is our first fifth grade field trip to the Blue Hills Weather Observatory in Milton, MA to complement the students' study of weather in Science with Mrs. Meehan. Our bus will leave from Friends Academy at 8:15 and return to school by 2:30.  Please note that students will be hiking during this trip, and should therefore dress in layers.  Students should be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes and bring a backpack with them for their extra clothing, water, camera, etc.  As we will not be eating in the classroom on that day, please be sure to pack a cold lunch that does not require heating, a large bottle of water, and be sensitive to food allergies of others in the grade when selecting snacks for the day.  Electronics are allowed for the bus ride (keeping school appropriateness is mind). Students may also bring cameras, but should remember that they are solely responsible for these possessions on the trip.


Can you believe the fun does not stop there?!  We are also scheduled to visit Plimoth Plantation on Tuesday, November 9th.  This field trip will help us kick off our next Social Studies unit on the Plymouth Colony.  The two field trips are close together but we are trying to avoid the crazy crowds that come to Plimoth Plantation around Thanksgiving.  More information will follow.


Important Dates:
11/2, Tues - sub day for students who have prepaid and pre-ordered
11/4, Thurs - field trip to Blue Hills Weather Observatory.
11/8, Mon - Pizza Day is rescheduled for this day to accomodate our field trip to Plimoth Plantation
11/9, Tues - Plimoth Plantation field trip
11/15 - 19 is AuthorFest.  The Book Fair is open Mon-Thurs 7:30-5:30 and Fri 7:30-3:00
11/18, Thurs 6:30-7:30 PM  is an evening event with sports journalist and author Steve Krasner. All students are encouraged to attend.  His evening event is expected to be wonderful.
11/19 is AuthorFest with Cynthia Lord, Eric Kraft, and Steve Krasner.  Lower Division Family Luncheon is scheduled for 12:15-12:45 PM.  Author book signing 1:00-3:00 PM.


Happy Halloween everyone!
Laura