Pentomino Puzzlers

Today's Jumpstart wrapped up our second rotation of word play.  Students built vocabulary by looking at common Greek and Latin suffixes.

In math, students rotated through stations to review finding the volume of rectangular prisms.  I have been really impressed with their work in measurement for this unit.

We began our original reader's theater scripts today.  Students chose their format, groups, and topics and began to write.  I think we are one our way to having some informative and entertaining shows!

Our mindset moment had students trying different strategies to configure their 12 pentomino pieces into a 6 x 10 grid.  I am hearing more and more positive talk as we practice responding to challenges and enjoying the processes and not just the products of learning.  They enjoyed it so much, the only groans came from the call to clean up!  For more pentomino puzzles at home they can use this link.

We wrapped up with time to work on our medieval times projects.  Students are finishing their final bits of research and completing work for their castle lap books.  I am hoping to have 12 complete books by next week!

Volume of Rectangular Prisms

Our Jumpstart today had students building vocabulary with Greek and Latin root work.  We focused on these stems:  

Root	Meaning
graph	write
act	to do or have
aud	hear
bio	life
bene	good
vac	empty

In reading students read and presented scripts detailing visits to other places in time.  They will use this format as an option when creating their own reader's theater scripts to accompany our medieval times project.

Math we were back at measurement, with today's topic being volume of rectangular solids.  They looked at the reasoning behind the formula V= L x W x H and built their own prisms to cube count, deconstruct, and measure.  We also focused on proper units with 3-dimensional measurements.

For our mindset moment, students were asked to participate in some metacognition as they considered their own learning progress and struggles so far this year in our classroom.

Monolouges

Today's Jumpstart had us back at studying Greek prefixes as a tool for decoding and extending vocabulary.  Students looked at the prefixes sub, mono, pre, tri, and re.

In math we enjoyed this cute video to get us in the mood for customary capacity conversion. Students then worked in groups on our party planning challenge problem.  With the prompt of serving two cups of lemonade to each of their 36 guests, they came up with as many ways as possible to show 72 cups with different combinations of units.  They used the actual tools to measure and pour, proving their answers to the class.

Monologues was the theme of the day for reading.  Students continued with their Reader's Theater practice and focused on solo performances using expression to highlight the feelings of their character.  We took a trip to the library for students to choose a short read aloud to practice for the class.  A monologue from the perspective of a medieval character will be one of their choices when creating their own scripts for our projects in the coming weeks.

We wrapped up our series on "the Dip" with persisting through some critical thinking toothpick puzzles.

Coat of Arms

Our Jumpstart today was a classic word scramble.  Students used their prior knowledge together with some decoding skills to uncover our mystery vegetables.

Our time was short, but we were hard at work on our medieval times projects.  Students continued their investigation of knights, armor, and weapons.  They then chose symbols of heraldry to represent themselves on the battlefield.  They also choose between writing their own minstrel song or creating an advertisement for the medieval equipment they studied.

We watched the video "Austin's Butterfly" and looked at how feedback and drafting can be a great way to make improvements on work.  Check out our progress from the first to final drafts!

To Tell the Truth

We did more word play for our morning Jumpstart!  Students are getting better and better at persisting for longer amounts of time in their word creation.  Today they used letter from Checkmate to build their lists.

We were back at it with our reader's theater practice today.  Teams practiced different "To Tell The Truth" scripts and presented them to the class.  We are focused on fluency and projection and also learned some interesting facts about Harriet Tubman, Lewis and Clark, and J.K. Rowling!  Students may select this format when creating a script of their own for our medieval times project later in the year.

We stayed with the game show theme and played a group round of Dunk Tank to kick off our volume measurement in math.  Students had some impressive background knowledge that will help us jump further into converting with customary units.

For our mindset moment, we referred back to our discussion of "The Dip" and looked at reflecting on mistakes as a helpful strategies for moving forward.  Students then submitted their ideas for activities we could do in class to help us practice overcoming the dip.

We made progress on our medieval times projects by wrapping up the fair or festival invitations we began last week as we studied castle life and celebrations.  This week we also began to look at the popular topic of knights, armor, and weapons.

Tower Power

Today's Jumpstart had us solving riddles with our one syllable rhyming hink pinks.  We also did a quick word building challenge looking at strategies for morphing the words we had already though of to build our list and persisting in our thinking even when we thought we had found all the possible words.  Today's high score was 16 words made out of the letters in AREA & PERIMETER.

We finished our chapter 2 area study with a check-up quiz.  Students showed off their abilities to define, estimate and calculate area of both regular and irregular shapes.

Next we used all six of the SPARK C's to complete the Castle Tower Challenge!  Students practiced collaboration to work in their group using pipe cleaners to build the tallest structure.  They used their content knowledge of castle building job and design features. They persisted in setbacks of one armed laborers, a loss of supplies and barriers to their communication. Their creative and critical thinking help them design these beauties!

We had fun with our first reader's theater experience.  We divvied up parts and read "How Does it Feel to Live Next Door to a Giraffe".  Students practiced fluency and oral expression as well as evaluating the script for themes and coming up with a zoo design to help the animals show more tolerance for one another.

Carpet Caper

Our morning Jumpstart today focused on homophone riddles.  See how well you do!

A penny perfume________  ________.

Forbidden group of musicians  ________  _________.

A stallion with a sore throat ________  _________.

A frog pulled by a chain ________  _________.

To compose correctly ________  _________.

A chess horse after dark ________  _________.

For math we brushed up on our area and perimeter skills with three station rotations. At station 1, students worked with me to measure and calculate the area of our classroom with our Carpet Caper.  At station 2, they played an area and perimeter quiz game and were able to self-check for accuracy.  At the third station, several computer activities helped them gain fluency in solving for perimeter and area.

Our mindset moment today involved reading the book Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg.  The book shows how spills, tears, and mistakes can be creatively turned into works of art.  Student got to try their own hand at using something that might look like a flaw and turning it into an original picture of their own.

For our project work today, we read about protecting the castle and learned new vocabulary to understand the parts and structures involved in caste defense.  Students then chose to make their own labeled castle diagrams or create a matching game using their new vocabulary.