2, 4, 6, 8; 103 Collaborates

This year, my fifth grade ELA class worked with Mrs. Cook's kindergarten classroom to interview some high profile Francis Wyman personalities. First, we took on the roll of live camera crew as our younger counterparts discovered jobs around school.  The included finding out if this person had to wear a uniform and if he or she had to go to school to get his or her job.  Honestly, the kindergartners did a great job as did our class!






Next step, I brought my ELA class to the lab where they got to utilize their fifth grade skills to set another student up for success.  They took those videos, put them into their own Google Drives, shared them with their kindergarten partner and then created a blog post for their partners with the video in it.  Those kindergarten students will get to enjoy their videos throughout their entire time here in Burlington.






As a side note, please take a moment to ask your own child to show you his or her digital portfolio blogs.









Finally, today we went for another visit.  We showed our partners the videos and became the interviewers. The fifth graders took notes on their kindergarten partner's favorite parts of the project and important pieces of information.  The project reminded fifth graders how far they've come and the kindergartners got to see a sliver of what's to come in their not so distant futures.

Field Day: Oh My

Lots of Events and Lots of Activities

Here are just a few.

Squid Disection

     

Mr Musselman visited with us once again to further enhance our understanding of animal classification.  This time we worked in small groups to disect and investigate an underwater sea creature, the squid.  Why don't you come take a look at what we have learned.

Nonfiction Rain Forest Books

Throughout the beginning of this year, our ELA class has been researching and creating individual rain forest animal books.  Our read alouds have provided us with great examples and opportunities to try new writing ideas and styles.  In Notability, we have been taking notes on these Interesting Writing strategies to hook readers and make our writing more exciting by incorporating the senses, personification and more.  In the art room, we have been sketching our environment and animals.  The children are all excited to start painting and loading our books onto Book Creator and finally onto our shelves.  Now we are taking all the pieces and putting them together to complete our projects.

This week we started our new page to weave a tale 'explaining' an attribute of each student's researched animal.  We read about Jabuti the tortoise and heard one example story about why ants march in a single file. I can't wait to hear what the students conjure up.

The weeks to come have more in store for our animals friends using our sense of persuasion.  I know the children will love their interaction with the school community both on the page and in person.  Stay tuned in for our final pieces.