In Science, we discussed how our "I Can..." Statements, with an engineering focus, relate to the activities and skills we have been learning and practicing in class.
In Social Studies, we wrapped up our chapter 3 readings, which focused on Native American cultural regions. We have now discussed all 7 regions, located them on a map, discussed the tribes that live in each region, and matched home, clothing, and miscellaneous artifacts to tribes that live in each region. We also "Read Further" and compared and contrasted the lives of Native Americans of 4 different tribes, discussing how the men's work, women's work, food, homes, artwork and crafts all differed.
On Tuesday, we practiced the skills we have been working on as part of our 5.NBT.1 standard one last time before our post-test on Thursday. Working in groups of 3 with one person being the official "checker", we played a game that had us using comparative sentences to compare the place value of two different numbers. We loved this activity!
In Social Studies, we began our Processing activity requiring us to write a letter to a movie director telling them how the script to their latest movie needed changed to correctly portray Native Americans of the Northwest Coast. We didn't get finished with these, but it did spark some interesting conversation about stereotypes and how we should avoid this type of thinking. In preparation for our Kentucky Living Archaeology field trip to Gladie in Red River Gorge, we also listened to our Walking Classroom podcast over Tecumseh. Unfortunately, due to nasty weather outside and the gym already having two classes because of M.A.P. testing, we weren't able to actually take a walk. So, we improvised and listened to the podcast inside. Some of us sat and chilled out while we listened, using it as time to de-stress, while others of us walked laps around the room as we listened to get our blood pumping and flowing. It was a bit crazy, as everyone was doing their own thing, but it worked! Organized chaos at its finest!
Wednesday we M.A.P. tested for Math, which took almost the entire time we were with Mrs. Elliott. Before we tested, we discussed how the goal for Fall, to be considered "on-level" as a 5th grader, was a score of 213. If we were above that already, we were to try to increase our scores as much as possible and if we were below that, it was what we were shooting for. We also talked about how important it was we try our hardest, as Mrs. Elliott uses the information to group us and to base her lessons upon. Of course there was also some friendly competition involved! Mrs. Elliott pitted her homeroom against Mrs. Dennis' homeroom to see which homeroom, as a whole, could reach a proficiency of 70% or better first by the end of the year! Between the two homerooms, there were 3 people absent who haven't tested yet, but so far, the highest score to beat is Shane Davis with a score of 239! He did an AWESOME job!
On Thursday in Math, we took our 5.NBT.1 post-assessment and analyzed our results in our Student Data Notebooks. We also updated our "Status of the Class" poster with information from our scores. MANY of us improved our scores greatly and got to move our post-it notes from the "red" to the "green" columns, showing we had fully mastered the required skills.
In Social Studies, to wrap up our unit over Native American Cultural Regions, we began working on our Native American Research projects. In groups of 4, we picked a tribe we were interested in researching that we had already discussed. These included the Inuit, Seminole, Lakota Sioux, Iriquois, and Hopi. Next, we began researching information using a variety of resources. We used our classroom computers, KindleFires, trade books, notes, and text books. Specifically, for our presentation, we were looking for information regarding their homes, food, natural resources, culture, location, and other interesting facts that might not necessarily fall into of the other categories. We will continue researching into next week before working on our presentations.
On Friday, we took our first field trip of the year to the Kentucky Living Archaeology event at Gladie, located in Red River Gorge. We LOVED this trip, as we got to experience so many hands-on activities. We got to use old time machinery to prep corn to be turned into meal, we watched a blacksmith manipulate pieces of random metal into useful items, we turned pieces of wool into thread, we felt furs and pelts and saw a variety of different tools and weapons used in the past, we created necklaces using arrowheads as drills, as many Native Americans did, we made pots out of clay native to Kentucky, we watched flint-makers create arrowheads out of random pieces of rock, we watched how to create long-bows out of trees and thin pieces of wood, we got to watch and even participate in a Native American ceremony, and MUCH, MUCH more! The weather was amazing, we were the best-behaved group there, and it was an all around wonderful day in 5th grade land!
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