Help Us Out!!

View our proposal: http://www.donorschoose.org/jessica.goldy

Tips to help our project:

1. After entering a donation amount, on the review screen, click the link that says "optional 15% donation". Change the 15% to 0% and click "save", as this will allow 100% percent of what is donated to go directly to our project, as opposed to helping fund the site. 

2. On the payment screen, where it says "I have a gift or match code:" enter breadpig This will allow whatever monetary value donated to be DOUBLED! For example, if you enter $5 along with the code, $10 will be applied towards our project, thereby helping it get funded in half the time.

What We're Learning this Week (March 26-30, 2012)

On Monday, we continued our study  of numerical expressions, but switched it up a little. This week our focus is to practice interpreting verbal or written numerical expressions into algebraic equations and vice versa. We practiced this on Monday. Working with partners, we cut apart several verbal/written expressions and had to match them with the appropriate equation, and solving whenever possible. 

On Tuesday, we continued working on interpreting written and verbal expressions from algebraic equations and vice versa. We also had visitors from Morehead State University come in to do a science lesson with us. Today was just the pre-test so we could show them what we already know about force and motion.  


The rest of the week was busy, busy, busy!! On Wednesday, some members of the O.E.S. Book Club, those who have worked especially hard this year and last, were celebrated with a field trip to the Explorium Children's Museum in Lexington, KY. From there, 3 students were chosen to travel to the WKYT News station for a live, on-air interview about their books. They did an AMAZING job!

McKenna anxiously waiting in the green room before her appearance. 

The girls getting mic'ed up and last minute prep.

Live, on-air interview!

Showing off books in the lobby of the station with Mrs. Hutchinson, Superintendent of Bath County schools.

We want to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to Student Treasures Publishing, the publishing company who sponsored this trip! Thank you for everything you've done and all the help you've given our students to become published authors! This year, Ms. Goldy sent out orders for 281 student authored and illustrated books! We are so excited to get our orders in, as well as continue our partnership with Student Treasures! Many of us already have ideas for next year's books!

Thursday was the only slow day of the week, which allowed us to catch our breath for Friday's festivities. As part of our Spring MAP testing incentive, Friday morning was reserved for the 5th grade kickball tournament. We played all morning in a double elimination style tournament and got to the championship game before we ran out of time. Ms. Goldy's class is an undefeated 2-0, going up against Mrs. Joseph's class who is 1-1. We hope to finish the tournament upon returning from Spring Break. At 1:30, we joined in the BCHS and BCMS, as well as Crossroads Elementary's 5th graders in the annual March Against Drugs. We marched from O.E.S to the high school and watched the program there. 

This is a special march with a very important message that affects the lives of many of our students and their families. 

Enjoy Spring Break and come back well rested and ready to end the 2011-2012 school year on a great foot!

What We're Learning this Week (March 19-23, 2012)

On Monday we continued working on solving numerical expressions following the correct order of operations. We practiced solving problems together on the SmartBoard and checked our work together making sure we were using the operations in the appropriate order: parentheses, exponents, multiplication or division and addition or subtraction. We also worked on our class books as our part of the O.E.S. Student Book Club. Our book is titled "5th Grade Math is as Easy as π (Pi)!" We have worked really hard and are very excited to get these books done. 

On Tuesday we continued working on solving numerical expressions and order of operations. We also worked on our books, in between our Conservation Education class with Mr. Skaggs. 


On Wednesday, we continued our work on numerical expressions by playing...*gasp* GAMES! lol We started off by playing Order of Operations BINGO! Ms. Goldy challenged us by only giving us the answer and we had to find the correct numerical expression. We surprised her and kicked butt at it! After a few rounds of BINGO, we played Order of Operations Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on the SmartBoard. It felt like we live in the studio. Although today was fun and games, we definitely learned and practiced a LOT! :) That's the kind of Math we like!

What We're Learning this Week (March 12-16, 2012)

We're down to our final 9-weeks of school! This year has FLOWN by. As part of our Spring semester, M.A.P. testing is once again upon us. 


On Monday, we reviewed and prepared for testing. We discussed our individual goals, what score it will take to be considered proficient, and test taking strategies. We are a VERY competitive group and have challenges going against other people in our homerooms, people in other homerooms, and other classes as a whole. It's going to be interesting to see who can walk the walk and who just talks the talk!


Ms. Goldy created a sign for us to sign after we are done testing. If we score a 221 or better, we get to sign because we are PROFICIENT (or better). Some of us are only a few points away, some of us have a quite a bit of work ahead of us, and some of us are far past 221. We are trying to beat the current high score of 249 (from the Winter test window) and take down Landan Swartz! Let me just say, there's never been more trash talkin' than there has been the past few days! (All in good fun of course!)

This is the BEFORE picture. BEFORE we tackle the test and show it who's boss! :) 


On Tuesday we M.A.P. tested for Math. It was an eventful day to say the least and overall, we did an AMAZING job! We still have a few classmates who need to test because they were absent, but so far, Ms. Goldy is VERY pleased. 

This is our poster AFTER we kicked the test's butt! Our scores rock! Ms. Goldy did a special shout-out to McKenna Moore who scored a WHOPPING 252! McKenna's score was 31 points above grade level, off the charts, and officially the highest score ever at O.E.S. since we've been doing M.A.P. assessments (3 years)! Although, McKenna didn't win by much because in a close second place was John Wells with a high score of 250! 5th Grade at O.E.S. are an amazing group of kids and Ms. Goldy couldn't be prouder! :)


On another note, we've had another person donate to our classroom grant on Donor's Choose, putting us $50 closer to our goal of getting our two tablet computers for the classroom! Read about our project below and donate to help our cause if you're so inclined! We thank you and are keeping our finger crossed that we get our tablets soon!

View our proposal: http://www.donorschoose.org/jessica.goldy

Tips to help our project:

1. After entering a donation amount, on the review screen, click the link that says "optional 15% donation". Change the 15% to 0% and click "save", as this will allow 100% percent of what is donated to go directly to our project, as opposed to helping fund the site. 

2. On the payment screen, where it says "I have a gift or match code:" enter ZONKER This will allow whatever monetary value donated to be DOUBLED! For example, if you enter $5 along with the code, $10 will be applied towards our project, thereby helping it get funded in half the time.  

What We're Learning this Week (March 5-9, 2012)

This has and continues to be a crazy week! Monday and Tuesday we were out of school due to snow days. On Wednesday, we resumed regular schedule. We started the day by having a "Pep Rally" for the entire 5th grade to pumped up for M.A.P. testing, which will happen next Tuesday and Wednesday. In Ms. Goldy's class and Ms. Deaton's class, we looked at our scores from Winter testing and set new goals for Spring. Our goals, which are what are used to be considered proficient in 5th grade content, are 213 for Reading and 221 for Math. Ms. Goldy and Ms. Deaton also have a little competition brewing, as Ms. Goldy called Ms. Deaton out! It's on! lol


For our M.A.P. incentive party, we are basing it on donations. We are bringing in school supplies to help the tornado victims. The type of party or celebration we have depends on how many items we bring in! We are really excited, as the top two choices as of right now are an in school dance or a kickball tournament between homerooms.


In other news... the projector bulb fairies came! We must have been good the past month, because not one, two, or three came, but 4 fairies visited our classroom yesterday afternoon to oversee the bulb replacement. We are so excited!!!! (Thank you Ms. Jent and Mr. Thatcher!)


The rest of this week we will be reviewing content from earlier in the year to gear up for M.A.P. testing. Ms. Goldy will be out the rest of the week because she is attending a Math conference in Lexington.

What We're Learning this Week (February 27-March 2, 2012)

Monday started the second week we have been working on conversions. Last week we focused solely on the Metric System and this week our focus is the Customary System.

Tuesday we worked with partners solving Customary conversions. We practiced converting between inches, feet, yards and miles measuring distance; ounces, pounds and tons measuring weight; and ounces, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons measuring capacity. Ms. Goldy taught us a few tricks to help remember our conversions. 

"Walking my mile, I ate five tomatoes."

This saying helped us remember how many feet were in a mile: 5280. "Five tomatoes" sounds similar to the numbers 5-2-8-0. We already knew about "Gallon Man" but he's too complicated to draw when you're trying to hurry while working on a test. So, Ms Goldy showed us the "Big G" trick to remember our capacity conversions. 

This helped us visualize the 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, and 4 quarts in a gallon. It also makes other conversions very simple, like cups in a gallon; all you have to do is count them up!

Wednesday and Thursday this week were spent reviewing for our Unit 5 Assessment. We used iPods as clickers and practiced working out and answering questions to help us prepare. Answers were reviewed and any problems or concerns were discussed and cleared up. We reviewed Metric conversions, Customary conversions, using line plots, and volume of rectangular prisms. We are ready to ace the test!

What We're Learning this Week (February 21-24, 2012)

Another 3 day weekend meant catching up in Math class this week and ensuring we didn't fall behind. Tuesday, we began conversions. We started with the metric system, since it's easier and basically follows our base-10 decimal system anyway. We learned and practiced using the "ladder method" of converting units and learned a few new sayings along the way to help us remember. 


"Kids have dropped over dead converting metrics," was the first. The beginning letter of every word reminds us of what the prefix in the metric system starts with from largest to smallest units: kilo-, hecto-, deka-, deci-, centi-, and milli-. 

The second was "Horse to fly, multiply. Fly to horse, divide of course!" This saying helped us to know whether to multiply or divide to convert, as well as let us check our answers to see if they made sense. 


Wednesday, we turned in our juice box projects we've been working on. We worked with partners to create a new juice box design for the Tooty Fruity juice company following specific criteria. They turned out AMAZING and Ms. Goldy has already updated her proficiency board showcasing some of the spectacular work! Who knew we could be such great advertisers? LOL

Our prompt

We're Partially Funded!

So far we're $30 closer to our goal of getting our two tablet computers for the classroom! Read about our project below and donate to help our cause if you're so inclined! We thank you and are keeping our finger crossed that we get our tablets soon!

View our proposal: http://www.donorschoose.org/jessica.goldy

Tips to help our project:

1. After entering a donation amount, on the review screen, click the link that says "optional 15% donation". Change the 15% to 0% and click "save", as this will allow 100% percent of what is donated to go directly to our project, as opposed to helping fund the site. 

2. On the payment screen, where it says "I have a gift or match code:" enter ZONKER This will allow whatever monetary value donated to be DOUBLED! For example, if you enter $5 along with the code, $10 will be applied towards our project, thereby helping it get funded in half the time.  

What We're Learning this Week (February 13-17, 2012)

On Monday, we began discussing how to find the volume of rectangular prisms. We discussed the two different formulas, V=lxwxh and V=Bh, where B is the area of the base, as well as what the correct units are when recording volume: units cubed. This allowed us to briefly review exponents (we take any opportunity to review that we can) which was a topic we covered earlier in the year.


Snow Day Tuesday meant busy day Wednesday! We had an action packed day Wednesday! In Math, we continued working on finding the volume of rectangular prisms. 

As practice for the concepts we learned Monday, we had Math Workshop Wednesday and rotated through our Math Stations. This year, we've been rotating through 4 stations, which coincidentally, spell "MATH"! 

"M" stands for "Math Facts". Here, we begin by getting our Math Automaticity Folders ready for the next day. Next, we either work on the XtraMath website or we use our handheld Math Shark games and rotate within our group when computers are free. 

"A" stands for "At Your Seat". At this station, we work on whatever skill we are focusing on for the lesson individually at our seat. Today, it was of course finding the volume of rectangular prisms. 

"T" stands for "Teacher's Choice". Here, we either work with our teacher in a small group at her chair with whiteboards, or we work on something of her choice. Today, some of us spent the time finishing our hands-on activity, while others used iPads and worked on our MobyMath lessons. 

"H" stands for "Hands-On". At this station, we work on our focus skill for the lesson, but use manipulatives of some sort, whether it be cards, dominoes, sticks, or dice, like today, to help us better understand and practice the concept we are working on. Today, we used the outcome of rolling three dice as the dimensions of the prisms we needed to find the volume for, giving us practice using both formulas we discussed Monday. We practiced drawing diagrams of the prisms, solving the volume and making sure we included correct units, which for volume is units cubed. 

After a hard day of Math, it was PARTY time! We enjoyed pizza, Ale-8's, lots of candy, chocolate and sweets, and of course Valentines!

To celebrate Math, we each created a Math Valentine to trade with someone in our class who had to solve the problem we created.  Check out some of our Math Valentines.

To top off our action-packed day, a class picture! First, serious faces, then silly poses!

Thursday, we practiced creating rectangular prisms from nets. 

After we created the prisms, we found their volumes by using both of the formulas we've learned, as well as counted the actual cubes that each prism would hold. We also talked about surface area and how it is very similar to finding the area of polygons. After finding the volume of our prisms, we found their surface areas. We finished the day by working with partners on an inquiry activity, which we will continue working on Friday. 

Help Fund Our Class!

Our class has recently submitted a proposal to DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit organization that connects public school teachers with people who want to support classroom learning. (Read more about DonorsChoose.org) Last year, Ms. Goldy submitted numerous different proposals for various Science kits, tools, activities, and experiments that were funded for use in her class. This year, we hope to receive the same type of generosity for materials to use in our Math class. Our proposal is for 2 tablet computers to update our classroom technology center.


View our proposal: http://www.donorschoose.org/jessica.goldy

Tips to help our project:

1. After entering a donation amount, on the review screen, click the link that says "optional 15% donation". Change the 15% to 0% and click "save", as this will allow 100% percent of what is donated to go directly to our project, as opposed to helping fund the site. 

2. On the payment screen, where it says "I have a gift or match code:" enter ZONKER This will allow whatever monetary value donated to be DOUBLED! For example, if you enter $5 along with the code, $10 will be applied towards our project, thereby helping it get funded in half the time.  

What We're Learning this Week (February 6-10, 2012)

In an effort to get our class books done as part of the OE.S. Book Club, we rearranged our schedule a little this week and took a break from our normal Math routine. After much thought, each class decided to create an "insider's guide" to 5th grade Math, including explanations in student-friendly terms on how to solve problems with examples. We began by brainstorming a list of topics we have learned in 5th grade. It was actually very hard, seeing as how we have covered a huge variety of topics, but we tried to stick to only topics we've learned in 5th grade, as opposed to reviewed in 5th grade, but learned last year. Here's the giant list we came up with.

From there, each student picked a topic of their choice and began writing their rough drafts.

Tuesday we began the day by participating in The Great Central U.S. ShakeOut Earthquake drill, one of the largest drills in the region. In class, we continued working on our books. We are at various stages of writing, from working on our rough drafts, to editing, to typing our final drafts, to illustrating. They are turning out nicely and we are getting excited about our book.


Wednesday we continued working on our books. More of us are typing our final drafts and finishing up our illustrations. We can't wait until they are done!


Thursday was book work as usual for the first part of the day. In the afternoon, the maintenance crew came and fixed our coat hooks! We were so excited we celebrated! These have been a pain the last two weeks because they kept pulling out of the wall, spilling our belongings all over the floor. Look how nice! It's the simple things in life that make us happy! Now, if only the projector bulb fairies would come! :)

A downfall, however, was that due to all of the drilling and hammering, we couldn't concentrate on our writings. So, we took the day off and played games. MATH games of course! We chose the game 24, so we played it with a partner. 

If  you haven't played the game 24, you should! It's so much fun! You pick a card that has 4 numbers on it. The object is to use any operation: addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division in any order with the numbers you have on the card to reach an answer of 24. It requires lots of mental math, along with higher order thinking and problem solving so it's exercising your brain while you're playing! A win-win!


Friday was business as usual. We took our Weekly Math quiz and analyzed our class data by finding the range, median, mode and mean of our class scores.  Today was also the Karate Off! We had lost of repeat winners, along with some new ones. We also had an awards ceremony for the 4-H competition that we've worked so hard on the last few weeks. The overall school winners were announced who will go on to compete against other schools in the district. 

Happy Groundhog Day!

Unfortunately for us, our furry friend Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, which according to legend means 6 more weeks of Winter. I don't know about Phil, but it sure doesn't feel like winter outside with the temperatures we've been having the past few weeks. We say bring on Spring!

Here's a little background information on Phil and Groundhog Day if you're interested. 

Groundhog Day

What We're Learning this Week (January 30-February 3, 2012)

As a wrap up to our area review, on Monday we practiced finding the area of various circles using the formula A= Πr² when given the radius or diameter. We also discussed how knowing only the center point of a circle allows us to find numerous facts about that circle, including the radius, diameter, circumference, and area. 

Tuesday we began the day by playing the card game "I Have, Who Has?" reviewing how to find the radius, diameter, circumference and area of circles as one last cumulative review before we move on to our next concept. Unfortunately, however, our projector had other plans for us. As our second period class was ending, our bulb blew (with a loud POP! that scared us all half to death) rendering us helpless and without a working SmartBoard or document camera. We use both of these pieces of technology EVERY SINGLE DAY in 5th grade Math, so this was a major catastrophe. For 3rd and 4th period Math classes, we had to improvise, so we got a head-start by completing our Diagnostic Assessment (pre-test) on a program called Moby Math that we will begin using regularly in Math class. More details will be sent home as the implementation of this program continues. On another note, pray that our bulb gets replaced soon, for we are lost without it! 


Wednesday we practiced and reviewed how to read line plots displaying fractional data, as well as answer questions using the data given. We first discussed this topic at the beginning of the year during our Graphing Unit, so today proved to be a good refresher course on line plots. 


Thursday we worked in the computer labs to finish up our Diagnostic Assessment on Moby Math. All but a handful of students in Mrs. Joseph's class got finished. Lessons have been assigned and students are ready to work at their own pace completing lessons. This is an ADDITIONAL way, along with XtraMath and Weekly Math Problems, for students to earn extra credit points in Math. 


Friday we took our weekly Math quiz. This week, every class improved their class score from last week, thank goodness! It was a very close race between which class won, with all 4 classes only being separated by a few points. Mrs. Joseph's class, however, pulled off the win and had the highest overall score again this week. Friday afternoon we all joined the Tumbling Team in the gym for an assembly, as we watched the team members show off their tumbling skills.