During the holiday weekend, I visited my parents in Ohio who are in the process of moving. Because of this, I grabbed all of my old toys and storage items I have been keeping at their house. One of these treasured pieces was my American Girl Doll trunk. Upon hearing, via facebook, that Kara had visited American Girl Place over break, I mentioned that I had my trunk in the car still. During indoor recess, the girls and I had a grand time going through all my old Kirstin clothing and accessories. This, of course, led naturally into an optional "Bring your Doll to school day" this past Wednesday. It was a lot of fun! and definitely not something that happens everyday! The boys did a good job of keeping their teasing to a minimum, some even created their own "dolls" to join in on the fun :0) All in all, it was a very unique day of hair brushing, clothing changes, and smiles!
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What a GREAT time we had! It was a wonderful mixture of pleasant awkward - as Valentine's always and forever will be in elementary school :) The day began with our Manners Breakfast starting with a lesson in Chivalry, where it came from (tough, gory, medieval knights - who would've thought!) and how to be a gentleman, and how a lady should act. We learned together how to behave at a formal dinner. When to place our napkin on our laps, what to eat/not eat with a fork, how to set a simple table setting, how to interact with waiters/waitresses, and how to interact with table guests. Also, how to greet and react when meeting new people and introducing others. Then, we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of muffins, orange juice/milk, yogurt, and fresh fruit. Thank you so much for your support parents! We could not have enjoyed it without you! For our reflection, we completed our vintage place mats by sharing 5 things we learned about manners and etiquette. For the second part of the day, we studied the evolution of dance in America starting with the CONTRA dance. We then learned the WALTZ, SWING, and SALSA. With Mrs. Griffioen, DISCO and the CHARLESTON. Learning them together made for many awkward, yet rewarding experiences as students learned how to respectfully interact with each other on a dance floor. At the end of our practice, we learned the history of formal dances (balls) and the practice of "Dance Cards" used by girls to organize their evenings. Each of the girls in the room were then given a dance card with the predetermined TWO dances they would be required to have a male partner for (SWING and WALZ). The ladies then set their cards on their desks and the gentlemen filled them out for the afternoon celebration. After lunch, we "got dancy!" Rockin to all styles of music the kids really showed off their moves :) The first formal ballroom dance we had was the WALTZ, then the kiddos partnered off and did a great job of practicing their previously learned swing moves. The third ballroom dance was the CONTRA - these, mixed with inserted modern group dances, created a very FUN dance party! (Sadly, after much trying, I was unable to upload the videos!) Cookies and Punch were also shared during our dance. Afterwards, Valentine's were passed out, and boxes were admired and we watched a short Peanuts Valentine's Movie. Overall, we had a fabulous, fun-filled afternoon! Below are some pictures of a few of Valentine's Boxes - all of them did an outstanding job! Integrating math (coordinate grids), social studies (explorers/longitude and latitude), reading (non-fiction), and writing (summaries) we have been working on our large Explorer Unit partner projects. There has been lots of learning going on! Reading longitude and latitude on a map is much like reading a coordinate grid. The latitude line represents the X axis and the longitude line represents the Y. We learned about coordinate grids and how to read longitude and latitude by playing the classic game "Battleship" with a partner. During one the classes, we had our fourth grade buddies visiting so they had the opportunity to play along :) Another day, partners were given a blank world map and an envelop of mystery coordinates. They then had to plot the coordinates on their map changing the colors for each coordinate set. Next, partners worked together to identify which explorer matched the coordinates by reading short biographies. They then matched the correct Explorer with their travel route and color. This part was FULL of geography learning as students began to utilize their resources including maps, globes, and their own knowledge to identify countries, continents, oceans, and exact locations. Finally, we used the information from the biography cards to write non-fiction summaries of the Explorer's travels making sure we included the who, what, where, when, why, and how components. FINAL PROJECT DISPLAYS
We created our own "astrolabe/quadrants" then went outside to test them out! We used them to determine the altitude of a myriad of objects including church steeples, playground equipment, trees, and even each other's heads :) For those of you who grew up enjoying Morty and his exciting adventures "Back to the Future", did you realize that THE FUTURE was THIS YEAR - 2015. It is always fun to see what people believed life was going to be like "In the Future" and while we do not have flying cars, hover boards, and robots, it is pretty impressive the technological advances we have made in the last decade. We utilized this fun pop culture fact during our VERB tense lesson. Students used the future tenses Will, Going to, and -ing present continuous, to write about what they thought the year 2050 would be. As far off as that sounds, it is only 35 years my friends .... We have also been learning about present tense verbs and past tensverbs in our grammar lessons.
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HOPPIN's FABULOUS FIFTH GRADE CLASS!
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