The Daily Blog (09/11) - Mr. McMurray

We were greeted yet again with a beautiful, sunny, autumn morning. I brought the class to the room and Bella led us in the pledge of allegiance. We began the day by completing our first packet of Daily Exercises. We will continue to complete these packets on a weekly basis, but our first week was mainly to get the hang of how to do it. The packets consist of geography, math, language arts, and handwriting practice. I had the class correct their work and monitor their progress this week and then turn them in for me to review this weekend. In the coming weeks, I will handle the grading as well.

Earlier finishers received this week's edition of the Scholastic News to read and solve questions on the back page. We didn't wind up with too much time to explore the magazine because at 8:45 it was time to go see Mrs. Pane for P.E. She gave the class an overall good report, which I expect each time we go.

When the class returned to the room we finished correcting the packets and I collected them. I also checked in the homework, which was nearly 100% complete by the class, but a couple of students had trouble either remembering to bring their finished work to school or simply failed to complete one of the assignments. We are determined to begin our Paper Clip Chain next week!

Julia correctly answered this week's Geography Challenge Question by naming all five of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie, Superior. She earned $5 McMurray Bucks for her correct response!

It was time to begin our math review of addition and subtraction of whole numbers, which we did with volunteers in the class sharing out their work. Our math lesson would take place after recess and the fire drill, however.

I excused the class to recess and then shortly after we returned to class Ms. Garcia announced our first fire drill of the year. We evacuated the classroom and walked around Adventure Time to the upper playground. The class observed our *Code of Silence* which I enforce during any disaster drill to ensure that we hear and follow directions. I was pleased with how well the drill went.

We worked on our math lesson when we got back to class. Today's lesson was on algebraic expressions. We began by discussing that math is a language. We use words associated with addition and subtraction such as increase, decrease, plus, minus, more than, reduced by, etc. And when we involve an unknown number or a group of numbers, we have to insert a variable represented by a letter, such as x. The class completed a few examples together before I set them off to work independently. We had a wrap up and reviewed their solutions and developed an understanding about expressions in the class.

We had just enough time to dig in to our language arts before the lunch bell rang. Yesterday's vocabulary lesson was on using a thesaurus, so we reviewed that once again. Then, we transitioned into today's lesson which focused on a grammar skill. The title was Kinds of Sentences. We learned about the four types and I expected the class to write this information in their notebooks:

1. declarative sentence: tells something; ends with a period.
2. interrogative sentence: asks a question; ends with a question mark.
3. imperative sentence: gives a request or order; ends with a period.
4. exclamatory sentence: expresses strong feeling; ends with an exclamation point.

We then completed an exercise involving examples of different kinds of sentences on the overhead. Our class president, Bella, called on students to answer the questions. We came away with some strategies to recognize types of sentences and practiced saying these big, new words together before lining up for lunch.

After lunch, the class split up for choir and strings. I joined the choir with Mrs. Steidell in the cafeteria. She led the class through vocal exercises and a few new songs right up until 2:00pm.

We returned to class and spent the remainder of the day completing a special art project for September 11th as a tribute. Julia shared a picture with us (see below) from her visit to Ground Zero in New York. She fielded several questions from around the room about what she saw and many other details about her time there.

Christian also shared a medal he brought to school from a relative that recognized the men and women in uniform who bravely sacrificed their lives on this day just eight short years ago. It was very thoughtful of Julia and Christian to share out with the class.

With the time remaining before dismissal, the class split up into their partnerships or individually worked on completing their pictures. I've included just a few in a slideshow below that I hope you'll enjoy.

We left at 2:50pm on a very positive note!

From now on, this blog space is reserved for the boys and girls of Room 16. On Monday, our first Roving Reporter will be Hailey. A Roving Reporter calendar will be posted on the lefthand column here on this blog. This has been a pleasure to start and I look forward to endless days ahead of student reflections on their fifth grade experience.

Thank you again to all who attended Back-to-School Night this past Thursday. It was a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to seeing you soon at Parent Conference. Enjoy your weekend!