Building Bonds: Engaging Activities to Unite Fifth Grade

Fifth Grade has a Great Start to the Year!

The fifth graders started ten school days ago learning more about each other, our commonalities and our unique qualities.  We had “Me Bag” sharing during the first week in which students shared books, games, pictures and other items that symbolize who they are.  We have been having morning meetings each day to greet each other, share ideas, and get to know each other better.

We have voted on our first read aloud novel for the year, The Nest  by Kenneth Oppel.  We have also had lots of Go Noodle brain breaks, a must when you’ve been working for an hour or so! Finally, we have completed a beautiful class puzzle together to symbolize what we can create when we all take part and work together.

Empowering Inquiry: Student-led Research Initiatives

We have started getting used to routines and procedures in the classroom.  We created essential agreements together by brainstorming our rights and responsibilities.  Team names and agreements were created by each table group. We started digital portfolios on Class Dojo and parents have started commenting on our work!

We have started exploring number sense in math.  Students are exploring various multiplication and division concepts; such as factors, square numbers, and prime factorization.  If you are working on multiplication facts with your child, here is a link to Factor Captor, a game the fifth graders have been playing this week!

We have also just started to get into our first unit of inquiry about forms of government around the world and how they impact citizens who live there.  Students started with a tower building activity in which each group was under one form of government: democracy, monarchy, republic, and dictatorship. Students had role cards to follow and a short amount of time to build the tallest tower possible. 

We have been reading about various forms of government and how they can be combined. Students are currently creating their own inquiry questions based on the PYP key concepts for the unit. They will use these questions to guide their group research.

We are ready for another fantastic fifth grade year!