Community Service Reminder

Rabbi Schaller visited 5th grade this week to remind us about community service hours. The kids had many questions for her, and now have an understanding of the multiple opportunities for community service this quarter. 

If you need inspiration, there are many ideas listed in the packets you received via email after Family Orientation. 

As students complete hours, they should fill out the required form. All hours are due by November 11. 

If you have any questions, please contact Rabbi Schaller, tschaller@mjds.org

 

Teamwork Rubric

Today we introduced our ETC teamwork rubric. For each child, this will be a living and breathing document that is constantly referred back to. The hope is that students will add to it in an authentic way – as they catch themselves working toward one of the goals, or have a proud moment when they realize self growth – throughout the quarter.

In class we talked about the objectives for the quarter as well as how to use the rubric. We will never look at all of the goals at once, that would be way too overwhelming. Instead, the kids will choose one or two objectives to focus on at a time.

Ideally, this will be an authentic way for your child to monitor his/her progress throughout the quarter and become more self aware of areas of growth and goals as well as strengths.

Students will share their rubrics with you at student led conferences. They are more than welcome to share their progress with you at any other time as well! 

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And… it happened… ETC 5/6

As you know, we’ve been working on team challenges in our ETC class. We have a lot of goals for this class, but our highest priority (for first quarter) is to learn how to work as a team. We’ve been waiting for the conflict to begin, and today it did– don’t worry, this is a good thing, we promise! 

The groups worked together on the Umbrella Challenge – can you keep a Duplo man dry for ten seconds by creating an umbrella using only the provided materials. The kids planned individually and then as groups. Today was the first challenge where students wholeheartedly disagreed on design. As adults, we know how tough this can be. You think you have an amazing idea, you bring it to your group and they shut you down. Imagine being 10 or 11 and trying to navigate these feelings. Not only as the person being shut down, but also as the message delivery person. How do you compromise without insulting someone else? How do you take feedback without being defensive? How do you make sure your voice is heard when others are taking charge? These are such important skills to develop NOW as they will be so important throughout all of life. 

We didn’t plan for this to happen, but we knew it would–  And we love it! On Friday we will tackle our next challenge with a new lens. One that is guided by a teamwork rubric- an opportunity to self assess how we are doing while working in groups. We can’t wait to share how it unfolds!

Word Work Wednesday 5th ELA

It’s Word Work Wednesday! Each week we will dedicate our Wednesday class session to developing our spelling, grammar and understanding of the English Language.

Today’s focus was on capitalization. Over the years, your children learned many different rules related to capitalization. As early as kindergarten, they learned that their name must begin with a capital letter, and so must the word “I” and the first word of a sentence. These are the “basics.” As they continued through elementary school, other rules were added to the mix, and they did their best to remember and use them. In today’s lesson, we reviewed the rules for capital letters and made a promise to one another to always try to apply those rules in any piece of writing we produce. We looked at a sample of writing that used correct capitalization, rather than incorrect, and noticed how often capital letters are used in writing. 

I shared with the class that there are so many rules, that even as an adult, and ELA teacher, I often have to look up the rules while I’m writing! For this reason, I’ve given them a cheat sheet to keep in their ELA binders to reference while writing.

 

Making Inferences about Characters 5th ELA

When you make an inference, you go BEYOND the author’s words to understand what is not said in the text. 

I’ve taught ELA for 13 years (crazy!) and over and over again I see that our kiddos struggle with going beyond the literal meaning of the text. In my opinion, It is actually the best and most fun part about reading- what does the author want us to think and/or feel without directly saying it? It’s like solving a puzzle. To master this skill, you have to first understand how to make an inference! 

Using our amazing mentor text, The Liberation of Gabriel King, we focused on making inferences today. We specifically focused on making inferences connected to character traits. We talked about connecting our schema (our background knowledge/ mental filing cabinets) to text evidence to form inferences. Our discussion included the need to directly quote from the text to really support our thinking. 

Afterward, the kids practiced this skill in their own books. We ended class by sharing out our ideas and thoughts. The kiddos did a great job and will continue developing these skills throughout this unit and beyond. 

 

Zip Lining

A sure sign of an amazing day at school— I can barely  keep my eyes open and it’s only 7:30PM!

Today was incredible. Your children were brave, empathetic, supportive and patient. It was amazing to watch those who were more confident cheer on the ones who were more cautious. Additionally, watching these amazing kids overcome fears and take a pretty serious risk was maybe the best thing ever! To be honest, I think Adon Lippman and I were the most nervous of all! 

The team building experiences in the morning helped facilitate all of the amazingness we experienced in the afternoon. The kids will be blogging about their experience tomorrow, stay tuned! 

In fact, on the bus ride home, one student turned to me and said, “this was so much fun, can we blog about it?” 

I am so proud of your kiddos!

I’ve included some photos below, though I am sure there will be many more in Yom this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Lego Challenge – 5/6 ETC

We ended class today with a few questions…

1) How many of you were frustrated (even for just a second) today? 10/20 students raised hands

2) How many of you felt like you failed today? 20/20 students raised hands

3) How many of you felt like you had success today, even if just a little bit? 17/20 students raised hands

4) How many of you had fun today? 20/20 students raised hands

The Lego challenge today proved, yet again, that your kids are incredible. They brainstormed, planned, collaborated, failed, tried again, failed, tried again, failed, ran out of time and asked for more! 

Please take a look at the slideshow from today as well as the photos below — they can be great conversation starters to use while asking your kiddos about school. 

Stay tuned for student blogs later in the week! 

 

I can… 5th ELA Learning Targets

Reading Workshop is in full swing! Our first reading unit is focused on fiction. We have started mini lessons and practicing new skills in our reading binders. Reading homework in the thinking journal will be assigned later this week. 

Each mini lesson will be connected to one of our ten priority standards for this unit. Each student will work on these ten standards throughout the course of the quarter, monitoring their progress toward mastery – of course at their own pace and using differentiated text. 

I’m excited to watch their growth this quarter! 

 

ETC Pringles Challenge

We had another amazing ETC class today. The kids had a blast problem solving together to try to create a standing circle using only one can of Pringles. They had the even harder challenge of not eating any of the materials!

Image result for pringles ring challenge

We took them through the same process as the Make it Move Challenge- brainstorm on your own, brainstorm as a group, create a plan and execute. The implementation was amazing to watch unfold as most plans failed and new plans had to be drawn up and tested. 

I literally did a happy dance as I watched one group collaborate. I noticed that one group member was on his Chromebook so I asked him to show me what he was doing. He was actually typing to his Israeli classmate, “you’re a genius” on Google Translate. He had just figured out a new way to stack the chips. When I told him I was worried he was looking up a solution on the internet, he responded by saying:

“If we looked it up online it would be cheating, that’s not fun. The reason I love ETC is because when we fail it’s fun!”

I couldn’t say it better. Our kids get it. This is what ETC is all about. It is what MJDS is all about. Your kids were asked to blog about their experiences this week on their individual pages- due Monday. Please don’t forget to check their pages as their view point is more important than ours!

Please, please, please take the time to watch the videos below. They really show our kids working together so beautifully. They are embracing the concept of FAIL (first attempt in learning) and having a growth mindset way faster than we anticipated! 

Gev. Kimmel, Gev. Noorlander & Gev. McAdams 

 

 

Video 1 – Team Work in Action

Video 2- Compromise/Communication in Action

Video 3 – FAIL and Growth Mindset in Action

 

 

 

 

Make it Move Challenge- ETC

On Wednesday, we dove into our first team challenge of the year. The Make it Move Challenge— can you move a matchbox car across a table without using your body to propel it and without lifting the table? How will you do it using only the materials provided?

(We encourage you to look at the presentation we used in class {linked above} as it will give you an insight into the process we take the kids through.)

The kids were asked to work in groups for the first time this year. We purposefully didn’t give many directions or go over teamwork expectations. Are we crazy? Maybe! But, it all worked out how we wanted it to! 

The kids got started. As expected, a few groups had come up with quick solutions that ended up failing. They didn’t meet the requirements, or their plan didn’t work out. What did the kids do? They planned again! They tested again and again until they were successful, or ran out of time! 

At the end of class, we reflected together. Many students expressed that there were a wide range of emotions felt in class- excitement to get started, frustration with themselves of others, annoyance with materials, and the one we heard over and over- aggravation for not getting more direction. 

This led us to the most perfect conversation. Our intent. EtC is a low stakes class, with unlimited potential, where students will be able to develop teamwork skills, showcase creativity and innovation, and most importantly, fail over and over again. We explained that  if we had given TOO many directions or parameters, it would have limited their thinking and willingness to experiment. Instead, we had 5 groups all trying out different plans. We had groups communicating beautifully and other teams struggling to share responsibility. It was sensational. And, it was the perfect segue, as  next week we will start examining our teamwork rubric and practicing teamwork expectations in class. We can’t wait!

Check out the pictures and videos below that show the different stages of the challenge! 

Gev. Kimmel, Gev. McAdams & Gev. Noorlander 

 

Individual Planning

Team Sharing/Planning

Creating/Executing Plans

Testing 

Video 2

Video 1