Hello Parents and Friends, 

To start this week we had book buddies with Mrs. Pontier's class on Monday. We made candy cane reindeer. It was a BLAST! 

In social studies we learned about The Declaration of Independence. Mrs Benzing had a replica of it. It was very fascinating when we got to see a diagram of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence because it was about 50 words. 

Also, this week we had our third family life class. The boys' teachers are Mr. Harold and Reverend Morris. The girls teacher is Nurse Morgan. We can't wait to get back to Mrs. Green's P.E. class. We have had Music Rehearsals all week. Our week has been very busy. 

We have done a lot of interesting and entertaining stuff since we have last posted. This week we have started the Christmas Concert  rehearsals. Some of our songs are "Ding Dong Merrily on High", "Light of Christmas" and "Feliz Navidad" on ukuleles. On Wednesday the boys had their first family life class and girls had theirs on Thursday.  We are preparing a special Christmas surprise. Can you guess what we are making?

Before Thanksgiving break we had our Grandparent's Day. We learned a lot about our grandparents and how they had their elementary school experience.  We are also writing a letter to our grandparents about Grandparent's Day. 

Our reading is moving along really fast! We are on our 4th set of chapters.  We are also finished our Echo Hill 5 paragraph essay this week.  

Thank you for reading our blog! Talk to you next week! : )

This week has been very frightening . From haunted houses to halloween parties, this week has been a blood-chilling blast. 

To kick of the week we, finished up our  spooktacular haunted houses. You will find them in the hallway.  A new technique the teachers have found is a awesome new app called Aurasma. You can 

put your device over our haunted houses and you will hear our commercial for our houses. 

We started a new research project for our reading books "The Cay"and "Call it Courage".The boys

in both books are researching cays and atolls while,the girls are researching hurricanes , 

typhoons, cyclones,and tornades. 

In Mrs. Benzing's math class just started learning prime factorization, greatest common factors and least common multiple.

To end the week the students have been counting down the seconds for the Halloween parties to show off their costumes.

Signing off, this weeks blog was written by Caroline Walther and Laura Kim. 

We had so many fun things this week.

This week we started with book buddies we met Mrs.Pontier's friend.  We made ghost lollipops as our fun activity and we also read Halloween books.

On Wednesday we worked on our haunted houses again. We are making flyers to advertise our house. The main concept is to make haunted creatures want to buy our house.

On Friday we had a reall, really fun activit.  This activity was Survival Da. We did this because we are finishing up our reading groups, The Cay and Call It Courage. Some stations included a blindfolded obstacle course, building a shelter that could survive through wind and water.  We also had to identify if some plants if were poisonous or  nonpoisonous. 

    

We have been as busy as bees making honey this week. We started the week by meeting our book buddies in Ms.Wagner's class. We made ghost lollipops and we read halloween stories with our little friends.

We made similes and metaphors ghosts. The similes and metaphors ghosts are a fun way of learning similes and metaphors with a hint of halloween fun.  Students planned and chose some similes and metaphors to describe their ghosts.

This week we finished another simile and metaphors project. It was called The Mix And Match Me. We had to think of the important things about ourselves and make them into a simile or a metaphor and then we drew that in the head, middle or the bottom. I think it was the best thing we have done so far.  We went through a lot of planning in our writing journals and chose our selections of similes and metaphors that applied to us.

Today, Friday October 17, we had our last lemonade stand and the theme was Baking.  They had delicious rice crispy treats.  There was also one on Tuesday where they made brownies and their theme was rainbows. We have ended our Kenya Connect treat selling unit.

The last thing is our halloween houses. We try to sell a haunted house to some Halloween things like... ghosts, witches, and goblins.  We are planning these things in our writing journals too and are writing like real realtors.

I think we were as busy as bees.  Do you?
             Thanks,
                Meadow and Caleb

Check out the songs Mrs. Benzing's math class created for mean, median, mode, and range.

  This week's blog done by Lilly Norbeck and Caleb Solomon

  Last Tuesday,  September 31, the Get to the Beat Rice Krispy Treat stand sold their treats.  They brought in a music box to play songs for the entertainment of their clients. What a "sweet" idea!

We also have had two more treat stands this week selling brownies and cookie bars.

  

  In addition, we started a simile and metaphor rainbow.  Students made similes and metaphors on sheets of colored paper and picked their favorite choice from their assignment to display on the outside of the classroom. We have been learning more about similes and metaphors, and we will finish our "Mix and Match Me's"which are similes and metaphors about us.
  We are also getting closer to finishing our reading assignments for the reading groups Call It Courage and The Cay.  We will be switching jobs on Friday.  Students are reading chapters and experiencing different jobs throughout their books and continuing to answer the comprehension questions that apply to the books.
  We are learning more in social studies about "Taxation Without Representation" which is when the British king taxed the Colonists.  In addition to that, we are making vocabulary words that apply to the topic and creating a social studies foldable that goes with what we learned.  We are using this as a reference of what we learned and also a place to add new assignments that go with the topic.  This makes social studies a lot of fun!
  Overall, we are having an exciting, action-packed, phenomenal week in fifth grade.  We are looking for another fun week in the days ahead.

  This week's blog done by Jacob Lee and Caleb Solomon

  This is the week of September 21st, 2014.  This week we started our first week of spelling, not Wordly Wise.  There will be a change.  Instead of using workbooks, students use their spelling notebooks to sort their words and complete activities to prepare for the test.  The test will be of correct spelling, not comprehension questions like Wordly Wise.
  We also started our first reading groups.  We are reading adventure novels and answering questions in our notebooks.  Comprehension questions specified for chapters are included, along with group meetings.  The two novels are The Cay and Call It Courage.
  Another thing that happened this week was that our first two Lemonade War groups sold their treats to the kids in the school during shifts.  The first group sold cookie bars and made approximately $130.  The second group sold brownies.  We don't have that total yet.
  In social studies we are learning about the cause and effect of the French and Indian War. In Where in the World the country was Kazakhstan. Lilly Simpson was in the spotlight. On Friday, we finished our first Math Challenge. This Friday was our second Pizza Friday.
  Overall, we had a great week in Mrs. Benzing's classroom!  We are looking forward to having more fun as the year progresses.
--Jacob L. and Caleb S.

This is JJ and Mckenzie, and we are writing the 5th grade blog. This week we learned about the French and Indian War.  The French and Indian War wasn't the French against the Indians rather  it was them working together  . We also played ukele at chapel on Thursday. Did you see our silhouettes at Back to School Night. We figured out who was in the spotlight and where in the world clues.  Mrs. Harden was in the spotlight and where in the world was Afghanistan. Once again this is JJ and Mckenzie. Peace.

Back To School Night PPT