Introducing the concept of volume to my students is never as easy as I always think it is going to be.  I mean, I usually just assume that when I explain that volume is basically length x width x height, the kids will think, "Oh, yeah!  That's like area with one more thing to multiply!"  It never goes that way.  I mean, never.  Ever. So this year, when I set out to introduce the concept of volume to my students, I knew I needed to do something memorable that would help the concepts sink in.  So what did I do?  I broke out the trusty marshmallows.  Yes.  You heard me right.   Marshmallows . You see, mini-marshmallows are basically a cube shape.  They aren't perfect, but they are close enough that using them to help my students understand the concept that volume is the amount of space something takes up in cubic units was just what my students needed.  I gave each student a quart-sized baggie that was pre-filled with about......

These past few years, I spent a great deal of time honing in on the students' narrative writing skills.  Of course we have been using Paragraph of the Week since school started, and throughout the year they really did get good at basic writing structure, but teaching them to tell a story, with a beginning, middle, and end, in a way that is exciting and engaging for the reader, is a whole different story. Most of my students were writing "bed to bed" stories, where they would tell me every.single.detail about their entire life when they really are trying to tell me about what happened last Christmas Eve.  This just isn't a great way to tell a narrative.  Sure it encompasses the actual event they are trying to tell, but I would fall asleep in the midst of trying to find out about that event ;)  So I had to do something to get the kids on track.  What better way to do that then to use candy! Now, I will say right off the bat, this wasn't the cheapest route to ......

One thing I really love about teaching history is that I am able to get the students to look more critically and deeply into the events of our past and realize that there truly are many different sides to the same story. We did that this past week with the Boston Massacre.   We began with a discussion on what facts, opinion, and bias are.  We talked about how each of those things are different, yet present when we discuss historical events.  Focusing in on bias in particular, we examined how it can play a huge role in the way information is presented. I gave the students two different articles about the night in question (matching our standard of looking at two viewpoints on the same event).  One was from the Boston  Gazette    and the other from the London Chronicle .  In pairs and using three different colored pencils, the students read the articles, underlining evidence of fact, opinion, or bias (or, in some cases, adding multiple......

With Common Core fully in place in my state, one of the big standards that we teach in fifth grade deals with Greek and Latin roots.   In the past, I wrote a few posts about how I taught them ( you can find the posts here ), but it has been so long, that I thought I would share these ideas with you again.  I figure if *I* have to teach roots, you probably do as well. :) I really don't have a Root Word program.  Basically, I teach my students 4 root words per week.  To introduce the words, I have the students create index cards with the root, the definition, and a picture of the meaning on the front.  The back of the cards has sample words containing the roots, as well as meanings. They keep these flash cards all year long to study, create games, use during writing, etc....   For homework, though, I have actually tried to combine all of what I was doing before.  Now I have them use these AWESOME (yes, I just called one of my resour......

Over the past few months, my class and I have been wading into the waters of what is called " Genius Hour ". No doubt you have heard rumblings of this before, as it is not a new concept.  I had first heard about it when my friend Jen at Runde's Room had it set up in her classroom.  She has a great post on how to set it up here .  I highly recommend reading it.   But I am not here to talk about the very first day of getting started because, really, Jen explains it all in the link above...including some awesome videos to share with the kids (which of course I did.)  Rather, I am going to share with you some "in the trenches" advice I have now that Genius Hour has been running in my class for about 2 months.   What I am going to focus on are some of the Do's and Don'ts that I have discovered through my trial and error of implementing this program into my room. After I introduced the concept to the students (pretty much following what Jen does......

This week, as a break from our constant work on paragraphs and essays, we took a departure in genre and switched to poetry. The first poem that I had my students write was a figurative language poem, that I got from Panicked Teacher .  Using the various types of figurative language we have learned up to this point in the year, the students wrote a poem about one of their favorite aspects of school this year.  They had to write an alliteration sentence, a simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, and more.  Seven sentences in all, all on the same topic.  Then each of those sentences was put together to create a figurative language poem. Next, the students learned how to write a cinquain.  Again, they wrote about school.  These were a bit easier for them to write, since they were much shorter.  But I liked them because they employ parts of speech and synonyms to create.  I had the students break out the thesaurus for this one to get them away from simpl......

We are knee deep into our fractions unit and I wanted to share something that has been rather successful in getting my students to recognize landmark fractions and decimals:  Number Strings. What are number strings, you ask?  Well, they are similar to number talks in that it is a way to get the kids to *mentally* think about the math that they are doing.  What makes them different is that the number strings focus on ONE strategy to get the students solving problems, as opposed to the several strategies that number talks promote. Since we are working on adding and subtracting fractions, my math coach gave me this book Minilessons for Operations with Fractions, Decimals, and Percents: A Yearlong Resource (Contexts for Learning Mathematics) to help me get started.  The first number string that is presented shows the kids how to equate certain fractions with money.  Money is so common amongst the kids, that they instantly related.  Showing the kids that 1/......

If you read my last post, you know how much I am in love with Google Classroom right now.  With that, came my exploration of Google Docs.  I wanted to share with you the first project we did using the Google Doc and another site called Tagxedo . In class, we have been discussing theme in children's literature.  This isn't exactly the easiest of topics. In fact, it is something we tackle all year long through these lessons, but as we continue to discuss it, the kids really seem to glom on to the idea of what theme in literature really means (as opposed to main idea.) This past week, we read the story Elephant in the Dark by Mina Jahaverbin and discussed the underlying themes within the text.  Together, we brainstormed what exactly the author was trying to teach us (as opposed to the main idea summary of the text).  After much discussion, they all seemed to grasp at least one main theme for the text and I set them off to write a paragraph with the reasons......

I am sort of on a writing about writing kick lately, huh?  Well, today is no different.  I have just been spending so much time on the subject because, well, let's face it, these kids have to know how to write for THE TEST!  Now that it is on the computer, and pretty much everything requires a written response, it is imperative that I teach the kids the skills they need to adequately convey their thoughts in written form. Today, I thought I would share with you my secret to success when it comes to writing.  Are you ready?  Ok...here it goes. We write every day. Yep, that is it.  We write.  All the time.  Every day.  Even for homework.  The kids are constantly writing and formulating their thoughts coherently and with purpose.   Did you fall out of your chair at that secret revelation?  I thought not.  It really isn't a secret at all.  I read somewhere that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a ......