Monday, November 17, 2014

Author Review: Jerry Spinelli

Jerry Spinelli
                By Tom
    Jerry Spinelli is an author that wrote our last read aloud book Crash.  He is a very detailed author with many books out (Mostly Realistic Fiction). He is an author that I very much enjoy. My favorite book that he’s written is Loser.
    I’ve read 2 of his books I’ve loved both of them(Crash and Loser). I’m currently reading one of his books called Manic Magee.
    Have you ever read his books? If you have what book or books? Did you like them?
   

Writing: Personal Narratives

    Personal Narrative Writing

Have you ever wondered what a Personal Narrative was? Well, my class and I have been making Personal Narrative stories.  A Personal Narrative is a small story from your life that is memorable to you. This story you will write down zooming in on all the details. Here is the Personal Narrative that I have been working on:

The First Time I Saw My Brother   
By: Ariana
I harden my grip on my backpack. I look down at my blue jeans and my white T-shirt. The March wind pushes my hair away from my face. I drag my feet across the gray cement that leads to the outdoors at Glenridge Elementary School.
A rush of excitement swung upon me. My mom had just given birth to my baby brother, and I am getting to see him for the first time! My heart is pounding like a drum and I feel my skin getting clammy.
I walk across the Glenridge blacktop with my sister Lucia in her pink sun dress and my dad. I really want to see my baby brother but there again I was nervous. What would he look like? Who will he look like? Will he look like me? Will he be cheerful? All these thoughts soared through my head I was so anxious to meet him!
“Jorge Eduardo is going to be so cute! I love some of the clothes he has. What will he eat?  Is he going to be funny? I can’t wait!” My little sister Lucia exclaims.
“I am sure Jorgito is going to be super cute and all of the things you said. I love his clothes especially his blue stuff!” I reply to my sister settling the thought.
  As I go into the car I see my dad’s face through the car mirror. He looks super happy. Which, reminds me of what my brother is going to look like. Will he look like my dad? He shares my dad’s name... I pull out a card from my backpack. I made it during recess for my brother.
    "What's that Ari?" my sister asks me.
    "It's a card that I made for mom and Jorgito" I said cheerfully.
    "Oh, That reminds me..." My sister starts but then she bends down to her backpack and unzips the smallest pocket of the many on her backpack.
    "Reminds you what honey?" My dad asks.
    " Oh, so everybody in my class made a card for my brother and my teacher gave me a poem about babies. I can't wait to show this all to mom and Jorgito." My sister says excitedly as she pulled out a thick yellow envelope stuffed with colourful papers. I look at my sister enormous stack and back at my card.
After that, my sister and my dad talk about my sisters day at school. I only half listen. My mind is away from the world thinking about my brother. I feel the sweat trickle down my forehead as I think more and more about my brother.
    Suddenly, We’re here at the hospital. I look outside and I see the big hospital doors with different towers and big labels. Then,  as I walk inside I look around. The clean and shiny walls & floor were glimmering silver from the light. I feel nervous for meeting my brother for the first time.
I walk to the elevator with my sister and dad. I see my sisters outstretched palm while her fingertips reach for the white button with a worn out arrow on it. As my sister presses the button the button turns an orangey shade red. "Almost there" said my dad with a mix of anxiety and excitement in his voice. I could feel the excitement in the air.
    Bling. Bloop. We are on the corresponding floor. I feel a new rush of excitement wave throughout me this time! I feel like I am jumping with each step. My card falls. I pick it up. My sister skips. I let out a squeal and... bam.
I face a polished wood door with a shiny metal handle.
I knock. "Come in" my mom says. I step in. I look around. There are white curtains, a big window, a closet, a T.V, A big bed, {where my mom sleeps} some gray chairs, and a crib. Crib...
    I hurry straight toward the crib forgetting everything else in the world. I don't think a cheetah could have run as fast as me. The crib was a hospital crib made out of mostly plastic with metal legs. There was a white mattress with two blankets on top. The mattress matches the perfectly white blankets.
The most adorable little baby looks up to me.
"He is sooooooo cute!". Lucia says
    "I have only 6 words to describe Jorgito. HE IS THE CUTEST BABY EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I SAY
    My mom smiles. "Do you want to hold him?" She asks.
    "Can I?" I ask excitedly.
    "Sure. Let me get your brand-new baby brother." My dad said as he walks over to the crib. I sit down on a chair as my mom explains to me how to hold my brother. I squirm in the seat with excitement as my dad walks over to me with my brother. I inhale. Exhale. eek! I hold out my arms like my mom told me to as my dad puts my baby brother in my arms. I smile the biggest toothy smile ever. I look down at his big brown eyes. I feel his little feet move.
He is in a little white hospital shirt. He has on some white stretchy pants. He has some small white socks, Small white hat. He has so many small white things!
I feel my energy mild down partially not completely. I am going to get used to this I pretend to brag inside my head about my new baby brother and how awesome he is. Hooray with three hips for me! Still I feel like there was not a care or need in the world that could distract me now. I say to myself that this is the best thing that ever happened in history. After I handed my brother back to my dad for my sister’s turn I realized that I had been nervous for something I shouldn't have. I made a mental note to try not to be nervous for something that I shouldn't be nervous for as I picture the fun moments ahead of me. I will be able to play with him, feed him, and grow a strong friendship. As I think more and more about it I remember a quote my mom once said. “You only have got to be nervous to do whats wrong.”


    Would you enjoy writing a Personal Narrative story?

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Social Studies: Unit 1

Social Studies unit 1
By Miguel

    From October-ish to now, we have been doing a social studies unit!  I loved it.  We had an oceans and continents quiz, we did pantomimes(acting something out without speaking), bluffs(where one person in your group says the truth and the others lie), secret words(where you hide a specific word in a speech), informative speeches(self explanatory), and many other things, such as learning about exploring history.  
    One of the highlights would have to be the explorer projects.  Everyone chose one explorer, and studied him for about three weeks.  My explorer was Pizarro.  He was very… interesting!  Did you like this social studies unit?  How about learning about the explorers?

Friday, November 14, 2014

Social Studies: Explorers

Have you ever researched a explorer? Hi I'm Aaron and I'm going to tell you about my classes social studies unit we just finished.It was about explores.We did projects on certain explores from a list.I picked Henry Hudson.He was born in 1565 and he was trying to find a short passageway to trade with Asia.We had to make projects on them.Some of the choices were glogster,poster bored and a slide show. I picked a poster board.We did preparation for about two weeks so we all had lots of time.We all were making changes till the last second of the share.
    At the last day of the unit before the test we shared with our parents and fellow classmates.It was very nerve racking because we did not practise as much as I think we should of.But overall I think my classmates did great.In the end we all felt very proud and happy for ourselves.We all said congrats and we all lined up for specials after a really fun experience.

39 Steps

blog entry

        hello everyone, i would like to tell you about the wydown play, 39 Steps. On November 13 the Clayton elementary schools all came to wydown for the play. most of wydown were participating in the play. It all takes place in the wydown auditorium. Before the play started, everyone talked. Anyway, the book/movie/play 39 steps is about a man who is framed murder, so the police chase him. There are a few violent and/or other scenes involved but you have to discover for yourself. would you like to read this book?

Social Studies: Explorer Projects

Explorer projects by Tommy

    Hello everyone, i would like to tell you about 5B explorer projects. First of all, the explorer I chose is Marco Polo but mines not the best of the best.
     there were a lot of explorers including Christopher Columbus, Pedro Cabral, and Fransisco Pizzarro. They were all good. I wish we could present our projects again but we already presented them. If you would like to see an explorer project, you would have to look at Mrs. Garcia's class. But I'm not saying that Garcia's class is not going to be good. Would you like to be educated with an explorer?

Social Studies: Secret Words

Secret Word
By: Kate

    Our third step in the stepping stones was secret word. It was one of my favorites because it was hard to guess what the secret word was. Also, you could be creative and talk about anything you wanted as long as you included your secret word in the story. But, the thing was, we were given our secret word and we didn’t have much time to think of a story so we had to come up with a story right on the spot!
    For, example if your secret word was pencil, you could tell a story about going shopping for school supplies but you would make sure you don't exaggerate the word pencil. Then, the other teams would have to guess which word was your secret word. It helped our teams with teamwork and we all got one chance to do a secret word story. Also a tip for this activity would be to make the story very long so the teams guessing would have a lot of words to choose from.
    What was your favorite stepping stone and why?

Social Studies: Explorer Projects

Social Studies Explorer Projects
                   By: Soren
    In social studies we made making projects about explorers. My explorer was Francisco Pizarro, he was really bad, he killed lots of people. For projects we had to do lots of research on our explorer, We even had to cite where we got our information.I did a presentation with slides and facts on every slide except for my first slide and last slide.
    The project was fun and very exciting because parents and different classes in the school got to look at our projects and parents got to fill sheets out that gave us feedback on our projects. Not a lot of parents filled out sheets. What explorer did you research ?
               
    

Social Studies: Stepping Stones

Social Studies Stepping Stones
                    By Jean

    I am choosing to share this story with you so you guys will know what this activity is like when you start.  My favorite activity was the fourth activity because everyone got so excited and I learned new things.
In social studies we started bluffs.  Bluffs is when you have a table pod of four or five and every one has to do a bunch of activities in front of the class.  
The first we did an activity that is kind of like charades, we have to go up in front of the class and act out something like playing volleyball but you can not talk or have a persone do it with you during the activity.  I acted out playing volley ball.
The second activity was the secret words.  In this activity our teacher gave us a word and we had to put it in a story and try to make it long so no one could guess the word because the longer the story is the harder it is for people to guess the word.  For each pod you trick you get ten points and for each pod that does get the answer right gets five points.  My word was bread.
The third activity was the bluffs.  In this activity our table pod went out in the hall and we each had to pick a card and one card would have the real meaning of the card and all the rest had to make up a fake meaning of the word and the other table pods would try to guess the person with the secret word.  For each person we tricked we get ten points for our pod but the people who ges right gets five points for their pod.  I was the one that picked the card with the true meaning of the word.
The fourth/last activity was to teach the class how to make something.  It had to be at least one through three minutes long.  After the speeches people decided if we had an intro, theses, steps, and a conclusion.  If we had all that then we got full points.  I taught people how to make a fortune teller.
What activity do you think you would like?

Social Studies: Explore!!

              Explore!
              By:Jimmy

In our S.S. unit part of our tasks was to make a explorer project! We got to pick a explorer and study on EVERY. SINGLE. CRUCIAL. DETAIL.

I picked Hernando De Soto. He was the first Spanish conquistador to make it to the mississippi river. He named it Rio Grande. Hernando made a big impact for Spain.
    Have you ever wanted to explore?

Social Studies: Explorer Projects

            Explorer Projects                               By Neha
    This month in our social studies unit we had to research a famous European explorer or explorer ships. It varied from Marco Polo to Christopher Columbus to a Sinker. After research, we were expected to do a form of presenting our explore to many grade levels in the school, parents, and teachers.
    The presentation was supposed to include varied array of facts, pictures cited from a "free to use or share" cite and a bibliography.
The types of presentations were: Glogsters, Prezis, Google doc Presentation slides, and a presentation board. There were many more choice but those were the only chosen. On the auspicious day we got to present, parents came and saw our presentations. They were also asked to fill out a sheet saying our"grade" in their opinion. Other grade levels came like third grade and kindergarten. It was a very fun day. Which explorer would you do? Who is your personal favorite explorer? (Mine is Vasco Da Gama)

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Social Studies: Secret Word

Secret words
  By Taayan

    The 3rd stepping stone for social studies was secret words. Mrs. Barnes would give you a word that nobody can see. The words are everyday words. So you prepare a speech with the word in it. You have to give the speech and after that,every table has to guess the secret word.

    The scoring is that every table that guesses the word right gets 10 points. If a table doesn’t get the word,the person who said the speech table’s gets 20 points. The most points you can get is 80. And the least is 0.
Would you like to do a secret word?

Social Studies: Speeches

 Speeches

By:Anette

In social studies we have been doing informative speeches, about all  sorts of things, you could bring in props, or if you were showing food how-to's , you could bring in samples. But some of the speeches were sports, you know stuff like that, and wev'e been doing that outside. I did a how to on pranking, and the food ones that I can recall were Chocolate strawberries (Emma) and salad (Tommy).  These were really fun!!

To put these speeches together, we had an outline to guide us, there were the opening, the thesis, development, and the conclusion. We all of these conponents to put together a full point speech. What are points you ask? well wev'e been doing things to get points for our teams ( our pods that we're gruoped in) so we can see who's in first, second and third. Friendly cometition. Well, keep looking on the blog for updates on how we're doing.

Social Studies: Secret Word

Secret Word by Chanel

I wanted to do this blog post because this was my favorite unit well bluffs!

    My classroom just ended a unit in Social Studies. Well I'm going to tell you a bit about what we did.  So stepping stone 3 which is all about secret words. I liked this activity the most.  Secret words is when you go up to front of the room by yourself.  And Mrs. Barnes gives you a word that no one else sees.  You then make up a story with the word without giving the word away. But just dont say too much to where they would know what the word is. When you finish all the other teams will take a guess just to see what the word was. Mrs.Barnes or you teacher will give you a posted note to take to your team just so the other team would not see them. Have you ever done something like that???

Social Studies: Bluffs

Bluffs By: Emma

During our last S.S (Social Studies) unit we did bluffs, Mrs. Barnes would give us a word and one person at our table group would get the TRUE definition of the word the rest would have to make up a definition (The word Mrs.Barnes gave us was a weird word that we had never heard of).

So once we figured out what our false definitions were we went up to the front of the classroom and we each said our definitions and then all the other table groups had to guess which one was telling the truth. It was a lot of fun!
I like to bluff sometimes, do you?

Social Studies - Researching

Social Studies- Researching for Projects

    I couldn’t wait to start. Our class, 5B, was researching famous explorers from the 1300’s to the 1800’s. It was soooo exciting. We were going to put all our info together into an online project or a poster board. We had only about a little less than 3 weeks to finish researching and get it put together into a project.
    This was the last day. Today would be our last-minute change day/our practice day. It was nerve-wrecking, but my favorite part.I made some silly spelling and grammar corrections and showed others my work. They all said that it was pretty up to standards. I had cool facts, color, and photos. Even adults said they were impressed. It was so much fun.
    Did you enjoy that day?

Book Review: Mockingjay

Mockingjay Book Review
By: Emma

Ok this book is pretty complicated SO DO NOT READ IF ARE NOT AT A ADVANCED READING LEVEL. This book is really good it is about the rebels and their battle against the evil Capitol. It is also about Katniss and her life in District 13 which was believed to not exist after the Capitol bombed them but they moved underground instead.

it is such a good book because it's really exciting and you its the kind of book you cold read 20 times and not get sick of, I mean this book is so good I was the main character, Katniss for Halloween.

This book is also about Katniss's life when  her future husband Peeta is taken from the Capitol and how her life was without him.
Its also about how she is the Mockingjay the symbol of the rebellion.
This book is really good so READ IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Hunger Games series is one of my favorite series, whats yours?

Social Studies: Theories

Theories on First People in North America
                         By:Tudor

In Social Studies,we learned theories on the first native americans.The land bridge theory is that the ice age froze so much water a strip of land was exposed between Siberia and Alaska.Animals went on it followed by hunters.The Pacific and Atlantic crossing theory is that natives came across on boats.

The Hopi origin belief is that the Earth was hollow.The people and all the animals were in there.One day a hole with a ladder appeared and everyone came out.These are the theories I can remember.

Which theory do you believe?

Spanish

In Spanish class we have been making sugar skulls. sugar skulls are the typical Mexican dessert. This special candy is made out of compressed sugar and meringue  powder are you format onto the mold and you put icing on it to decorate.
This type of candy is made to honor the dead Mexicans gold and I'll special type  Would you like to try some sugar skulls?

Social Studies: Informational Speeches

Teaching My Class How To Kick a Soccer Ball
By Biruk
Blog post



When Mrs Barnes said “We are going to teach something that we know really well.” I got so happy, the first thing that popped in my head was I am going to teach the class how to kick a soccer ball. The next thing that popped in my head was that is too simple. But then something pushed that comment out of my head and said there is special way to kick a soccer ball. Then Mrs Barnes said talk to your group.
I said, “How to kick a soccer ball,"
  Emma said, “How to make chocolate strawberries,”
 Jean said, “How to make a paper thing.”
     Mrs Barnes said she will pick chopsticks then  was the third person to be picked because I thought that Miguel and Tom would pick soccer because they love soccer .
I said, “How to kick a soccer ball on Wednesday.”
Mrs Barnes said “Ok”
On the day I was going to teach my class how to kick a soccer ball. I had to have a soccer ball. I taught my class how to kick a soccer ball.



Do you like soccer?  

Book Recomendation: Harry Potter

Book Recommendation:  Harry Potter

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to read the best book ever? well I think you should read Harry Potter Harry Potter is the best book ever because of its story content and it is filled with good rich content the characters are memorable and you will bear with hairy forever.

In this book Harry is no life and his parents died under the evil sorcerer Lord Voldemort more of those pants are dead and he is a wizard the Dursley's his uncle and aunts who are evil do not let him go to a wizard in school then a giant comes into the picture he let Harry Potter go to go to the wizard in school this opens a whole new world for Harry he makes friends he's never made before but there's a weird Stone called the sorcerer stone that lets you live forever and be invincible Lord Voldemort died the night that his parents died well he may be died nobody knows for sure Harry think that Lord Voldemort  what is trying to steal the sorcerers Stone can harry and his friend stop and read this book to find out.

Do you like series book?

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Social Studies: Speech to Inform

Speech to inform
                    By Tom

    In social studies we have been doing speeches to teach our classmates about talents they have. We have been doing this for about 2 weeks now. We get scored depending on how well we did, 30 points for great, 15 for okay and 0 for not there. There were 4 categories, Hook/ Attention getter, Thesis, Development and conclusion.
    Today I did mine. It was about interesting history facts. I got a 105 out of a possible 120. I told facts about J.F.K and Lincoln assassination.
    If you did it did you like it? and if you didn’t would you want to do it?

Book Review: Dying to Meet You

Dying to Meet You
By: Kate

    We just finished the book ‘Crash’, so we started another book ‘Dying to Meet You’ for read aloud. Dying to Meet You is about a famous author who has writers block and wants to go away for the summer. He chooses a house in Ghastly, Illinois which is supposedly “haunted.” The Hopes have been trying to sell this house for years and the real estate agent, Anita Sale even tried to stop Mr. Grumply from renting the house.
    The problem is, Seymore and his cat already live there and let’s just say that a guest living in the house isn’t exactly something they want. And of course, the ghost, Olive, who was also a writer for children. I predict that Olive is the one who stole the books from the library because none of her books have gotten published and Mr. Grumply has a whole series that is published. I also think it’s funny that Mr. Grumply writes childrens’ books but hates children!
    What do you predict will happen?

Book Review: The Series of Unfortunate Events

Book Review:  Series of Unfortunate Events                        By Neha

“ If you have undoubtedly pick this book up by mistake, please put it down” says Lemony Snicket, the author of The Series of Unfortunate Events. This amazing series of thirteen books tell a tale that never ever gets better.
It all starts when three orphans Violet(the inventor), Klaus(the reader) and Sunny(the biter) find out from their banker\dear friend Mr.Poe that their wealthy parents died in a fire.Count Olaf ,a relative of the youngsters adopts them. Olaf does so many tormenting things I can’t even name them. I guess you will have to read the books to find out! What book will you be next?


Science: Force and Motion and Models

Science: Force and Motion
By Miguel


Yesterday, we started our science unit of Force and Motion.  On the second day already, we have learned a lot!  Like, new science lab rules, seating arrangement, the “Black Box”, and engineers (I never said stuff related to our science unit!).  
    I don’t like this new science unit.  I LOVE IT!!!  Do you love it, or like it?  On a scale from 1 to 10, what would you rate it, 10 being I LOVE IT!!! and 1 being it sucks?  I would give it a ten. 

Monday, November 10, 2014

Claymo Lesson

Claymo Day
by Jonah
 
On Thursday we had claymo day.  It was double group so we had double the kids and double the leaders.  The first thing we did was say the claymo promise.  Then we talked about what service meant.  We read a book called Boxes For Katje.  We talked about what kind of service Rosie did for katje.

Then we explained that starting on Monday we would be doing a food drive for those in need.  We talked about what kinds of food we could bring in.  We made cards and posters until the lesson was over.  Then we cleaned up and went back to class.  How did your claymo lesson go? 

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Crash Sequel according to Kate

The Adventures of Crash Coogan: Part 2 By: Kate

“On your mark, get set…..GO!” You could barely notice the individual people, that’s how fast they were. They sped by us as we cheered and I waved my hands in the air. Penn’s grandfather (he told me to call him Henry) squeezed my shoulder from behind, nervously. On my right stood Jane squealing and jumping up and down. On my left stood Scooter, smiling, right hand clutching onto his cane.
    “Abay!” He cheered.
    “And the Penn Relays have begun!” The announcer yells. Some eighth grader from two districts away was in first. Penn was in third, huffing and puffing even though they were only almost halfway through.
    “And, Penn Webb, seventh grade, passes Leo Howard, eighth grader! A seventh grader is in second place! Can you believe it folks?” The crowd goes wild especially Henry, Jane, Scooter, and I.
    Leo is right on Penn’s heel, but Penn blasts out so fast that his previous run was equal to a jog even though he was sprinting. Leo was at least 10 feet away from Penn, but at the same time Penn was shoulder to shoulder with Zach, the eighth grader that was in first place. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Penn and Zach were about 5 feet away from the finish line. It was the exact same situation Penn and I were in at the race offs. They must have been one foot away from the red string when I screamed at the top of my lungs, “LEAN!” He leaned and just the right amount. Because he made it. He won. My best friend, Penn Webb won the Penn Relays.
    Right after we we did the race offs at school, I regretted letting Penn win. Now I don’t regret it at all.

Social Studies: Explorer Projects

Explorer projects
by Jonah
We worked on our explorer projects for the last few weeks.  We shared them on Wednesday.  We all had topics.  The topics were either explorers or explorer ships.  We all worked very hard.  We had to do a bunch of research.  Then we made them into projects.  We did google presentations, prezis, posters, and glogsters.  It was very cool.

We also had to cite our sources on easybib.  On project share day a bunch of people saw our projects.  Parents, 5th graders, 3rd graders, and our kindergarten buddies saw our projects.  We also got to see some of each others projects.  Some people dressed up like their explorers.  We also had to make explorer trading cards.  We drew pictures of our explorers and put information on them.  Did you think the explorer project was fun?  

Claymo Lesson #3

Claymo lesson #3
by Tudor


Yesterday we had Claymo #3.We read a book,that took place in Holland.One day a girl gets a box full of useful items with a note.She writes back.The girl in Holland gets a bigger box and shares it with the town and writes back again.

Back in the US where the boxes are coming from people heard about the situation in Holland are sending boxes to the girl named Katje.At the end the whole towns gets a lot ofboxes to help them survive the winter.At the end of the claymo lesson we decorated posters and a box for the glenridge thanksgiving food drive.

Did you like doing Claymo lesson #3?

Book Review: Out of My Mind

Book Review by Ariana

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to not be able to talk or move? Both? That is Melody Brooks. She can't talk and move. She is in a wheel chair. When you look at her you  would see a handicapped person but she really is the best and smartest girl in her school. This book is for every kind of reader big and small with a fascinating plot and memorable characters. This book shows lots of social justice issues in racism, bullying, and judgment.
 In this book, melody is the smartest kid in America but she has a major problem. She is disabled with cerebral parlays. She joins the whiz kids group and starts a whole new life. How would you feel to be trapped inside your words??

The title of the book is : Out of my mind. Social Justice Issues... I recommend this 2 u!

Blog Posts

Blog Posts
by Jonah
All throughout the school year we have been doing blog posts.  They are on all kinds of topics such speeches,  bluffs, secret words, African dance and many other cool topics.  It is fun to read them.  We can also comment on them.  If you did a blog post it is also fun to read all the comments you get.

We also have blog partners in the U.K.  It is cool to read about their blog posts.  When I read my buddies topic his topic was way different than ours.  So that’s pretty cool.  I also like their comments.  I am glad we do that.  Did you do any blog posts or comments?