• continued reading Because of Mr. Terupt, foreshadowing and predicting the future problem in the soccer field and continuing to find text evidence that supports specific main ideas, such as Jessica being a friend whom you could trust.
  
• reviewed the vocabulary section of our 9/11 exam, using our highlighters to find context clues that would aid us in selecting the correct word within our passages.
• watched CNN Student News, learning about a controversial bill that would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, a rare Congressional override of a Presidential veto, and the difference between a flash flood and a river flood.

Friday is on the horizon, and we're all ready for a good final day of the week and a rejuvenating weekend!

by Mr. Maynard ([email protected])

In "Social Studies," we reviewed the content portion of our 9/11 exams and then watched CNN Student News, learning about air pollution, flu shots and a special pizza delivery stuffed with $5,000.

Yesterday, Mr. Maynard missed school because of a nasty case of the cold that had him sidelined Saturday, Sunday and Monday. In his absence, the students worked with the substitute on subjects/predicates in "Writing," the new weekly vocabulary in "Reading," and a close read of an article on the 9/11 Dust Lady, Marcy Borders, who unfortunately passed away from stomach cancer prior to last school year.

Today in "Writing," students continued their mastery of subjects and predicates in preparation for tomorrow's quiz. In "Reading," students did a first and second close read of an excerpt of last night's first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, focusing on how each candidate would improve the economy. In "Social Studies," students took the content and vocabulary portions of their 9/11 exams, which they will receive back tomorrow.

See everyone on Wednesday! Let's get over the hump and have another strong day. :-) Mr. Maynard :-)

• In "Reading," students learned about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during the REACH assessment and then continued their quest for "Dollar Words." Room 203 currently leads Room 201 9 to 6 in dollar words found.
  
• In "Social Studies," the 9/11 exam was moved to Monday so that students can have more time to study.

Have a nice weekend everybody!

our understanding of subjects and predicates, from first identifying the simple predicate and the simple subject to using the simple predicate as a beginning point to find the complete predicate and complete subject.

In "Reading," we learned about the two types of conflict: external and internal. An external conflict is an outward problem that can be seen or experienced by others. There are four types of external conflicts:

1. Man vs. Man (or Woman vs. Woman) (Example: an argument).
   
2. Man or Woman vs. Nature (Example: Brian in Hatchet trying to survive in the forest).
   
3. Man or Woman vs. Society (Example: African Americans facing segregation in the 1960s).
   
4. Man or Woman vs. Technology (Example: A science fiction story during which the characters have to fight off killer robots).
   

An internal conflict is a private problem, as Delaney G. wonderfully said, an inward issue that only the character knows about. Internal conflicts are often called "Tough Questions" because the character is asking these questions to himself or herself. "Should I stay or should I go?" "To be or not to be?" "Should I study for Mr. Maynard's exam or watch Nickelodeon?"

With this introduction to the different types of conflict, we then read the next three chapters of Because of Mr. Terupt, focusing on our "Reader's Theatre" best practices and identifying conflicts in today's chapters.

In "Social Studies," we reviewed our 9/11 study guide. The exam was scheduled for tomorrow, but I am going to give the students the weekend to study as we need the extra time based on our results for the first "Current Events" quiz, which we also reviewed today.

by Mr. Maynard ([email protected])

In "Reading," we started simulating what group reading will look like in my class with "Reader's Theatre" of the next three chapters of Because of Mr. Terupt.

In "Social Studies," we did our second close read of the TFK article "Picking a President," introduced the study guide for Friday's 9/11 exams, and watched "CNN Student News," learning about a bombing in Aleppo, Syria, flunking grades for many of our nation's fast-food restaurants, and the preparation for the first presidential debate on September 26th.

See everyone tomorrow! Let's finish the week to the best of our abilities. :-)

We then learned how we will be doing weekly vocabulary this year.

• Each week, students will get between 10-12 words.
• Each word (and its part of speech) will be provided, along with a sentence.
• Students will read the sentence and use context clues to infer the meaning of the word.
• Students will then look up the actual meaning of the word and draw a visual reminder (picture) of the word's meaning.
• Students will then attempt to use the word correctly in a sentence.

All in all, each vocabulary word will have seven parts:

1. word.
2. part of speech.
3. inferred meaning.
4. context clues.
5. actual meaning.
6. visual reminder.
7. a sentence.

Vocabulary will be due on Friday, when we will do a word sort with the word's meanings, including their synonyms and antonyms.

In "Social Studies," we took our first CNN Student News quiz of the school year and watched the latest version of current events, learning about the suspect behind the Manhattan and New Jersey bombings, the annual meeting of the United Nations, and the latest blending of technology and medicine, telemedicine.

In "Writing," we wrapped up our introduction to the four types of sentences with a quiz and will move into simple and complex subjects tomorrow! Until then. :-) Mr. Maynard :-)

by Mr. Maynard ([email protected])

of Mr. Terupt, getting introduced to our final three fifth-graders: the loner Jeffrey, the victim Danielle and the observer Anna. The students did a great job coming up with nouns to describe each character's identity. We then listed our seven-fifth graders, coming up with one "identity" noun for each of them:

• Peter the class clown.
• Alexia the mean girl.
• Danielle the victim.
• Jessica the new girl.
• Luke the brain.
• Anna the observer.
• Jeffrey the loner.

Students then wrote a read-aloud response in which they described which character's identity they identified with.

From here, students learned about the GIST summarizing strategy, which focuses on the 5Ws (who, what, when, where and why) and 1H (how). For the purpose of how we will be doing these "straight and to the point" GIST summaries, students should remember this order of questioning:

1) When and where is the story taking place?
2) Who is involved?
3) What is the problem or situation?
4) How did this problem happen or occur?
5) Why is this a problem?

With this format in mind, we developed a class GIST for Because of Mr. Terupt.

"At the beginning of the school year in Snow Hill School (1), Mr. Terupt's class (2) was struggling getting along and figuring out their identities (3). For example, Alexia was being mean to Jessica and Danielle, Peter was annoying Luke with his antics, and Jeffrey and Anna wanted to go unnoticed (4). Mr. Terupt was worried that his class would not come together and learn as much as possible if these problems were not solved."

We will continue to work on the GIST summary throughout the week.

In "Social Studies," we annotated the rest of the "Our Nation Saw Evil" article in The Chicago Tribune the day after 9/11. We summarized the section on what happened on the airplanes, coming up with the summary that "The terrorists were highly organized when taking over and crashing the planes, causing much destruction and confusion." We then watched CNN Student News, learning about recent terrorist acts in New York and New Jersey this weekend, the leaking of an oil pipeline, and the meaning of related vocabulary such as famine, embargo, boom and bust. We will have our first "CNN Student News" quiz tomorrow.

In "Writing," we took our first D.O.L. quiz of the school year and used our whiteboards as a formative assessment of our understanding of the four types of sentences, which we will have a quiz on tomorrow morning.

It was a productive Monday. Let's continue the momentum tomorrow. :-) Mr. Maynard :-)

In all honesty, Friday was one of those days. We were very distracted with the weekend coming and struggled with self-control. What should have been a fun day with our "Dollar Words" activity turned out to be a frustrating one. With that said, it happened, and we will move forward. We will use the weekend to refresh and come back better.

Today I flipped "Reading" and "Social Studies" so we could get to our "Dollar Words" competition. In "Social Studies," we watched "CNN Student News," learning more about the upcoming presidential election, specifically what happens within a campaign, and the brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Remember to complete your 9/11 book report during the weekend. Next week we will start working from our textbook.

In "Reading," we read the next chapter from Because of Mr. Terupt, meeting the character named Alexia. Students used nouns to describe Alexia's identity, coming up with great examples like the "mean girl," "drama queen," and "troublemaker." While Alexia certainly acted like these words in the first chapter, we will see how she changes throughout the story. Next week, we will continue with this novel and start doing some work in literature circles.

After our read-aloud on Alexia, I introduced our "Dollar Words" competition, inspired by Because of Mr. Terupt. Basically, "Dollar Words" works like this:

1) Each letter in the alphabet has a value based on where it is located in the alphabet (a=1 ,b=2, c=3, y=25, z=26, etc.)

2) Students write down words and add up the values of each of the word's letters.
For example, the word "bay" would be calculated like this: B=2, a=1, y=25. 2+1=25 = 28. To qualify for a dollar word, the word must add up to exactly 100, or 100 cents.

After we discussed some strategies that might help us find these words, such as adding plurals like "s" (worth 19 points) to the end of close words or even making words possessive with an apostrophe s ('s), students got to work for the next hour.

For an added incentive, Room 201 was paired against Room 203. The class that found the most dollar words in the hour would be rewarded an extra recess. I will let you know which class won at the end of this week, as we may do the activity again. As of right now, I wanted to send a shout out to Kyheim and Nijuana in Room 203 and Cameron in Room 201 for coming up with the first dollar words in their classes. Also, Room 203 did a great job during this activity, mostly staying on task for the hour and really putting in good effort and thought. 

I will see everyone on Monday. Have a safe and relaxing weekend. :-) Mr. Maynard :-)

All in all, I thought Thursday was a great day for the fifth graders in my classes. I put a lot on my students' plates today, and they were able to finish what they needed to get done. Our self-control was much better in the morning than it was yesterday. I really liked what I saw today and expect a strong finish to what has been a great first full week.

In Reading, we read the next chapter of Because of Mr. Terupt, getting introduced to Luke and the cool "Dollar Words" activity, which we will do tomorrow in class. Students identified Luke's identity, coming up with great nouns like "brain," "genius," "teacher's pet," "comedian," etc., to describe this character. Students then used their whiteboards to explain how "Dollar Words" worked based on their understanding of the read aloud. Last but not least, students continued developing their grasp of the SWBST summarizing strategy, writing their thoughts about what Luke wanted in this chapter. Here's a good one: Luke wanted to find his first dollar word, but Alexia and Peter kept distracting him with their behavior. Then Luke came up with a name for the two. Then he realized that name was a dollar word!"

In Social Studies, I gave my students another article from the day after the 9/11 attacks, this time a story from The Chicago Tribune. We used this article for several purposes, including modeling our non-fiction book reports forms and performing a close read of its first section, circling confusing words, underlining main ideas and summarizing what that section was about. We also watched "CNN Student News," learning about a super typhoon in China, the Paralympics, and a tiny town in Illinois known for making really big things out of wood.

In Writing, we continued developing our understanding of the four types of sentences, taking a quiz on our pneumonic memory tool, Did I Invite Everybody?, to remember Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative, and Exclamatory sentences. We also used our whiteboards as a formative assessment of our understanding of these different sentences.

I wanted to send a quick shout out to several students today. First and foremost, happy birthday to Genevieve P. I also wanted to say great job by another student, D.G., who showed me her CNN Response from yesterday. If this student could start a charity for any cause, D.G. would do so for breast cancer as a loved one close to this student has been affected. In a similar light, one of my aunts was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, so I understand where D.G. is coming from and think this student's charity would be a great one.

Have a wonderful night everyone! :-) Mr. Maynard :-)