Bud, Not Buddy Presentations

In Language Arts and Social Studies, we have been reading Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. The focus of the last few weeks has been around the important themes from the text. These themes are:

• "When one door closes, another door opens"
• Fate and Destiny
• Lying and Deceit
• Family
• Homelessness
• Poverty/Depression
• People Helping People
• Impact of Racism

Student groups chose one theme to focus on and then found evidence in the text that provides a strong example of that theme. Students explained how that piece of evidence is important to the plot and how it challenged or changed the characters perspective. 

Here are links to their Google Slide presentations: 

** Some groups chose to turn one of their pieces of evidence into a video skit. These skits are embedded in their presentations!**

5A Group 1

5A Group 2

5A Group 3

5A Group 4

5A Group 5

5A Group 6

"Be The Change" - We met our "Make a Youtube" Goal

Last week CCS began using the "Be the Change" school wide initiative to focus on recognizing positive behaviors.  Fifth graders have earned "change" for these positive choices and they've been working towards meeting classroom goals.  The kids brainstormed a list of classroom rewards that could be earned by reaching certain levels in the jars we're using to collect all the "change" (see picture below), and this week both groups met a goal and decided to create YouTube videos (these are unlisted, private videos that cannot be searched on YouTube). The only way to video these are on this blog or with the link. It was fun making these! We hope you enjoy! 

Here is 5A's "Andy's Coming!" Video:

Here is 5B's "Mannequin Challenge" Video:

Alpha 5 Update

The past few weeks have been filled with some exciting learning opportunities. Please see below for a small sampling of all the cool stuff we've been doing.

Students doing a gallery walk to notice connections in the fraction strategy posters they created.  This week we ended Unit 2 with an assessment, and began Unit 3 which focuses on the connection between fractions and decimals and how multiplication and division are tied to place value patterns.

 A few of our Rock Type Super Heroes and Super Villains. We created these to represent what we know about the three different rock types, and then had a battle of good vs. evil for control of the Earth.  Evil prevailed this year :)

 Our students using an online plate tectonics simulator during science.

In Language Arts class, students have been working hard on enhancing their close reading strategies. We have been learning the Notice and Note signpost. Here is a picture of all the signpost below. Ask your reader to tell you about the signposts! 

During Social Studies, students have been learning about the patriots and the loyalist and the important role they played in our nations history. Students read and learned about the specific roles and arguments of 3 patriots (Mercy Otis Warren, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams) and 3 loyalist (Thomas Hutchinson, Jonathan Boucher, Lord Dunmore) . Students then worked in groups to develop arguments for their character to debate whether or not colonist should declare independence from Great Britain.

Have you read the Declaration of Independence? We spent time reading 5 excerpts of the text very closely. We learned about the formal vocabulary and paraphrased the excerpts into 5th grade friendly language. Then, each group turned their excerpt into a short skit to teach the class what their excerpt means. Here are some action shots form the skits below. (Sorry some of them are sideways!) :)

5th graders spent time with Kindergarten buddies before break! 5th graders chose their favorite picture books to read to their Kindergarten buddies. 

Then, we spent time making connections with our buddies! We will continue working with our Kinder buddies throughout the school year. :)

So many updates!

We have been busy, busy, busy in 5th grade!  This Friday we'll have our first aBay (it's like eBay - the kids bring in things to sell and use their Alpha Cash to bid on items).  If you haven't already seen the permission slip, be sure to ask your child about it. We'll update this blog with pictures so you can see what it was like. 


We have so many snapshots of our days to share with you. First, you will see pictures from our school-wide morning meeting. 5th graders hosted and led our school-wide meeting. The theme of this meeting was gratitude. 

Fifth graders have been reading the text The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind  by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. This window text has shown fifth graders the struggles of life in Malawi, Africa during drought and famine. Since William's family are maize and tobacco farmers, William's family can no longer afford to send him to school. William models a growth mindset and continues to persevere through every obstacle and challenge. William taught himself about wind energy from discovering a book in the small library in his village. In pursuit to find an energy source for his family's home, William engineers his own windmill from materials he found in the junkyard.  ​

As a group, we put ourselves in William's shoes. Our fifth graders worked in groups to engineer their own windmill from recycled materials, just like William. Also, we reflected deeply about life in Malawi and realized how much we are grateful for in our life here in Charlotte, Vermont. Here are pictures of 5th graders sharing their thinking in our video in front of the whole school! 

Next we have pictures from our Japanese tea ceremony. Our students have been learning about Japanese art, gardens and tea ceremony in art. Michiko Oish joined us at CCS to teach us about traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. 

Mrs. Fraser's support room had a special visit from Mrs. Bouteiller and Mrs. Brady's 1st grade class. They shared their published narrative writing pieces with us. The fifth graders were SO thoughtful with their feedback. 

Lastly, we sent an email newsflash with information about our INCREDIBLE experience on Friday with Dr. Susan Durham and Dr. Scott Lollis, but here are a few more photos. Just another plug: we'd like to invite other parents in Science/Technology/Math fields to consider coming in to present. If you've got a cool idea or experience you'd like to share with the kids please let us know and we can try to put together more experiences like the one the kids had today.