Hitting Our Stride

Where has this month gone!?  We can't believer it is already the end of January!  Time definitely flies when you are having fun, and we certainly have a lot fun in 5th grade at Doniphan.

Birthday Celebrations
With this week marking the end of the month of January we celebrated our January birthdays one more time.  We enjoyed a Super Bowl themed cookie cake.  Happy Birthday again to all of our January birthdays!

Middle School Band
As we continue to work towards May our 5th graders will continue to get more and more information about what middle school will be like on a day-to-day basis.  This week we had the Director of Band for the district come and talk to our students about the band departments at both middle schools.  Nick Porter was a good sport and put on some of the band uniform for his classmates to see what they would look like if they did want to join band next year.  Please check your student's Friday folder for more information.

Super Bowl Celebration

Thanks to all the students who dressed up or our Super Bowl celebration today!  It was fun to see you all in wearing your jerseys!  Have fun watching at your Super Bowl parties.

Have a great weekend!

The Fifth Grade Team

Exciting Things are Happening

So many exciting things are happening in our classroom this week.  We dove right into our Collaborative Enrichment Program (CEP).  It is so exciting to see fifth graders working on broadcasting skills, creating their own computer programs, and researching on their own topics to create amazing presentations.

Did you know that the average temperature in Antarctica is -56 degrees?  Did you know that sun never sets in Antarctica?  These are a few amazing facts that we learned this week when we did a live feed with explorers in Antarctica!  It was so amazing and fun.  Students got the opportunity to tweet out questions to the explorers that were in Antarctica.  We got to sit and listen as they answered different questions asked by students.

Who doesn't like a little magic?  We had so much fun with a school wide magic show.  He came to our school and taught us that if we put our mind to it, we can do anything we want to do in life.

~Heather Porter

A Look into the Second Week of Second Semester!

What a great start to the semester we have had so far with so many changes in our 5th grade blended learning classroom! Here are some events and things we have been focusing on this week:

*William Jewell Men's and Women's Basketball team members volunteered at Alexander Doniphan on Monday, January 13th to read to students. We had three players read to each of the 5th grade classes in our room. Students really enjoyed this and they had the opportunity to ask the basketball players questions about college and basketball and their other hobbies! It is great to have role models like these basketball players for our students to look up to!

*Beginning Performance Series tests

*An introduction to a "Flipped" Style math lesson where students learn the math material/content at home by watching a tutorial or video on how to do the concept and then come to class the next day to discuss questions and concerns about what they learned. In class they will also complete a worksheet or activity that goes along with what they learned to see if they know the content. This way, they are working on the "homework" in class and are able to ask questions whereas if they did it at home, they don't have the teacher right there to ask questions. This is an effective method if used in the right way and can be very beneficial for students if they take advantage of it and do what they are supposed to at home.

*Students are working on a debate with a partner for writing in which they will have to be prepared to defend both sides of an issue.

*Students are being introduced to a new end of the day class routine where one class is learning about Coding (Hoffman's class), one class is beginning a broadcasting project (Baldwin's class) and one class is having a genius hour (Porter's class) where students are able to research a topic of their choice and present on that topic using a presentation tool we have learned about in class this year.  We are calling this time our Collaboration Enrichment Program (CEP) because students will be collaborating with one another on an advanced subject for 30 minutes each day at the end of the school day. Students will rotate groups after 2 weeks of working with that teacher.

                                          Here is our very own Tyson, practicing coding!


We have a lot of great things going in 5th grade at AD, and on behalf of the 5th grade team, we are really looking forward to the rest of this school year!



-Ms. Hoffman