Mrs. Bowen's Class

Week in Review

2010-09-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

Whew! These first three weeks of school have been jam-packed and have flown by! I apologize that I have not been posting as regularly as I should. Hopefully, as we get more settled in to our routine this week, we'll have time for the students to start blogging about what they're learning in class each day.

As I look back on the past few weeks of school, I wanted to offer a recap on some things I've been observing. First off, I want to say a huge "thank you!" to everyone who sent in soda bottles to use during our Ecosystems unit. We have more than enough bottles now (and were even able to share with Mrs. Scott's class!) so we are ready to start planting in our terrariums on Monday.

Secondly, I wanted to say how pleased I am with your students' effort and participation during class so far. While we've only been in school for a few short weeks, we have covered a lot of material already: main idea and setting in reading; order of operations, place value, and decimals in math; and historical documents in social studies. I really appreciate the hard work that the majority of students are putting in to their assignments and learning. I am looking forward to watching our class grow and be successful in the coming months.

Finally, I wanted to offer a few reminders that will help the year to go more smoothly. Please remember the importance of homework. I do not assign a large amount of homework each night, and as such, the work I do assign is extremely important. I know that we all lead very busy lives, but please make sure that your child is completing his/her math, reading, and spelling homework each night. The results will be worth it! Additionally, please remind your child of the importance of following directions during class. Simple things like putting your name on your paper, turning in an assignment when asked, and limiting extra talking really make a huge difference throughout the day and can really help our classroom to run more efficiently.

Thank you all again for a great start to the school year!

Open House

2010-08-24T18:20:00.001-07:00

Thanks so much to those of you who came out for Open House on Monday night! I enjoyed meeting you all and finally having the chance to put names with faces. I can't wait to spend some more time with all my new fifth graders as we start school on Wednesday. See you then!

Back to School

2010-08-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that summer is coming to a close, but I am excited for a great school year ahead! I have been busy over the past few weeks getting our classroom set up and ready for Open House. Don't forget to stop by the school on Monday, August 23rd between 5:30 and 7:30 to meet me and take a look around our classroom. I am looking forward to working with each of you this year. We're going to have an awesome time in fifth grade! I'll see you all on the first day of school - August 25th!

Sweet Summertime!

2010-06-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a wonderful school year, but now it's time for summer! Thanks to a great group of parents and students for making this year a success. Enjoy your summer vacation and good luck in middle school!

Forces and Motion

2010-04-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

By: TeKaya

This week in science we have been talking about kinetic energy & potential energy. Kinetic energy is energy of motion. Kinetic energy is when an object is in motion or if it is moving. When a force acts on the object while it has knetic energy it will sometimes become potential energy. Potential energy is energy that is stored. Potential energy is when an object is still but it has the potential to become kinetic energy. When a force acts on an object that has potential energy it becomes kinetic energy.

New Surroundings

2010-04-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

By Bradley

Last week our class moved into a BEASTY new classroom. It is enormous in size and also has three big windows, and has lots of hi-tech bells and whistles. The Active Board is the most awesome of all the gadgets in the new room. We can work out problems on it and Mrs. Bowen lets us use it a lot now. It is great for writing things for us to copy down!!

NEW CLASSROOM

2010-04-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

By Will

Last week our class moved into a new classroom. It is HUGE! We are on the second floor and it is awesome. Everybody likes the new classroom (3rd grade through 5th grade) and everybody loves the new building. The only person who does not like the new building is Mrs.Farmer our music teacher. She does not like it because she did not get a class in the new building.

New Classroom

2010-04-22T09:43:00.001-07:00

By Ferris

Our new classroom is bigger than I thought it would be. The new classroom is wider and longer than our old classroom. We don't have much space to put stuff on the wall, but well what's the meaning of putting up stuff if we got to take it back down for EOG? We have more space to do classroom work. The ActivBoards are cool and it makes it easier to do work.

Learning Measurement

2010-03-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

By Dawson

Last week we learned how to do measurement problems. I will tell you how to do them. First you will look at the problem and decide which measurement is larger and which one is smaller. Then if it is large to small you multiply, and if it is small to large you divide by your conversion factor and get your answer. If you do not have a number to multiply or divide by you go up or down. You know to go up if it is large to small, and you go down if it is small to large. For example, if the nunber was 20 you would go down to 19 or 18. If it was 20 and you had to go up it would be 21 or 22. That's how we learned to do measurement problems.

Our field trip to Old Salem

2010-03-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

By Trinity

On St. Patricks Day 2010 we went to Old Salem. When we got to Old Salem we sat at some tables we waited until a person came out and explained what we were going to do that day. Before we could do anything we watched a video about how the Moravians lived. After we watched the video we learned how to make apple fritters. When we got done mixing the dough we put it on a spider (that's what they called a pot but it had legs). When I took that first bite I was satisfied with the way it tasted. When we got done with our apple fritters we put our plates on a wooden tray. After we ate our apple fritters we walked to the Brothers Workshop, where we painted beautiful pictures with German sayings like bless our home. We learned how to make yarn out of fresh wool hair. We saw the Moravian bakery and ate some spicy cookies. The field trip to Old Salem was amazing! I would recommend that you go to Old Salem, it will be a blast for your family.

Heat Rises

2010-03-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

By Christian

We learned in science that heat rises and expands. To prove heat rises we did a little experiment. We took two cups and filled one with hot water and the other with cold water. Mrs.Bowen put red food color in the cup with warm water. Then she put a piece of card board between the two cups holding the cup with hot water on the bottom and the cold water on top and asked us if when we pulled the cardboard piece out would the cold water drop down to the cup with hot water or would the hot water go up to the cup with cold water. When she pulled the piece of cardboard out from in-between the two cups since heat rises the hot water rose to the cup with cold water in it to prove that heat rises.

Diagonals in Math

2010-03-08T05:02:00.000-08:00

By Jasmin

My favorite thing we learned this week is diagonals because the shapes that I like only have two diagonals and those shapes are quadrilaterals. A trapezoid doesn't have any rules about diagonals because the rules don't apply to all of the trapezoids. The quadrilaterals that have perpendicular diagonals are the kite, rhombus, and the square. A triangle doesn't have any diagonals because the vertices are already adjacent. The definition of a diagonal is a line that goes from vertex to vertex (non adjacent).

Mad Science Visit

2010-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

By Joseph

This week my favorite activity we did was when the Mad Scientist came to our classroom. His name was Dr. Ka-boom and he is a very funny and intelligent. We learned how to make clouds. We also learned about mass in clouds. It was very fun and he tought us how to make warm snow. Everybody got to take some home. We learned about the tools used to measure precipitation and alot of other stuff. It was fun and very exciting. I learned alot of stuff and I'm sure that the class learned alot of stuff about weather too. Our class is going to see Dr. Ka-boom in a couple of weeks and we're going to shoot off a rocket. It's going to be a very fun. That's our class blog for this week.

Weather and Climate

2010-02-12T05:01:00.000-08:00

By Dara

This week in Mrs. Bowen's class we learned about weather and climate and how they are different. All the weather happens in the atmosphere, but most weather happens in the troposphere. The atmosphere is a gas around the Earth and troposphere is a gas that is near the Earth. We also talked about the water cycle and how it is a part of weather. All weather happens because of the water cycle. Evaporation happens when a liquid changesto a gas because it is heated.

My favorite math we did this week.

2010-01-28T09:42:00.000-08:00

BY C.J.

MY name is C.J. :)

My favorite math lesson we did this week was to learn how to classify angles.
We used tasty marshmallows and pasta sticks for this lesson. We got to classify different types of angles. For example a right angle look like an (L) but with a vertex in the crease. I think this is the my favorite math lesson this week because we got to eat the tasty marshmallows. I think the whole class loved this lesson because we go to eat the tasty marshmallows.

Third Quarter Thoughts

2010-01-24T16:19:00.001-08:00

Can you believe that we've already made it to the third quarter of the year? This nine weeks is probably one of our busiest times. We have so many new concepts to cover, and yet we always need to keep reviewing previously covered material. I think our students are up to the challenge! The start of the new quarter means the start of new units in the different subject areas. Here's a summary of what's in store for the coming months.

Math: Our big focus this quarter will be on geometry. I absolutely love this unit - all the cutting, creating, and manipulating makes it my clear favorite to teach! Some of the key concepts we'll be covering include: types of polygons; naming, classifying, and measuring angles; identifying special types of triangles and quadrilaterals; parallel and perpendicular lines; sums of interior angles of polygons; complementary and supplementary angles; congruency; regular and non-regular shapes; diagonals; and line and rotational symmetry. We'll also spend time at the end of the quarter reviewing the metric and customary systems of measurement. Students take a big leap with this in fifth grade, as they will learn how to estimate conversions between these two systems.

Reading: As with second quarter, many of our comprehension skills and strategies will remain the same during third quarter. Consistent practice is the best way to reinforce these skills and become stronger readers! Our two biggest areas of focus will be making inferences and identifying cause and effect relationships. We started working on inferences last quarter, but we'll really begin to hit it hard in the coming months. We'll continue to explore a variety of different genres, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, recipes, and much more. And don't forget to encourage your child to be reading independently as well! Students have new AR goals this quarter, and we want everyone to rise to the challenge.

Writing: Expository writing, which follows a five-paragraph format, will continue to be our main focus. We spent much of second quarter strengthening our introductions, so now we're moving on to adding exciting details to spice up our body paragraphs. Students will also continue to study prefixes, suffixes, and spelling patterns to improve vocabulary, and will utilize Writer's Workshop to revise, edit, and publish their writing.

Science: Our third science unit of the year is Weather and Climate. While we won't be using the stream tables anymore, we'll still have lots of fun exploring the different factors which affect our local and global weather. Some of the topics we'll be covering include: the water cycle; weather instruments; temperature; air pressure; wind speed and direction; cloud formation; sea breezes; land breezes; and much more! Don't forget to check our classroom website for a study guide containing all the vocabulary words your child should be learning this quarter.

Social Studies: After finishing up our study on the branches of US government, we're switching gears and traveling back in time for a unit on Native Americans. Each student will be researching the native people of a particular region in North America. Using the information they find, students will write, illustrate, and publish their own storybooks about their people group.

For more information on third quarter curriculum, check out the "Curriculum Corner" section of our classroom webpage. I'm looking forward to another successful quarter!

Writing Sneak Peek

2009-11-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, our focus for writing in 5th grade is on creating expository (clarification) texts. This style of writing focuses on taking a stance and explaining why, rather than on telling a story. Expository writing follows a five-paragraph format: introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

For the past month or so, we have been focusing on the introduction aspect of the expository essay. Students have had little experience in the past with writing strong introductions, so learning to create this part of an essay has been a bit challenging for them. Our specific focus has been on making our introductions exciting and descriptive in order to entice others to keep reading our essays. Most recently, students have been working on planning an essay on the topic of their favorite season. Below you will find samples of several students' work. Remember, these samples show only the students' introductions to their essays--the body paragraphs and the conclusions to their essays will come later. Also, be aware that the students wrote, edited, and typed these introductions themselves, so don't be surprised to see a few minor grammatical or spelling errors.

I'm very pleased with the progress the students are making with this new style of writing, and I hope you will be as well. If you don't see your child's writing posted just yet, be sure to check back soon! Not all of our students have finished publishing, but I hope to have everyone's writing posted in the coming weeks.

Aaliyah
If I could choose my favorite season it would be winter. Winter is one of my favorite seasons because it has lots of beautiful snow. In the winter you can play tons of games until you get cold and restless. Normally when the temperature drops below zero its freezing, witch means a snowstorm or blizzard is likely to happen. You can always tell when winter’s coming because the weather starts to change.

Christian
What’s your favorite season? I sure know mine. I would definitely pick winter. Winter has the delicate beauty of snow that you can use for so many things such as snow cream, snowmen, and the best is the activities. You can go snowboarding down a snow covered mountain top or just sledding in your front yard but my favorite is Christmas. Those historically funny Christmas specials and the great classical movies like Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, and lots more. The best thing about Christmas is the feelings of giving presents and getting them.

Travis
What is your favorite season? My favorite season is summer. There are a lot of awesome things to do inside, like cool video games, and building massive Lego buildings. I also love to go outside. One of my favorite things to do is capture insects. My favorite thing of all is going out into the beautiful forest. There is no school and no homework! I can almost always sleep a horrible rainy morning away.

Trinity
When winter comes around aren’t you happy and warm inside? If I could make everyday winter I would be so happy. When fall turns to winter the crystal sparkling bright snow is good for playing in and creating wonderful snowmen. I would like to make colorful and creative paper snowflakes to hang on the trees. When I’m inside warming up I would like to knit colorful sweaters. Whether you’re inside or out you can always feel joy inside.

Trevor
Do you have a favorite season? If I had to pick my favorite season it would be spring. I love to see the wonderful beautiful sunflowers blooming. The weather in spring is so amazing because you’re not all hot like summer. I would also like to enjoy my Spring Break or Easter holiday playing outside with my friends and riding my lovely skateboard.

Will
What’s your favorite season? If I could pick my favorite season it would be the freezing winter. Winter is wonderful because of the greatest holiday ever Christmas. I love Christmas because you get to spend a lot of time with your family. It is really joyful. Also I like the exiting New Years ball drop. I wonder how big it is. Relaxing is my favorite thing to do while it is winter, especially watching TV and playing video games.

Joseph
My favorite season is winter. I love winter because of the beautiful snow that comes down from the winter skies. Basketball season comes and I like to play basketball and watch it. During the winter I go in the North Carolina woods and hunt with my dad and my sister. There are a lot of special days that are going on with my family. The best day of all is Christmas in my opinion. My mom and dad’s anniversary is during the winter and my family loves to go out and have a great day.

Bradley
Of all the seasons my most favorite is autumn. My most favorite thing to do during this time is black crappie fishing. My second favorite thing to do is watch the awesome sunset as it sets low in the sky. My last but not least favorite thing to do is go to the carnival. When my family goes to the carnival we always get either ribbon fries or elephant ears.

Ferris
Do you have a favorite season? If I could pick one it would be summer. I picked summer because in the summer you can go to the relaxing beach and try some of their best food they have. When you are there you can go in the cool swimming pool that you can relax in. Then you can just sit outside and feel the cool breeze through the air.

C.J.
What is your favorite season: lovely spring, hot summer, beautiful fall or snowy winter? My favorite season is summer. Why I love summer is because of the awesome sports, for example, skateboarding. Also the sweet traveling me and my family do each year. The best is the weather: sunny in the day and cool, crisp nights.

November News

2009-11-01T13:18:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the month of November! It's hard to believe that we're moving into the second quarter of the year - it seems as though we just started! The new quarter brings lots of new concepts and skills to cover. Here's a brief overview of what we'll be working on this quarter in each subject area.

Math: Second quarter math is about fractions, fractions, and more fractions! We'll spend the entire nine weeks covering fraction and decimal concepts. Skills that we'll cover include: converting fractions to decimals and decimals to fractions; mixed numbers and improper fractions; simplifying; comparing and ordering fractions; adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators; and estimating fractions and decimals. Throughout the quarter, we'll be doing lots and lots of word problems to practice those all-important problem-solving strategies.

Reading: While a lot of our reading focus skills will remain the same this quarter, we'll be adding a few additional comprehension strategies as well. The biggest two are making inferences and summarizing information. We'll also continue to review skills from first quarter, such as finding main idea and comparing/contrasting. As always, we'll use a variety of texts to practice these comprehension strategies, including stories, non-fiction articles, recipes, poetry, and much more! Please encourage your child to be reading at home in order to work towards meeting their AR goal for the quarter.

Writing: During first quarter, we began to explore a new type of writing: expository, or clarification, writing. This style, which follows a five-paragraph format, will continue to be our focus throughout this nine weeks. We'll break apart each piece of the expository essay in order to find ways to improve each area. First on the list: writing strong, interesting introductions that grab our reader's attention!

Science: Our second science unit of the year is Land and Water, which focuses on the interaction between moving water and the formation of landforms. The students will love using our stream table models during this quarter. It can get messy at times, but it's worth the trouble in order to observe first-hand the formation of deltas, meanders, and much more.

Social Studies: Building on our study of important historical documents during first quarter, we'll now take a closer look at the different components of US government. We'll investigate the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, focusing on the primary functions of each area and the people involved in each branch.

For a more detailed look at our second quarter curriculum, be sure to check out the "Curriculum Corner" of our classroom webpage. Let's keep up the hard work to ensure that we have another successful quarter!

The Home Stretch

2009-10-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it? We're just one week away from the end of the first quarter of the year. That means we're almost one-fourth of the way through the school year! As always, the end of each quarter brings End of Quarter Testing (October 22nd - 27th). These tests, which are structured to be very similiar to the End of Grade Tests, are used by teachers to assess how well students have mastered the concepts we have covered during the quarter. While the results of these assessments are not used to determine students' grades, they are a valuable tool for teachers to use in planning for the future. By examining your child's scores from the quarter tests, I can tell what concepts they understand, as well as which areas need a little more work. This information helps me to plan my next steps so that I can better meet the needs of each child in our class.

In order for the information I gain from quarter tests to be most valuable, I need for students to do their very best on the tests. What your child chooses to do--or not to do--on the day of the test is ultimately up to them, but there are some things you can do at home to give them a nudge in the right direction.

Make sure your child gets a good night's rest before each test. No staying up late to play videogames or to watch tv! Our students will be able to think most clearly if they are well-rested and ready to go.
Encourage your child to eat a healthy breakfast the morning of each test. No one works well on an empty stomach. Go for something not too heavy or sugary to get the best bang for your buck.
Arrive to school on time. The reason behind this one is two-fold. First, students can't do their best if they aren't in school to take the test. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, students won't do their best if they arrive to school late and are feeling frazzled.
Do some simple review activities at home. For reading, this could mean reading with your child, asking them questions about what they're reading each night, or reviewing basic reading comprehension skills (i.e. main idea, comparing/contrasting, summarizing, etc.). For math, reviewing might include practicing math facts, doing a few practice problems from old homework sheets, or talking through some concepts from your child's math notebook. The possibilities are endless, and the benefits could be huge!

Most importantly, don't forget to remind your child to RELAX! We want our students to do well, but not to be too nervous. Reassure them that they are prepared for these tests. I tell them constantly that I promise to do my part by teaching them all the material they need to know. I've done that, and I feel confident that each of our students will be successful--on this round of tests and on all the tests to come.

Thanks for taking a few extra minutes to prepare for this quarter's round of testing. Look on the bright side...a two-day Fall Break is on the horizon!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2009-10-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

Whew! If you're like me, you've certainly felt the pressure that comes with the new fall season. McTeacher Night, the Dixie Classic Fair, End of Quarter Testing, and many other activities make this a hectic time of year. I just wanted to take the time to say "thank you" for all you do at home with your children. I know we all lead busy lives, and for many of you, the job doesn't end once you get home from work. I really appreciate the many hours you spend each week checking over math problems, calling out spelling words, reinforcing science vocabulary, and reading with your children. While it may seem like and endless--and sometimes futile--process, I can tell the difference, and your children can feel your support. Trust me, they notice...even if they don't always say so. Keep pressing on! Your efforts are worth it. Thanks for being a great group of families to work with.

Welcome!

2009-09-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

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