Pippi Projects!

For our Pippi Gand Finale, you will choose to complete a Character Analysis or Book Reflection of the book Pippi Longstocking. Whichever you choose, I expect it to represent your best work:

Neatest Writing
Colorful Illustrations and Images
Complete
Thoughtful
No errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

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This is a final project and it will take time. 
Luckily, you have until January 5 to complete it.

Choose One:

(click on the images to enlarge them)

-OR-

If you choose to do the Book Reflection for your project, you will write a creative HAIKU about the novel Pippi Longstocking. 

What's a Haiku?

Click here for a video about SYLLABLES!

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This assignment is worth 50 points in the gradebook. The scoring guide is the same for both projects:

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All illustrations should pop off the page. Sometimes it helps a project look "finished" when you use a fine tip black marker to outline the illustrations. Then, color in the whole image... background too!

Here is a sample of a student's illustration that is "neat and colorful"...

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Send me an image or PDF of your final project. It must be close-up and clear, so I can read the information and admire the pictures! You can scan it or take a very clear picture of it.

Then, UPLOAD it to FILE SHARING on your OLS.

Click here for File Sharing instructions.

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Extra credit points if you also send me a picture of you holding your final project!

I am super-duper excited to see your projects!

Make Pippi proud!

Comparing Big Juicy Decimals

If you ask me, 2015 is the perfect year to learn about comparing decimals to the thousandths using <  >  and = symbols. Am I right?

You can compare many things in life, such as cats and mice...

You can also compare numbers.

Before we go any further, let's time travel back to third (or maybe second) grade.

In your younger years you might have learned about alligators who liked to eat numbers. 

BIG numbers.

Remember?

The alligator's big mouth and sharp teeth always opened to the bigger number,

as do the < and >  symbols.

Even though we are big fifth graders, we can continue to use this visual to remember the correct way to write the greater than and less than symbols. I still do and I'm an old lady.

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Now let's talk about comparing crazy-big numbers with multiple digits and decimals! This is actually really fun. You always start with the digit that has the greatest value (the one on the far left). Compare the numbers with the same place values. If they are the same, move to the right until you find numbers that are different.

The numbers above start out the same 452. However, when you get to the tenths column, you notice that the numbers are different . Well, which number is greater (or larger) 7 or 2? 

Soooo...

452.781  >  452.209

(452.781  is greater than  452.209)

Done! Move on!

Check out these examples below. The highlighted digits are the ones we compared to find out which was greater. Notice how they have the same place value? That means they can be compared.

Here are a few helpful resources for this concept...

Comparing and Ordering Decimals 

(movie & info)

Fruit Splat 

(game)

Compare Decimal Numbers 0 to 1 

(lesson & game)

Ordering Decimals 

(interactive decimal sort)

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Check your k-mail for a printable version of the notebook page for this week. You can use the Grip and Rip trick to quickly add it to your spiral. Here is a look at my notebook page. Please make sure your spiral is up to date before next Tuesday's class!

Click on any picture on this blog to enlarge it.

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See you later, alligators.

December Calendar

Here's the December Class Calendar, 

HOT OFF THE PRESS!

(click on the calendar for a closer look)

Check your e-mail for a printable version.

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES:

December 18, 2017 – January 1, 2018
Winter Break (No School)

January 1, 2018
New Year's Day (No School)

January 15, 2018 
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (No School)

January 26, 2018
Last Day of Semester 1 

REPORT CARDS:  

your 1/26/18 gradebook scores will be recorded on a formal 

report card to be sent home the first week in February 

10 more school days until winter break!

Choose Kind

I am so excited that one of my all-time favorite books, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, has been turned into a movie! I don't usually get too excited about the movie-version of books. After all, it's not easy to translate an amazing 300 page novel like Wonder into a 2 hour movie. However, I have to say that this trailer has sparked my interest. I'm looking forward to the movie in theaters on November 17!

Check it out and let me know what you think.

If you haven't read Wonder, read it this month!

Then you can watch the movie and compare the two. 

I promise you'll like the story. Pinky swear.  

The audio version is great too!

Happy Reading!

November

Here's our November calendar. Hot off the press!

(click to enlarge)

Check you e-mail for the printable version.

Captain Connections!

This week in SLASH we had a special guest.
Captain Connections!

Captain Connections is an expert when it comes to connecting what we read to our past experiences.

There are three types of connections we can make when we are reading: text to text, text to self, and text to world. The descriptions are listed below. Making connections helps with reading comprehension and it makes the story more enjoyable.

 Here are a few prompts to help you think of a connection to text. 

If you're asked to make a connection and you can't think of one, you can always start with,

"If that happened to me, I would..."

or something along those lines.

We learned about citing text when answering text-based questions, right? Well, you can use the same method for writing about text connections! Here is a variation on the R.A.C.E. method we discussed earlier. 

 The RA part of your answer can come from one of the Super Connection Starters above. 

Here's an example of a thorough written connection. You can click on it to enlarge the text.

For a printable version of our Captain Connections notebook pages, click here. 

Teachers, for the complete PowerPoint lesson, visit my TpT store!

Remember to make super connections when you are reading for an assignment or for pleasure!

It's Super!

The Place Value Shuffle

Yep! Today we had fun learning about place value. Now we can understand and explain the value of digits.

What's a digit?

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What's place value?

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If you're looking for a place value song to sing for the next 3 months, here you go!

Place value, place value, movin' to the left...

I can dig that groovy beat.

That leads us to the Place Value Shuffle! 

Put on your dancin' shoes!

In our decimal number system, the value of a digit depends on its place, or position, in the number. Each place has a value of 10 times the place to its right. A number in standard form is separated into groups of three digits using commas.

This chart shows the value of each digit in a large number. Each number value is 10 times greater than the number on its right.

Going the opposite direction… each digit is 1/10 of the digit on its left.

That's it! You've got it!

Moving on...

Next we talked about finding the value of a digit within a big number. To figure out the value you have to look at all of the numbers from right to left.  You start with the ones place and multiply by 10 for each digit to the left. A quick way to do this is to count the digits to the right of the number you are finding the value of. Then replace those digits with ZEROs.

We're finding the value of 9, so we can replace the digits to the right of 9 with 0s. The value of 9 in 196,528,347 is 90,000,000 or ninety million! Click here for a tutorial review of how to find a value of a digit.

For more Place Value fun, check out these games!

Mathman Digit Value Game

Place Value Card Game

Place Value Puzzler
Place Value Hockey

Keep up the great work!