In and Around G&P Classrooms: April 2017

In and Around G&P Classrooms: April 2017
Posted on 04/11/2017
in our classroomsEvery year, Room 224 produces a newspaper full of our persuasive essays on topics of interest. This year, the paper was called The Fifth Grade Times, and featured essays on subjects ranging from elephant poaching to video games. Students learned how to structure an essay around a thesis statement, how to collect and organize different types of evidence, and how to fit it all together in a persuasive, analytic piece of writing. To celebrate their newspaper, the class held a Newspaper & Waffle Family Breakfast. They invited important leaders from across the city. We were lucky to be visited by City Manager Louis DePasquale, Superintendent Kenny Salim, Assistant Superintendent MaryAnn McDonald, City Councilor Dennis Carlone, and School Committee Member Fred Fantini, among others! The students presented their essay-writing process in a group speech, and then we all enjoyed fresh-baked waffles and toppings, courtesy of G&P families. Thanks everyone for helping to make the third annual Newspaper & Waffle Breakfast a great success!

At G&P this year, Tuesday mornings have become one of the highlights of the week for rooms 101, 217B and 225. 5th grade students are partnered with Kindergarten students and together they read, play, craft, and more! The students in K101 wanted to make something to express their gratitude for their reading buddies. With the help of the Book Creator app on the iPads, students drew a picture of their reading buddies, typed a sentence saying thank you, and recorded their voices reading their sentences. Their work was then compiled into a video to share with the 5th graders. Kindergarten students were reminded of the importance of expressing gratitude and 5th grade students were reminded that being a role model might be hard work, but it's well worth it. See video: http://bit.ly/gp-bookbuddies

The kids in K101 are doing their unit on "Myself and Others" right now. So Kris Dickson (Mom to Adam and Makenzie Sokoloff) went into K101 to talk with the kindergarteners and their 5th grade reading buddies about the biology of Myself and Others. We talked about how our DNA makes us who we are, how most of our DNA is the same as each others and how only a very small part of it makes up the differences we see. We also did an experiment extracting DNA from strawberries and made a toothpick DNA model. The kids all seemed to really enjoy the experiment, and also learned some biology - with the K101 kids able to recap what they had learned when we discussed it at the end of the day. What a great bunch of budding biologists!

On March 15th, our 5th Grade students participated in the annual Cambridge Ballroom Dance Showcase the CRLS gym. The students practiced in Physical Education class for 7 weeks to prepare for the show. The students danced to the Merengue, Waltz, Swing, Salsa, Tango, and Cotton Eyed Joe. Everyone did an outstanding job and had a lot of fun. Congratulations to our winner of the Citizenship award, James Foleno and Cherry Yuan and our Merengue dance off champions, Gita Drummond and Amy Kim. On March 16th the entire Graham and Parks participated in the annual Line Dancing assembly in the gym. Each grade danced to a different song that they had practiced during the Rhythmic Movement unit in PE. Even the teachers got up and danced to a song to show how much fun dancing and exercise can be. Dancing is a great way to exercise and keep your body and your brain healthy!
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