Gold Rush Dioramas

Starting next week, 5-306 will start the beginning phases of their mining camp dioramas. They will be collecting information about mining camps, designing a mining camp, and building a mining camp with various materials. After meeting with their groups, they will start generating a list of materials they will need. In the classroom, we have some basic materials (glue, construction paper, tissue paper, markers), but some groups might be more ambitious with their materials. If you have any materials that may be appropriate for building a mining camp diorama, please let me know. Some materials students have brought in the past are:

• soil
• clay
• foil
• small twigs
• cloth
• paint

Thank you, in advance, for your support.

California Pen Pals

Class 5-306 have pen pals in California! They sent out the first round of letters a couple of weeks ago and finally received their replies. The students were so excited, they could hardly contain themselves! There is just something so cool about getting a letter via snail mail. Even in a time with e-mailing and text messaging, it hasn't lost its allure. 

"O.M.G My pen pal is Irish, too!"

"My pen pal is in a band!" - Elise

                     

BCS School Visit

Please note: 

Due to the storm, we have rescheduled Saturdays BCS visit for your fifth graders to Saturday, March 9th.  Letters alerting families of this new date are being mailed out today.

Thanks again for your support,
The BCS Team

Mikia Eatman
Community Coordinator
Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, MS 448
610 Henry Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
phone: 718-923-4700, ext. 5111
fax: 718-923-4730
www.bcs448.org

Famous Person Feature Articles

Students have started reading biographies of their choice this week. Along with the book that was given to them, students are expected to use another reference to learn more about their famous person. Some of them have found additional books in our classroom, but the others will need to either make a trip to the library or read an article about their person. Below, please see two great websites that could be a great help to your child.

biography.com
World Book Online
The username and password is ps154k. The students should choose World Book Student.

After reading about their famous person, each student will write a feature article based off the life of the person they studied. Sstudents received a Feature Article Checklist and a few mentor texts to help guide them through their writing piece. The students are required to submit their checklist with their final published piece. Please feel free to email me with any additional questions.

Freedom Train Assembly

On February 8th, the fifth graders had a special visit from Harriet Tubman's great grand niece. The visit started off with an incredibly powerful theatrical performance by an extremely talented actress. Here's what some of the students had to say about the performance:
"It literally took my breath away!"
"I started crying!"
"I can't believe people really lived that way."

After the performance, we heard from Harriet Tubman's great grand niece. She had a lot of very interesting information to share with us. To conclude the assembly, the students were able to look at artifacts and documents related to Harriet Tubman's remarkable life.

Student Teachers

Please meet my student teachers! In groups, 5-306 learned about traveling west in covered wagons. Each group was responsible for teaching the rest of the class about what they learned. They made a poster to support them in their teaching and then showed off their new knowledge.

Author Visit

5-306 had an author visit with Scott Teplin. He illustrated and contributed to an amazing mystery book called A Clock Without a Face. Mr. Teplin had an awesome sense of humor and the students had so many great questions for him.

5-306's Blog is Up and Running!

Wow, 2013 has been quite busy for 5-306! These fifth graders will surely be prepared for middle school with two projects due in the same month! It was a pleasure being able to share these projects with some of our 5-306 parents for January and February's First Fridays.

Sal and his dad admire Julia's PowerPoint project.

 A captivated Artyom.

Alaina and Celia check out one of the fabulous country posters.

Fiona and Stella reflect on Celia's project. 

 Ellie shares her Create a Country Project with Elise.

Moses critiques Jason's country while Artyom looks on.