Category: English Language Arts
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Do Teachers Make Enough Money? 5th Grade Financial Advisors
We have been learning about financial literacy, that is, how to successfully navigate through the world of money. Today we are going to do some research into teacher salaries, and will be taking an inside look into a very relevant debate: do teachers in the United States make enough money? You will be researching different sides…
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What Messages are Toy Marketers Sending to Boys and Girls?
Oh how we love inquiry based learning here in Ms. Green’s class! Every Friday, we watch Flocabulary‘s The Week in Rap, a weekly news segment presented in a three to four minute rap. We watch the video once, then a second time, and the kids are asked to hold on to a comment or a question…
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Slavery, Apologies, and Stumbling Through the 5th Grade
I love teaching social studies. I love it because I believe that it really, truly, matters. I love teaching it, but there is so much of it that I just don’t know. In my first year of teaching, with each unit I struggle to just stay one step ahead of my students and the curriculum…
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Analyzing Poetry with John Legend & Common
My fifth graders did not do so hot on the poetry section of their middle of year benchmark. I can rage about standardized tests all I want, but at the end of the day, our sweet kiddos have to pass. So I was faced with the choice between doing STAAR practice, or finding a creative…
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Being Dynamic Characters in 5th Grade
I love studying static and dynamic characters. I love this unit for the same reason I love all of my other favorite units, it’s empowering. The central idea of this unit is this: Static characters don’t change. They’re boring and usually have negative characteristics, and readers typically don’t like them. More often than not, they’re the antagonists.…
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Why we’re all Obsessed with When You Reach Me
We finished our first round of book clubs last semester, and we fell in love with Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me. This book is everything you could ask for in upper elementary literature. It’s full of relatable, deep characters, intricate plot twists, and social justice. The kids loved it because it wasn’t too hard to read,…
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The Civil Rights Movement, a Journey through Time & Literature
This week we started our unit on the Civil Rights Movement! Here in fifth grade at UT Elementary we work backwards through history, starting with present day and then rewinding back to the causes for the way things are today. This is great for me, because we get to start out the year with incredibly…
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Books that are BAE
Here they are, the books we have gone crazy for this month! When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead This is one of our book club books, and we are loving it! Today these four ran up to me after our book club time, yelling “Ms. Green this book is so good!!” They were so excited, and I am so excited…
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Newsela
It’s the end of the year, the very end of my time permanent substituting, and it feels like we’re just killing time. Early this morning I printed off a whole bunch of geography worksheets to keep them busy. There was some value to them, but really, I needed a time-filler. But this morning during silent…
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Bringing Back Snail Mail
I love writing letters, I love mailing letters, and I love receiving letters. Maybe it’s because my top two love languages are gifts and words of affirmation, but I just love everything about it, the magic of the whole postal system. Write something, as long or as short as you want to, stick a stamp on…
Ms. Green's Class 