This month we are wild about pandas and empathy.

• Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
• Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes.
• Empathy makes the world a better place.

Zen is a Japanese word that means meditation. “Zen shorts” are short meditations—ideas to puzzle over. Jon J Muth’s picture book, Zen Shorts, tells stories about people who feel and act in different ways than most of us do. The main character, a giant panda named Stillwater, teaches us to apply these valuable lessons from the story to our own lives. Be empathetic by listening to others, connecting with others and being altruistic by bringing in socks for Socktober.

Let’s practice empathy this month and learn more about pandas.

Check out the San Diego Zoo Kids website. It provides a fun and informative view of the pandas in the zoo through webcams, photographs, and videos.

Hello 5th Graders!  The following is a short survey about the atmosphere and global warming. It is ok if you do not know all the answers – this is a pre-unit survey.  Please click on the link below to begin.

Click here to take the Climate Change Survey!

New York Maker Faire

http://openhouse.ldeo.columbia.edu/

“In Running With Roselle, kids can follow Roselle as she grows from an energetic yellow Lab prone to stealing her puppy raiser’s slippers to a confident guide dog who passes the ultimate test when her partner needs her most. Meet Mike, a boy blind from birth who excels in public school, shocks the neighbors by riding his bicycle through the streets of Palmdale, CA, drives a car around his college campus, and uses his relationship of trust and teamwork with Roselle to help others on a day that changed America forever.”

Mr. Michael Hingson, author of Running with Roselle, visits Cottage Lane and share his stories of growing up blind and the importance of teamwork.

Learn more…
What is braille?
Write your name in braille.
Try BRaille Bug games.

After reviewing the Steps of the Engineering Process and analyzing how our groups actually did each step naturally, we explored our own individual ideas, so that we can bring new ideas to our group work tomorrow. Again, we had the chance to test our structures and analyze how our structures withstood the weight of the frog.

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Today, we began to learn about the Steps of the Engineering Process. The students worked in groups work on building the tallest structure to support a frog. The students learned that making prototypes, testing their prototypes and making improvements based on what they have observed can be beneficial.

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What ideas do you have for making this year’s reading workshop as powerful as possible?

What has worked in other years? What creative ideas do you have?

Examples:

Students will read quietly during Reading Workshop to allow others the chance to concentrate while reading.

We could make video trailers of great books and post them on our blog.

This year at Cottage Lane we are “wild” about character. Each month we will focus on a trait and a book to build students with great character. Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah wrote 14 Cows for America One inscription reads, “To all the little children who read this book. You are the peace the world has been waiting for. May you grow to be compassionate diplomats.” You have the ability to make the world and our school a better place.

What can you do this year to heal a sorrowing heart?

How delightful to see so many eager faces! With a backdrop of Harry Potter decorations, the 22 students in our class were sorted into six “houses” or groups, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Harry, you see entered Hogwarts when he turned eleven, and many of the students in our class turn eleven this year. Just as he wore the sorting hat to learn his assigned house, so did we.

After unpacking and learning a few of our routines and playing a name game with a golden snitch, we played a game to get to know each other in which all of the students interacted with each other eventually leading to a partner interview. Today, we began to get to know each other and build working relationships.

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